IN A GENUINE DEMOCRACY, THERE IS NO FEAR ON WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT A PUBLIC FIGURE:
by MICHAEL JOSEPH PASSINGAN You can say anything about them, show no respect to them at all, and treat them with personal contempt. You can make fun of them, laugh at them, point fingers at them, and never have a worry in the world that you'll be prosecuted or jailed. That's the way it is in genuine democracies. Who in Australia is ever prosecuted for saying something terrible about the Prime Minister? Or in Germany about the Chancellor? Or in Japan about the Prime Minister? Or in America about the President? Now that we have the new PNG Cybersecurity Act, about which our Prime Minister has come out in print, challenging those who have something critical to say about the government to come out with their names and faces. Very sinister indeed! The idea of the Act seems to be to intimidate people so that they stop making fun of the PM and his government or to reveal the deep darkest secrets about either one, for which there is usually never totally conclusive evidence,