Kuala Lumpur, April 1 – Malaysian police on Tuesday arrested a publisher and a chief editor of the country’s two leading news portals under the Sedition Act, the latest detention in what is being compared to an infamous 1987 political crackdown.
The Edge’s publisher Ho Kay Tat and The Malaysian Insider’s chief editor Jahabar Sadiq were arrested over an article on discussions about punishments meted out under Islamic law published by the news portal last week. The arrests came a day after police detained The Malaysian Insider’s managing editor Lionel Morais, Bahasa Malaysia features and analysis editor Zulkifli Sulong and Bahasa Malaysia news editor Amin Iskandar.
They were arrested over a report last week that said Muslim-majority Malaysia’s nine state sultans had rejected an opposition party’s proposal to amend federal law to allow tough sharia criminal punishments such as amputating the hands of thieves and flogging.
The portal said the royal council denied the article’s claim and filed a police report. Their arrests are the latest in a spate of detentions recently on sedition charges or for assembly violations related to a series of anti-government protests triggered by the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in February.
Senior opposition figure Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday said over 100 people had been detained over the past week. The arrests were later confirmed by Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar via Twitter. “Police confirm that TMI staff were detained at 11am to facilitate investigations. There is no tolerance for activities that promote sedition,” Khalid tweeted.
Jahabar said in a statement before his arrest published by The Malaysian Insider that the police actions “appear to go beyond just our reportage” on the story concerning the nation’s nine ceremonial sultans. “The Malaysian Insider will continue to report without fear or favour despite these arrests. It is business as usual,” he said.
In a statement, Lim called the series of arrests a “reign of white terror” evoking ‘Operation Lalang’ of 1987 in which 106 activists, opposition politicians, intellectuals and others were arrested. It was widely seen as a bid to curb critics of the establishment.
“The question can be legitimately asked whether the country is seeing a replay of the Ops Lalang dragnet,” he said. The Centre for Independent Journalism called the arrests excessive and “part of a worrying trend of a decline in standards of freedom of expression in Malaysia” and an “assault on the rule of law”.
-INDIA TODAY
