A HOUSE DIVIDED: Cabinet split on Sedition Act repeal

Putrajaya is firm on repealing the Sedition Act that has drawn flak as a tool to silence dissent, minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today even as his Cabinet colleague Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi insisted the archaic law is here to stay.

The conflicting statements from the two ministers have cast doubt on the legislative reform pledges made a year ago by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and could jeopardise his bid to defend his leadership at the Umno party elections later this year.

“We are committed to go through with the repeal,” Nazri (picture), who is tourism minister, was quoted as saying by The Star Online in Perak today.

“However, it is important that when we repeal it, we still need an Act that could preserve the harmony and unity between Malaysians of different ethnic groups,” he was reported adding.

An Umno supreme councillor, Nazri reportedly said he had been informed that the Attornery-General was looking at repealing the 65-year-old law that has been widely-criticised for empowering the authorities to arbitrarily quell dissent.

But Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had told reporters the very opposite today, at a separate event several hundred kilometres south of Perak.

“The Sedition Act must stay,” Ahmad Zahid told reporters after gracing the International Anti-Drug Day event in Putrajaya.

“The Cabinet wants to look into it, not deciding to abolish it. The Cabinet did not decide to abolish it, but to amend,” he added.

Ahmad Zahid had said the controversial law would only be tweaked and not removed altogether, and also denied that he had run against the Cabinet consensus when he first spoke of the review yesterday.

The home minister’s remarks today appear to reinforce the latest view that the Najib administration may be having second thoughts about doing away with the sedition law.

Najib told British broadcaster BBC in London last week that the law was only applied on individuals who were undermining Malaysia’s security.

“We have shown an awful lot of latitude to people who protest against the government, but people cannot say something that will undermine the stability of our country.

“We will amend the act but we want to keep Malaysia peaceful and harmonious,” Najib told BBC’s World News programme on July 2.

In July last year, Najib announced that the 1948 law will be repealed but added that this would only be done once a replacement law — a National Harmony Act — is introduced in its place.

In October, Nazri, who was then the de facto law minister, said the proposed National Harmony Act will keep the main elements of the Sedition Act, but will have the additional element of allowing for criticism of the government. He added it would happen this year.

But the authorities’ decision to charge PKR’s Tian Chua along with activists Haris Ibrahim, Adam Adli and Safwan Anang last month with the act has renewed questions over the government’s sincerity to do away with the controversial law.

Opposition lawmakers argue that prosecution under the Sedition Act should not be pursued given Najib’s announcement.

Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar has filed a Private Member’s Bill with Parliament in a bid to hasten the abolishment of the law.

Ahmad Zahid reiterated today that the Sedition Act is necessary to ensure that nobody can question the four issues embedded in the Federal Constitution — on the position of Islam as the official religion, Malay as the national language, special rights of the Bumiputra, and the position of the Malay kings.

“I will not compromise if there are individuals who want to touch on these four issues,” he said.

Ahmad Zahid has been seen as a strong advocate of preventive laws, which the Najib administration has slowly begun to remove as part of its reform measures.

Najib was seen to initiate a raft of legal reforms after taking office in April 2009, introducing a law that allowed peaceful assemblies in public and repealed the much-dreaded Internal Security Act (ISA) and Emergency Ordinance (EO), both which allowed for detentions without trial.

- MM