Student activist Adam remanded for 5 days
Student activist Adam Adli Abd Halim has been remanded for five days to allow police to question him over remarks he allegedly made at a post-GE13 forum.
His lawyer, Latheefa Koya, said a magistrate this morning approved the application by police to remand Adam until May 23.
She said Adam was remanded under Section 124B of the Penal Code for allegedly undermining parliamentary democracy as well as under Section 4(1)(b) of the Sedition Act for allegedly uttering seditious remarks.
“We are shocked that Adam’s speech on May 13 could be amounted to undermining parliamentary democracy, because the section is quite general. Anything you said can be interpreted as undermining parliamentary democracy.
“We see this as a malicious intention to punish Adam, to detain him in the lockup because the purpose of remand is just to carry out investigation,” she said.
Adam, 24, was arrested by police outside his Bangsar home yesterday and was kept overnight at the Jinjang police remand centre.
His arrest is linked to his remarks at a post-election forum organised by Suara Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM) on May 13 where he told the audience that Malaysians “cannot wait for five years to overthrow Umno and BN”.
“We were told that he was under arrest since 3pm yesterday but not a single statement was recorded untill this morning,” Latheefa told reporters outside the centre.
Insisting that the case is straightforward as it is about remarks made by Adam at the forum, she said police were supposed to have carried out their investigation over the past few days before arresting him.
She added that Adam had decided to exercise his right to remain silent and therefore his statement could have been quickly recorded without the need to remand him for five days.
Adam’s lawyers will challenge the remand order at the High Court, she added.
Eric Paulsen, another lawyer for Adam, pointed out this is the first case of a person being remanded under Section 124B Penal Code, which is a new section that was inserted after the enactment of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.
He said it was an “oppressive and arbitrary” provision with a wide definition of what amounted to “detrimental to parliamentary democracy”.
Paulsen opined that this is an attempt of the police to shut the mouth of the youth, as well as other civil society members to question and discuss the state of democracy in the country.
