Former BAR council president Datuk Ambiga seen during The Karpal Singh Forum 2015 at Dewan Sri Pinang in George Town, Penang on April 18, 2015. -The Malaysian Insider pic by Hasnoor Hussain, April 18, 2015.
With the removal of the provision in the Sedition Act 1948 that made criticising the government an offence under the law, activist Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said pending charges against those who criticised the administration should be dropped.
The former Bar Council president said many were facing sedition charges for purportedly criticising Putrajaya, including the judiciary, over various judgments.
To show that it was genuine, Putrajaya should drop the charges against these people, she said at this morning's “The Karpal Singh Forum 2015” in George Town organised by the Penang Bar Committee.
Among those facing sedition charges is cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, also known as Zunar, who was slapped with nine charges, believed to be the highest faced by any person under the sct, over his tweets on opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction.
Ambiga, however, expressed reservations that the removal of the provision would really allow people to criticise the government.
"Do you think you can really criticise the government? The climate of fear is there. If you can, why is the prime minister suing those who criticised the government?" she said.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor have initiated legal action against critics, including opposition lawmakers Rafizi Ramli of PKR and DAP’s Tony Pua, for defamation over remarks made by the MPs about removal of fuel subsidies and the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) issue, respectively.
Najib is also suing PAS mouthpiece Harakahdaily for linking his stepson Reza Aziz's production company in the United States to the 1MDB scandal.
Ambiga said there were many ways to silence people, including through other legislation like the Penal Code which stated that it was an offence to attack parliament democracy.
She was responding to a question from Karpal's daughter Sangeet Kaur on theremoval of provisions that make it seditious to criticise the government and the judiciary.
Bar Council president Steven Thiru (pic, left), a member of the panel at the forum, asked how criticising Putrajaya constructively by the people could be criminal, when the government was sustained by taxpayers.
He said the removal of the clause "was not a big moment" because it should not have been in the Act to begin with.
He added that the Sedition Act, with the latest amendments, has created a climate of fear, with even some lawyers saying: “I hope what I say is not seditious’”.
He said Section 298 of the Penal Code has a similar clause that made it an offence to deliberately wound the religious feelings of others, and causing disharmony, disunity, hatred, ill-will of prejudice on the grounds of religion.
The only difference between the clause in the Penal Code and the one in the Sedition Act is the requirement to prove intention under the former, he added.
He also said for a law introduced by the British to fight the communist insurgency between 1948 and 1957, the year Malaya gained independence, the Sedition Act was not used even once by the British.
Thiru argued that the answer was not in keeping the Sedition Act or tweaking it when others have disregarded it and were maintaining harmony in a mixed society by creating laws to deal with extremist conduct and hate speeches.
Former Court of Appeals judge Datuk Mahadev Shankar, who also spoke at the forum, described the passing of laws as a disease.
"The more laws you pass is a disease, not a cure. You have got to identify the human problem and focus on that. I think it would be more helpful," he said.
DAP's Seri Delima assemblyman R.S.N. Rayer, who is also facing a sedition charge for saying “Celaka Umno” (Umno be damned) at the Penang legislative assembly last year, said from the floor that he personally thought the act should be maintained.
He said his contention was that the act was being used selectively and asked the panel what civil society could do about the selective prosecution.
In response, Ambiga said selective prosecution was very obvious in the country, citing how she had rightly predicted that certain Barisan Nasional lawmakers were only called up for investigations for saying something allegedly seditious and "nothing happened" after that.
She said the people must continue to speak up whenever anybody was charged under the Sedition Act, as something was wrong with the legislation.
The forum was organised as a tribute to renowned Penang lawyer and opposition veteran Karpal Singh, who was killed in a road accident on April 17 last year.
- TMI
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