The Malaysian Insight

THE government will not be banning the chat platform Telegram as the Home Ministry finds no criminal or terror element in it, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

“The Home Ministry and our police counter terrorism unit have studied the application and found that it did not contain criminal or terror element.

“We will not invade the privacy of its users but it does not mean we will wash our hands. We will continue with our monitoring based on few other methods,” he said.

Indonesia on Friday banned the use of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, citing concerns that it being used to spread “radical and terrorist propaganda” in the country.

The move comes amid growing concerns over the increasing presence and influence of the Islamic State (IS) in Southeast Asia.

Ahmad Zahid said the government has other methods to monitor its citizens and applications that were used by IS for propaganda.

“We are using a decoding method to determine if the platforms are linked to IS,” he said.

He added that Malaysia has identified three platforms that were used by IS to spread their propaganda.

They are text messaging platform WhatsApp, social media site Instagram and video channel YouTube.

“I do not know which one is used the most as I do not have the data,” he said when asked which out of the three platforms were frequently used by IS in pursuing its agenda.

Malaysia in the past has charged several individuals in court for recruiting new IS members using Telegram.

In March, the police counter terrorism unit arrested nine individuals including a primary school teacher for being part of a telegram group called Gagak Hitam.

The group members had collected and channel funds for IS.

The group was also linked to the Movida grenade attack, the first attack claimed by IS in Malaysia.

No one died in the incident but it was enough to create fear among Malaysians. – July 16, 2017.