Law academic Azmi Sharom to be charged for sedition on Tuesday

Law professor Azmi Sharom is expected to be charged under the Sedition Act tomorrow. - The Malaysian Insider pic, September 1, 2014.Universiti Malaya Law Professor Azmi Sharom will be charged for sedition tomorrow over his remarks on the Selangor Menteri Besar crisis and it showed that no one is truly safe from the Sedition Act, a lawyers group said today.

Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen said that it would seem that one is only "safe if you keep silent or support the government".

Paulsen said it appeared as though Malaysia was a totalitarian state where no dissenting views were tolerated.

"The manner in which the Sedition Act has been misused to target all and sundry is unprecedented.

"What we are witnessing now is Ops Lallang II and sedition is the new ISA, a catch all offence that the authorities can use with impunity against anyone who disagrees with them," he said.

Azmi, who is Universiti Malaya academic staff association head, is the first academic to be hauled up by Putrajaya and charged under the Sedition Act.

Over the last two weeks, PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli and his party colleague Padang Serai MP N. Surendran, Shah Alam MP and PAS central committee member Khalid Samad and DAP Seri Delima assemblyman R.S.N. Rayer have been charged for sedition.

DAP Seputeh MP Teresa Kok and PKR Batu MP Tian Chua are also facing trial for sedition, while former Perak MP and Changkat Jering assemblyman Nizar Jamaluddin was charged with criminal defamation for a statement he had allegedly made two years ago.

The slew of sedition charges comes two years after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak first promised to repeal the Sedition Act 1948.

Najib in July, 2013, announced for a second time his intention to repeal the 66-year old act when he was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), saying it would be replaced by a new National Harmony Act.

But, critics of the Act have observed that since Najib’s announcement, an increasing number of opposition politicians were being charged for sedition.

In a statement two days ago, the Prime Minister's Office said the government would repeal the Sedition Act and replace it with the National Harmony Bill as pledged, adding that it was currently in drafting stage.

- TMI