We’ve got your back, DAP Youth tells Muslim preacher held for sedition
(Malay Mail Online) – DAP Youth offered today to provide legal aid to Muslim preacher Wan Ji Wan Husin who was slapped with a sedition charge for allegedly insulting the Selangor sultan in a 2012 Facebook post.
The opposition party wing voiced concern that the pre-independence law was being used on the 32-year-old preacher and sending a “wrong message” to Malaysians. It noted that the same piece of legislation had \been used to convict student activist Safwan Anang earlier this week, landing the latter 10 months in jail.
“Is the use of the Sedition Act 1948 aimed to scare the people who exercise their rights to speak out and give their views on government depravity?” its national chairman, Teo Kok Seong, said in a statement.
Teo added that the wing and other-similar minded groups will fight to repeal the law critics described as outdated and a political tool to suppress dissent.
Wan Ji Wan Hussin was taken in by police in a predawn arrest today.
He has since been charged with sedition for having allegedly insulted the Sultan of Selangor in a Facebook post on November 5, 2012, The Star Online reported.
He supposedly committed the offence at about 10am, at the fifth floor of Bangunan Sultan Salehuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, in Section 5, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Wan Ji was represented by lawyer Mohd Radzlan Jalal while Mohd Azhari Harun acted for the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
Shah Alam Sessions Court judge Slamat Yahya fixed bail for Wan Ji at RM5,000 and October 10 for the next mention.
The preacher, linked to the PAS opposition party, is the latest to fall under the hammer of a sedition crackdown that has seen at least 15 people investigated or charged under the Sedition Act in the space of a month.
Cabinet ministers have defended the crackdown and said the arrests were necessary before racial and religious tension in the country escalate.
Putrajaya recently embarked on a sedition crackdown, hauling up at least 15 anti-government dissidents and opposition politicians under the colonial-era law in the space of one month.
The sudden onslaught of sedition action has also led to renewed calls for the repeal of the colonial-era law, with politicians and activist groups taking up arms to mobilise nationwide campaigns in hopes of pressuring Putrajaya into fulfilling its 2012 pledge to do away with the law.
But critics believe the government is deliberately dithering on the promise due to pressure from strong right wing elements within Umno and its supporters, who want the Act to stay.
Defenders of the Sedition Act, primarily pro-establishment conservatives including former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, contend that its removal will open the floodgates of attacks against the Bumiputera, Islam, and the Malay rulers in the absence of the repealed Internal Security Act (ISA).
Those pushing for the law to be eliminated, however, insist that its ambit is too broad, as it criminalises speech with an undefined “seditious tendency” and without need to prove intent.
