Define sedition, MCA tells Putrajaya
By Debra Chong, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 — Stunned by the Najib administration’s reason for taking “no further action” against a former government aide investigated for sedition, the MCA has urged Putrajaya to draw up clear guidelines to prevent future abuse of the law.
It expressed alarm over Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s reply in Parliament yesterday that the government lacked proof that Datuk Nasir Safar meant to incite racial ill-will, based on section 3(1) of the Sedition Act, despite the latter’s “unequivocal labelling of Chinese and Indians as ‘pendatangs’ and reference to Chinese women as ‘prostitutes’.”
The ruling Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Chinese component deputy publicity chief, Loh Seng Kok, said Nazri’s response clearly showed the need to properly define what statements, “be they verbal or publication or public policy”, amount to an act of inciting racial ill-will and sedition.
“I fear that sensible readers would read the government’s move of ‘no further action’ as sweeping the problem under the carpet, or selective enforcement of the Sedition Act,” he said in a statement today.
Nasir was reported to have made the remark earlier this year during a 1 Malaysia event. The senior aide to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has since quit his post after offering a lukewarm apology and claiming his words were taken out of context.
“The fact remains that the Malaysian Chinese and Indians were offended by the racist spews, and it does not matter whether the labels were meant for ‘economic migrants’ and not Malaysian Chinese and Indians,” Loh pointed out.
He also questioned the Najib administration’s inaction against Penang Umno warlord Datuk Ahmad Ismail — whose three-year suspension from the party has been lifted — for uttering racial slurs, deciding instead to lock up the Sin Chew Daily reporter who reported the remarks under the equally archaic Internal Security Act.
