KUALA LUMPUR: Activist and graphic designer Fahmi Reza, who was held yesterday for alleged sedition, must be released by 5pm today, a magistrates’ court has told police.
His lawyer, Rajsurian Pillai, told FMT that magistrate Nitya Ravindran allowed only a one-day remand although the police had asked for four days to question him regarding the sedition probe.
The proceeding was held at the Dang Wangi police station.
“His remand will be until 5pm,” the lawyer added.
Besides Rajsurian, lawyer Yohendra Nadarajan also appeared for Fahmi.
He will be held by police until the end of today for investigations into sedition on Spotify playlists that allegedly mocked the Raja Permaisuri Agong over a comment she made on her Instagram account.
Yesterday, 20 police officers broke into Fahmi’s house and arrested the graphic designer for investigations under the Sedition Act.
One of the posts on the Queen’s account was about cooking Malaysian favourites such as bubur lambuk, roti john, cucur jagung at the istana kitchen. One follower asked whether palace chefs had also received the Covid-19 vaccine, to which she replied “Dengki ke?” (Jealous?).
The reply was quickly picked up on Twitter, with many users using the term as a hashtag.
Fahmi curated numerous playlists on Spotify with the title “This is dengki ke?” which featured a picture of the Queen. The playlists were eventually taken down by Spotify, prompting the artist to move to Apple Music.
PAS Youth deputy chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari had lodged a police report against Fahmi, alleging that he had insulted the Queen.
Fahmi is no stranger to controversy as he was charged in 2016 under multimedia laws for his clown caricature of then prime minister Najib Razak.
Earlier, in the same year, he was also arrested and charged with three other activists for selling #KitaSemuaPenghasut T-shirts at a shopping complex.
He was freed of all the charges subsequently. - FMT
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