PUTRAJAYA, July 7 — Putrajaya is merely looking into amending the controversial Sedition Act instead of abolishing it, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said today in an apparent backpeddle against the prime minister’s pledge last year.

The home minister also denied that he had defied the Cabinet’s decision when he spoke against its repeal yesterday, saying his fellow ministers had yet to reach a decision on the colonial-era law that critics have described as archaic and draconian.

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

“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’s remarks today appear to reinforce the latest view that Najib administration may be having second thoughts about doing away with the 65-year-old law, widely-criticised for empowering the authorities to arbitrarily silence dissent.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak 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In July last year, Najib announced that the 1948 law will be repealed but added that this would only be done once a replacement law — a National Harmony Act — is introduced in its place.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, then de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz 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 abolition 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.