Immigration department: Passports of sex blogger, activist revoked

(Malay Mail Online) – The passports of controversial blogger Alvin Tan and activist Ali Abdul Jalil have been revoked although their citizenships will not be affected, the Immigration Department confirmed today.

Director-general Datuk Mustafa Ibrahim said the two would now have to depend on emergency travel documents.

“If he wants to return, he needs an EC (Emergency Certificate) because his passport has been revoked.

“Having a passport is not a right to all but it is a special privilege,” he told reporters at the Immigration Department headquarters.

He added that the revocation was a first for the government.

Selangor-born Tan 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.

Umno mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia has 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.

Meanwhile, youth activist Ali Abdul Jalil, 29, is seeking political asylum in Sweden to escape prosecution for sedition back home, accused the Malaysian government today of treating him like “rubbish”.

He had wrote on his Facebook page that Malaysia no longer felt like a safe haven for him, especially after receiving a number of threats from “gangsters and racist Malay groups in Malaysia”.

Today, Mustafa said both men have created “unease” in terms of “Malaysians’ safety” and the move to revoke their passports was not just due to the home minister’s order but was also a response to public demands.

The Immigration Department chief also said the move serves as a warning to all Malaysians to not insult “the court, Islam and the royalty”.

“I am not acting on a specific law but the statement in the passports. It is sufficient already,” he said when asked which provision allowed the government to revoke a citizen’s passport.

Malaysian passports under its notice section states that the document belongs to the government and it reserves the right to revoke it “at any time”.