The government has presented a new draft of its civil protection framework bill to the legislature which no longer refers to “groundless” information or news or those “with ulterior motives”.
The Secretariat for Security released the new version on Friday in response to criticism by journalists about the original wording of one of the bill’s articles which made it a crime to disseminate “false” information or news or those “with ulterior motives” concerning public emergencies and their related response actions. The revised version merely refers to “false” information or news that during a public emergency would “objectively” generate public panic.
The Chinese version of the original and revised version of the article uses a term that in Chinese can be translated as news or information (“siusik” in Cantonese). However, in the Portuguese translation, the original version refers to “notícias” (news), while the revised version refers to “informações” (information).
