Blogger ‘arrested’ at midnight under Sedition Act

by uppercaise

• Blogger’s home raided at near-midnight
•Family’s computers and modem taken away
• MP Tian Chua intervenes, asks why action late at night
• Officers admit no warrant of arrest, says Tian Chua

Popular young blogger Mohd Nur Hanief Abdul Jalil, who recently made a reference to allegations of a sex scandal involving the Sultan of Selangor and a celebrity model, was hauled in for questioning under the Sedition Act at midnight last night (Friday) by police and officials of the Internet regulator, the Multimedia Commission.

After intervention by the MP for Batu, Tian Chua, the MCMC officers issued Hanief an investigation notice to report to their offices at 10am today (Saturday) and released him.

It was not immediately known which of Hanief’s postings was the cause of the action.

One of his provocative postings was on March 1 — a one-paragraph quotation from another blog which referred to allegations of asex scandal involving royalty. He had also posted a satirical photographic collage of Mahathir Mohamad and the model, Kavita Kaur.

In another comment in that posting, he made reference to reports of royalty drinking liquor and linked to other allegations of royal misbehaviour: one was to a MalaysiaKini video of Negri Sembilan royalty alleging an assault by the Johore Raja Muda, and another to allegations by young Indonesian model Manohara Adelia Pinot against her husband, a Kelantan prince.

The posting on March 1 had drawn 80 comments.

Nur Hanief blogs at hanief.blogspot.com and has a video channel on YouTube as “Malaysianews“. He recently became a registered voter in Tian Chua’s constituency.

Hanief’s father informed the MP, who had just returned from a Pakatan Rakyat forum in Ipoh, about Nur Hanief’s detention. Tian Chua immediately posted the news on Twitter, and went to Sentul police station “before the poor kid is intimidated to confess or his rights abused”.

Tian Chua said the family told him that police and MCMC raided their home at close to midnight and had ransacked the place, taking away all their computers.

When he arrived at Sentul police station, Tian Chua said he found MCMC officers in the midst of interrogating Hanief, and asking him for the passwords to his blog.

Tian Chua posted a photograph of the MCMC officers.

He questioned why Hanief had been taken in at midnight, and on what charge. He was told Hanief was arrested under “hasutan” — a reference to the Sedition Act — but no one could show him a warrant of arrest, Tian Chua said. They also admitted that no warrant of arrest had been issued.

MCMC officials threatened to lodge a police report against him after he said Hanief should be free to leave if he had not been arrested, Tian Chua said. They finally issued a notice to Hanief to report to their headquarters at 10am, and released him.

Late last night Tian Chua made an appeal for lawyers to help Hanief with the investigation.