By Sumisha Naidu. Posted on 16 Oct 2014 18:10 by Channel NewsAsia.
Suited up, under the blazing sun, hundreds of Malaysia's lawyers and their supporters marched on Parliament on Thursday (Oct 16) in a rare demonstration of discontent against the nation's Sedition Act.
Chris Leong, President of Malaysian Bar Council, said: "The Sedition Act is repugnant because the Sedition Act seeks to compress and restrict democratic space. It punishes speech. It punishes expression of thought by thinking Malaysians."
This was only the fourth time in the Malaysian Bar Council's more than 60-year history that it has staged a demonstration such as the one on Thursday. But the Council said the protest was necessary to pressure Prime Minister Najib Razak's administration to fulfil its promise. Mr Najib had pledged to repeal the Act two years ago - an Act the British had introduced in the 1940s to curb dissent against colonial rule.
But since March last year, the Council believes at least 30 people have been investigated or charged for sedition. One of them was student activist Adam Adli, who has been sentenced to a year in prison for allegedly seditious comments he made during a talk about the results of Malaysia's 13th general elections.
"The way I look at it was that I didn't really create any unrest among the people," he told Channel NewsAsia. "What I did was I create unrest among the government, those in charge in the office, and that's why I was charged and convicted."
Aidila Razak, a journalist, said: "My colleague Susan Loone, she's also assistant editor at Malaysiakini, she heads the northern bureau. She's been arrested for actually just doing her job, and I think that's really repulsive. It has nothing to do with sedition, she was just reporting what other people had said."
Dubbed the "Walk for Peace and Freedom", representatives from the Bar Council had hoped to submit a memorandum to Mr Najib. But they were just as happy that a Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Mah Siew Keong, had received them. "We had a fruitful discussion and he had assured us that all of [the lawyers'] views contained in a memorandum addressed to the prime minister will be conveyed to the prime minister," he said.
The Malaysian government has said it will consider abolishing the Sedition Act when its intended replacement, the National Harmony Bill, is ready. But analysts suspect the prime minister may renege on his pledge to repeal the Act altogether.
There are many strong advocates for the Act within Mr Najib's party. And they argue the Act is to safeguard national unity. "Walk against sedition has not made an impact because most Malaysians want safeguards against racially/religiously offensive speech," tweeted Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
Tricia Yeoh, Chief Operating Officer, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, said: "There would be some quarters who believe the Sedition Act should either be abolished, or maybe tempered down, so that it's not so harsh. But that would receive a huge backlash from other side of the ruling party, which believes that there should be a stronger reaction from the government when there are criticisms being made."
Still, the Malaysian Bar Council is undeterred. It says the walk is just the beginning of a long and sustained campaign, one that it hopes will lead to the revoking of the Sedition Act once and for all.
By Shannon Teoh. Published by The Straits Times on 16 Oct 2014.
NEARLY 500 Malaysian lawyers braved the noon day heat in their suits and ties to protest this year's "sedition blitz" outside Parliament building on Thursday morning, saying they were dutybound to fight an unjust law.
Over 20 people, including academics, lawmakers and students, have been hauled up for questionable offences under the Sedition Act, such as insulting the ruling Umno party and saying top judges have erred in case decisions. Some of them have been convicted.
This is despite Prime Minister Najib Razak's pledge in 2012 to repeal the law as part of a raft of democratic reforms to win over liberal voters in last year's general election. Critics say the Sedition Act is used to stifle political dissent.
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/malaysia-lawyers-protest-against-sedition-act-urges-najib-honour-his
BY MUZLIZA MUSTAFA. Published on 16 October 2014 by The MalaysianInsider.
For the fourth time in its history, the Malaysian Bar today rallied, this time, against the Sedition Act 1948 demanding that Putrajaya repeal the colonial-era law, which in recent weeks had been used against opposition politicians and activists.
In a fiery speech at the start, Bar Council president Christopher Leong said the act was created to shut people up and Putrajaya was using it just to do that.
“This is an unprecedented abuse against lawyers, students, journalist and civil society. We are here to claim back the democratic public place. As much as you may try, you cannot stop our freedom of expression, our thoughts. We will ask why," said Leong.
