Four charged with spreading rumors

Four charged with spreading rumors

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Four people were charged in Malaysian courts on Thursday with spreading rumors of riots last month on the Internet, the first cases of their kind in the country, the official Bernama news agency said.

The charges were not related to political unrest in Malaysia over the past week during which thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital on Sunday and Monday.

But the decision to proceed with the cases now, when the four have been in custody for six weeks, set off speculation that the prosecutions might be a warning to dissidents not to use the Internet to stir up strife in the days ahead.

The three men and one woman were charged with circulating rumors of riots in the capital Kuala Lumpur, Bernama said. The rumors on Aug. 7 that Indonesian laborers and locals clashed in a downtown area of Kuala Lumpur sent panic through the nation.