KUALA LUMPUR – Several civil rights groups, including one founded by power couple George and Amal Clooney, have urged Malaysia’s unity government to make good on past promises to repeal the colonial-era Sedition Act 1948.
The demands from the nine organisations were outlined in a joint letter dated yesterday to Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.
In the letter sighted by The Vibes, the groups described the act as violating international standards on the rule of law and freedom of expression.
“Courts and legislatures around the world have recently struck down or repealed this archaic, colonial handover. But, in Malaysia, it remains on the books and indeed is still being used.
“(This is) despite pledges by Pakatan Harapan as well as previous governments to repeal or reform the law,” the letter said, calling on the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim-led government to fulfil its promise to the people by conceding to the act’s unconstitutionality.
The groups also pointed to the case of preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin, who was charged under the act eleven years ago over accusations of making seditious remarks against Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah.
“Wan Ji’s case is a reminder that successive Malaysian governments have broken their promises to repeal (the Sedition Act), which has primarily been used to suppress political dissent and restrict press freedom online,” the letter read.
In July 2019, Wan Ji was sentenced to one year in prison by the Shah Alam High Court for making remarks found to be seditious against the Selangor ruler in Facebook posts in 2012.
The court, however, allowed his application for a stay of the sentence pending his appeal at the appellate court, which is still ongoing.
The letter also referenced how former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, prior to the fall of the Barisan Nasional government, had “repeatedly pledged” to abolish the law.
Similarly, PH, which is led by Anwar, had stated in its 14th and 15th general elections manifesto that one of its priorities should it come into power would be to review and repeal the “draconian provisions” of several laws, including the Sedition Act.
In March, however, Azalina’s deputy Ramkarpal Singh had said that the current unity government does not plan to abolish the Sedition Act for the time being.
He noted that while the possibility has not been excluded, it is something “perhaps further down the pipeline”.
Besides the Clooney Foundation for Justice, the letter was signed by Suaran, Article 19 Malaysia, Aliran, Centre for Independent Journalism, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, Lawyers for Liberty, the Teoh Beng Hock Trust for Democracy, as well as Undi18.
Clooney Foundation reminds PH of 2019 promise
The Clooney Foundation, meanwhile, also released a video on Twitter yesterday taking aim at PH, highlighting promises made by current Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, who was communications and multimedia minister in 2019.
Today, we and other organizations sent a letter to #Malaysia’s Home Affairs Minister @saifnasution and Minister of Law @AzalinaOthmanS urging that the government repeal the Sedition Act, something that successive administrations promised and failed to do. https://t.co/oJSnBLoilE pic.twitter.com/VguYTTb9zz
— Clooney Foundation for Justice (@ClooneyFDN) May 25, 2023
2019 was one year after the opposition PH swept to federal power by riding on promises of reform, toppling six decades of Barisan Nasional rule.
The video showed clips of Gobind speaking at the 2019 Défendre La Liberte De Presse, promising to repeal “oppressive laws which have been used to silence the media”.
The video also shows an excerpt of foundation co-founder Amal Clooney’s speech at the same event, where she responds to Gobind’s pledge by explaining that the Sedition Act remains in force in many Commonwealth countries but with regards to Malaysia, “hopefully…not for long”.
The video then shows Gobind nodding in acknowledgement to her remarks.
Sedition Act ‘broad, imprecise’, allows ‘abuse’
The letter also said that the act is “fundamentally flawed” as it flouts core norms governing criminal laws by “failing the test of clarity required by the principle of legality”.
“International, regional and national precedents require that criminal laws be sufficiently clear, so that individuals can understand what is criminal and what is not.
“The Sedition Act, however, is so broad and imprecise that it is unclear what speech can be criminalised, leaving it susceptible to abuse,” it stressed.
The act criminalises speech with a “seditious tendency”, which includes, among other things, a tendency “to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite dissatisfaction against any ruler or government” and “to raise discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or the ruler of any state”.
“None of the key terms in the act – hatred, contempt, discontent, or dissatisfaction – are defined. These ambiguities have led to rampant abuse, as documented by leading watchdogs.
“According to numbers released by the government this year, there have been 367 investigations launched under the act over the past five years, with cases having spiked during times of heightened criticism of the government,” it said, citing Suara Rakyat Malaysia’s Human Rights Report 2022. – The Vibes, May 26, 2023
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