Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar declared that the police have adopted a "no tolerance" policy on sedition.
He said this in a twitter posting shortly after two more top executives from The Malaysian Insider (TMI) were arrested.
"Police confirms that it has arrested two more TMI staff to facilitate investigation at 11am.
"There will be no tolerance for any seditious activities," he added.
However, Khalid did not address the accusations that the authorities are selective in their pursuit of those who utter seditious words.
This morning, police detained The Edge publisher Ho Kay Tat and TMI chief executive Jahabar Sadiq when they presented themselves at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters for questioning.
This follows a raid by the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on TMI's office in Petaling Jaya yesterday.
Subsequently, TMI managing editor Lionel Morais and senior editors Amin Shah Iskandar and Zulkifli Sulong were arrested and held overnight at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters.
Recently, a series of police reports and complaints to the MCMC were lodged by Umno members against TMI's report that the Conference of Rulers' had rejected proposals concerning the implementation of hudud law.
Last Thursday, Minister in charge of Islamic affairs Jamil Khir Baharom had told the Dewan Rakyat that the matter was not discussed.
However, MPs from PAS argued that Putrajaya was suppose to bring the matter to the Conference of Rulers as agreed during their technical committee meeting on the implementation of hudud.
White terror
Meanwhile, veteran opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang questioned if the police can be trusted with more powers in light of the crackdown.
He was referring to new laws introduced in Parliament yesterday, including the Prevention of Terrorism Act which re-introduces indefinite detention without trial and amendments to five other security-related laws.
"These arrests raise one disturbing question – whether the police and the government-of-the-day can be trusted with untrammelled powers, like the one they are asking under the anti-terrorism laws," said Lim.
Lim likened the ongoing crackdown to Ops Lalang in 1987, where he was detained under the now defunct Internal Security Act, only to discover other prisoners have been detained under the law for up to 16 years.
"To prevent any recurrence of such injustices and human rights violations, I call on the Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to defer the seven anti-terrorism bills for debate in next Parliamentary meeting starting May 18," he said.
For now, he said a bi-parisan select committee should be set up to study the recommendations of the anti-terrorism bills.
"Meanwhile, the Home Minister and the inspector-general of police should end the reign of 'white terror', immediately releasing the five editors from TMI as there is reason why police investigations against them cannot be carried out without having to flex police muscles to put them under lock-and-key," he said. - M'kini
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