This column is not seditious

Zurairi AR, The Star

“The Sedition Act will not by itself eliminate sensitive matters.

“The government realises how important it is to really understand the grievances and complaints of the public; to study and review them objectively and thoroughly; and subsequently plan and take certain actions to solve the problems.”

I came across the quote above while doing a research for another story, and it shed some light onto the much dreaded Sedition Act.

The speaker of those lines? It was Tun Abdul Razak, our second prime minister, while he was chairing the first closed-door meeting of the National Unity Council.

It was July, 1971. Razak was just then appointed to the post the year before, after a state of emergency was declared following the bloody riots of May 13, 1969.

PKR’s N. Surendran (second from left) who was charged with sedition seen here at the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur on August 19, 2014. ― Picture by Saw Siow Feng

Fast forward, over 40 years in the future, the May 13 incident remains a black spot in our history. And the Act itself has reigned on, constantly breathing down the neck of so-called enemies of the state.

In the space of last few days, no less than four lawmakers from the federal opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat have been charged under the Act, for various remarks made against the monarchy, the justice system, and even ruling party Umno. Some observers have even taken to calling it Ops Lalang II, a reference to the clampdown against political dissidents in 1987 using the Internal Security Act.

Many more are going to be investigated by the cops. And then there are countless other cases that never get mentioned in the media, involving community leaders, journalists, and common men alike.

Being a journalist, I am no stranger to sedition investigations myself; either against my own words or the words of others.

Sometimes the police reports were lodged by concerned citizens. Sometimes the reports were lodged by the cops themselves. Sometimes the investigations were closed but then opened again by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

What they all have in common is that the complaints were made because someone somewhere disagreed with somebody else’s idea. So affected and disturbed were they, that they felt that they needed to make a report to deserve a good night’s sleep.

The element of “sedition” is almost always absent, in its original sense of “inciting disaffection towards the authority”. The Sedition Act, in the end, became just a tool to stifle thoughts.

Here, the old adage rings true: “While treason controls the elite; martial law frightens commoners; and sedition frightens intellectuals.”

Oftentimes, the police in charge would normally spend their time investigating crimes such as robbery, murders, and the like. Sedition investigations simply take away the manpower that perhaps is better suited to tackle such crimes.

And the number of police being taken away from solving “real crimes” is only going to increase. There is no statistics to support this yet, but there is a feeling that the authorities are ramping up probes on remarks which are regarded as insulting towards the ruling class, Islam, the Malay race, and the monarchy.

In short, anything the status quo and the conservative Malay community find insulting. It is no coincidence that the widening dragnet started right around the time they decided to lobby the authorities in order to get their way.

While our former colonial masters and many other Commonwealth countries have repealed the Sedition Act, it is ironic that we are not only still keeping it, but we truly buy into the notion of “sedition”.

Today, we celebrate how Malaya has been independent for 57 years. Malaysia has stood for 51 years. Yet, for more than 50 years up until today, Malaysians have yet to be truly free.

We can never be free when our thoughts are chained, when we cannot afford to say the truth for fear of punishment, when we cannot put forward ideas just because they are seen as “dangerous”. The Sedition Act has been holding us back.

I am very much excited by the initiative of the Malaysian Bar Council’s National Young Lawyers Committee to lobby for the repeal of the Act. The group is also calling for all prosecutions under the Act to be dropped, and for the Act to not be replicated by a new act in the future.

I will be among those who will be observing as the campaign shifts into gear, and you are welcome to join in the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #MansuhAktaHasutan.

Their goal is not an impossibility, as Putrajaya itself had promised to repeal the Sedition Act in July 2012 and suggested it be replaced with a National Harmony Act.

Our Federal Constitution has guaranteed every one of us Malaysian citizens freedom of speech and expression. The Sedition Act is a huge thorn in the side of this guarantee.

It falls on us as citizens to hold our government accountable, and to hold our lawmakers to their promises. And what better time than during this patriotic period? Surely this is not seditious.