In Malaysia, the slightest possibility of unrest due to free speech is taken by those in power as a ticket to suppress individual rights.
In California in 1927, that rationale was rejected by Judge Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court:
But it is hardly conceivable that this court would hold constitutional a stature which punished as a felony the mere voluntary assembly with a society formed to teach that pedestrians had the moral rights to cross uninclosed, unposted, wastelands and to advocate their doing so, even if there was imminent danger that advocacy would lead to trespass. The fact that speech is likely to result in some violence or in destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression. There must be the probability of serious injury to the State. Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgement of the rights of speech and assembly. [Whitney v. California. Louis Brandeis. 1927]