Despite the heat, hundreds of lawyers in suits gathered at Padang Merbok from 9.40am today for the “justice and freedom walk against the Sedition Act”.
The Malaysian Bar previously walked in protest against the Peaceful Assembly Act in 2012, against allegations that judicial appointments were fixed in 2007 and amendments to the Societies Act in 1982.
The group began walking towards the Parliament at about 11.40am, with lawyers holding placards and banners, chanting "Hidup Hidup Rakyat" (Long live the people) and "Mansuh Mansuh Akta Hasutan" (Abolish Sedition Act).
About 10 of them will be going into the Parliament to hand over the memorandum to the representative of the Prime Minister's Department, calling for the Sedition Act to be abolished.
Leong said the group then met with Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Mah Siew Keong and handed him the memorandum that called upon Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to repeal the Sedition Act as he had promised in 2012.
In the memorandum, the Malaysian Bar also urged Najib and Putrajaya to commit and promote the building of a fair, just, harmonious, unified, moderate, progressive Malaysia and reject all forms of bigotry, racist and religious extremism.
After the meeting, Leong, in a statement, admitted that changes would take time and said that the Bar Council would continue to play its role within the period.
"We are saying that you cannot punish people because they are expressing their thoughts, because you did not like what they said or because you did not agree with what they said.
"The Sedition Act is in fact a counter-productive measure to better Malaysian.”
He said the Malaysian Bar was aware that there were some fault-lines when it came to a multiracial country but the fault-lines should not be dealt using the act.
"We have to deal with it through dialogues and exchanging of ideas.”
Putrajaya embarked on a sedition blitz in recent weeks even after Najib had continued to give assurance that he would abolish the draconian law.
However, Putrajaya was also facing pressure from Umno grassroots and some Malay groups to retain the law, which they said would protect the position of the Malays, Islam and the monarchy.
The prime minister also appeared to renege on his promise with a statement from his office that said Putrajaya would tread carefully with the Sedition Act as it had not yet decided whether to go for a complete repeal, to retain it with amendments, or to introduce new laws.
The statement was contradictory to Najib's pledge two years ago to repeal the Sedition Act and replaced it with a National Harmony Act.
Among those who have fallen under the sedition dragnet are PKR vice-president N. Surendran, who was charged twice last month with sedition, Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad, Seri Delima assemblyman RSN Rayer, Sabah politician David Orok, and Universiti Malaya law professor Dr Azmi Sharom and preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussein.
Published by Today Online Singapore, on 17 Oct 2014.
Ten lawyers acting as representatives for the group then delivered a note to Mr Mah Siew Keong, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, who received the document on behalf of Mr Najib.
Saying that the parties had a “fruitful discussion”, Mr Leong added that Mr Mah had given his assurance that he would convey the views of the Malaysian Bar, which represents 16,000 lawyers in Peninsular Malaysia, to the Prime Minister.
“We ask the Prime Minister and government to take into account our views and that he remains steadfast in his pledge and promise made in July 2012 to repeal the Sedition Act,” said Mr Leong outside Parliament.
The lawyers also called for a moratorium on the use of the law, which dates back to 1948 when Malaysia was under British rule.
Before the march started, Mr Leong told reporters that about 13 foreign Bar associations had written to Mr Najib in support of the Malaysian Bar’s campaign.
The Prime Minister described the Sedition Act in July 2012 as the representative of a “bygone era” and said he would replace it with legislation aimed at preventing incitement of religious or ethnic hatred.
However, last month, his office said there would not be a rush to change it, as human rights group Amnesty International and Malaysian civil groups called on him to honour his earlier vow, with more people being charged under the law in recent months.
As a replacement to the Sedition Act, Mr Najib has proposed the National Harmony Act, which he has said would protect freedom of expression. The government has not started drafting the law, however, said a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office last month.
Before the new law comes into place, existing cases under the current Act must be tried under current rules, the government said in August.
Amnesty International Malaysia said last month that the increasing use of the act was fostering a “climate of repression”. From January to September, 12 cases — some involving lawmakers, academics and student — were prosecuted under the Sedition Act — the highest figure since 2009.
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