KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 — Amendments to the Sedition Act will provide authorities such broad powers that virtually no Malaysian is safe from falling foul of the colonial-era law, former minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim today.

Warning supporters of the law including lawmakers from Barisan Nasional (BN) against celebrating the passage of the Sedition (Bill) 2015, the former law minister in the Abdullah administration said the Act was so onerous that any negative comment related to any religion could now be deemed seditious.

“We are all dead men walking with this new law. To the BN Muslim MPs, don’t be so smug. Let me remind you what the law means. It will apply even to you,” he wrote on his blog today.

As an example, he said a Muslim lawmaker from BN who criticises a hypothetical Shariah court divorce against his sister could be charged with sedition for promoting ill-will towards Islam and be liable for at least five years in jail.

Criticising any fatwas (Muslim religious edicts) or demanding accountability over how zakat (Muslim tithes) is spent could similarly land a person in prison.

Non-Muslims from MCA and Gerakan were similarly vulnerable, he said, when noting that the act of analysing Article 153 that covers the special position of the Malays or trying to rationalise the workings of Bumiputera quotas could be offences under the Sedition Act.

“If you own a property in Ampang, where you have a small statue of the Buddha erected on the land; and because there is a mosque adjacent to it, DBKL now wants to acquire your land, you think you can oppose it without risking sedition charges against you?

“If your application to use a shop lot as your church is rejected, and you respond by asking why there are so many mosques everywhere, you too could be serving time,” he added.

Saying that he could provide thousands of other scenarios that may be considered seditious under the expanded powers of the Act, Zaid pointed out that the last regime to enact laws against dissent as oppressive as Malaysia’s was that of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.

Laws such as the Sedition Act were also the modus operandi of fascist administrations, Zaid said, which use their powers to first cause chaos before employing laws to jail dissenters and command complete obedience.

“The noose is getting tighter. We are experiencing what the Russians endured when Stalin was in power. We might be looking at one of our own,” Zaid concluded.

The Sedition (Bill) 2015 was passed at 2.30am today after a record 14 hours of debate.

The amendments decriminalised criticism of the government, but made it an offence to excite “ill will, hostility or hatred” on grounds of religion and race as well as to demand the secession of a state from Malaysia.

The Bill also added a new section that imposes a penalty of between five and 20 years jail for sedition crimes that cause bodily harm or property damage, while it increases the jail term for general sedition crimes to between three and seven years.

Prior to the amendments, the colonial-era law imposed a maximum three-year jail term or maximum RM5,000 fine on first-time offenders, and a maximum five-year jail term for repeat offenders.

Putrajaya previously pledged to repeal the Sedition Act that critics say is used to stifle political opposition and dissent, but later announced in November last year that it will be retained and expanded instead.