Home minister: Alvin Tan will lose passport

(Malay Mail Online) – Controversial blogger Alvin Tan will have his passport revoked as early as tomorrow, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said today as the authorities attempt to reel in the Selangor-born on the run from the law.

The home minister said the government was empowered to do so under the Immigration Act as the passport belongs to the state and is not an individual’s personal property, The Star Online reported.

“It can be revoked under the Immigration Act and we will do it as soon as tomorrow,” he was quoted telling reporters after launching a special task force to combat vice, gaming and gangsterism in the city.

The Selangor-born who first grabbed headlines with a now-defunct sex blog raised another storm last week with his controversial Facebook messages against the ruler of his home state for revoking the datukship titles conferred previously on federal Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Today, Umno-linked paper Utusan Malaysia urged the authorities to take “more aggressive action” to end the fugitive blogger’s flood of insults that have allegedly tarnished and challenged national and royal institutions.

“There have been too many insults from Alvin. Against the authorities like the Inspector-General of Police to the Prime Minister and even the royal institution has been blackened and challenged. Likewise on Islam and the Malays.

“Awang sees his actions as a threat to the country’s security and harmony, on the same level of danger, perhaps even more than the individuals who join, support and funnel funds to the Islamic State. In other words, there’s no difference between Alvin and terrorists,” it said in its Sunday editorial under the collective moniker Awang Selamat.

The paper described Tan’s actions as extremist and warned that the authorities’ failure to act will send “the wrong signal to Malaysians and motivate other individuals to insult religion, race and the royal institute as they wish”.

The 26-year-old Tan who has been charged with sedition fled the country earlier this year and is believed to be in California, after disclosing he applied for asylum in the US.

He had previously claimed persecution by Umno, the party that dominates Malaysia’s long ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.