New police unit for sedition cases shows misplaced priorities, says Rafizi

PKR's Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli is questioning the police's priorities by having a unit dedicated to browsing social media instead of adding such resources to fighting real crime instead. – The Malaysian Insider pic, February 23, 2015.PKR lawmaker Rafizi Ramli today said he was surprised that police have set up a special unit to investigate sedition cases, saying that the manpower allocated for the unit could have been better utilised against real crimes.

He said he found out about the unit, called D5, as he was being taken to record a statement at Bukit Aman this afternoon over a comment he made on social media about Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy conviction.

Rafizi said among the tasks of the unit included monitoring social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to screen for seditious posts online.

The Pandan MP and DAP's Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming were both called up to the federal police headquarters today following their posts on Twitter on February 10 after the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision on the sodomy charge.

"Surprisingly... there is a newly-established investigation unit called D5 ... to investigate crimes committed under the Sedition Act 1948, so, we can expect more to come (to be hauled up)," he said.

"The fact that it exists, seems like the PDRM (police) and the authorities will continue to focus on seditious remarks," he said.

Rafizi said that it would be more practical for the police to just ban social media in the country rather than monitoring them round-the-clock.

"If you really want to go into this, to police Twitter and Facebook and God knows what after this... then I suppose it is a lot more economical to just ban Twitter and Facebook," he said.

By doing so, he said the police would have more time to concentrate on crime prevention efforts.

"There will be more comments... and you have to be fair if you want to investigate all. Logically, it can exhaust the entire police operation when there are more important and real criminal cases out there to be investigated," he said.

Rafizi also said that the misplaced priority of the police force would only lead to a culture of fear among the people.

"To me, this is a complete misplace of priority on the part of the police. Where do you draw the line between what is considered criminal, what is seditious?

"And here you have the Inspector-General of Police who uses cyberspace and Twitter to issue instructions on the spot. What this does is to perpetuate a culture of fear... create self-censorship amongst ordinary citizens and we (Rafizi and Nga) are the prime example of it," he explained.

Rafizi said this was his fourth time being investigated under the Sedition Act.

- TMI