Adam Adli found guilty of sedition

The Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur today found former student activist Adam Adli guilty of sedition and sentenced him to 12 months in prison.

He had been charged last year with uttering a seditious statement at a May 13 forum where he allegedly questioned the results of the 13th general election and called on Malaysians to take to the streets to boot Barisan Nasional (BN) out of Putrajaya.

“Guilty,” Adam wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter from the court this morning.

“The mitigation process is still going on. Will update #MansuhAktaHasutan,” he said in a following tweet.

“Having different opinion is apparently a crime now according to our dearest prosecutor," he said in another tweet.

In an immediate reaction, Human Rights Watch said Adam’s conviction and sentencing showed that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s government was showing “authoritarian tendencies one usually associates with single-party rule rather than democracy”.

"More than anything, this conviction shows the incredible danger posed by the Sedition Act, which is so vague that it can be used by the government to criminalise any sort of speech it deems offensive. It's time for Prime Minister Najib to stop reneging on his repeated past promises to revoke the Sedition Act, and get working to get rid of this odious law,” its Asia Division deputy director Phil Robertson said.

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