KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — All opposition leaders critical of Barisan Nasional (BN) would be behind bars if it were seditious to cause people to hate the ruling coalition, PKR’s Latheefa Koya (picture) said today.
The PKR legal bureau chief was responding to Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who yesterday accused Sarawak DAP head Chong Chieng Jen of sedition after the latter alleged that the ruling BN coalition has allowed crime to fester in its bid to resurrect laws such as the Emergency Ordinance (EO).
“Khairy claims that Chong’s statement will cause the rakyat to hate BN — if this is accepted as a justification — would mean every opposition leader criticising BN would now be guilty of sedition!” she said in a statement.
“More importantly the Youth leader must be reminded on the basic requirement for the application of sedition law in Malaysia, no matter how obnoxious, [it] cannot be applied for statements against political parties including BN, regardless whether they are in government or not.”
Yesterday, the youth and sports minister struck out at Chong over his remarks that were reported in the media, saying it exposed the “politics of hatred and division” championed by the opposition.
According to the Borneo Post, Chong, who is also the Kuching MP, made the claim at a press conference held at the DAP headquarters there yesterday.
“Our suspect is that crime rates are deliberately allowed to skyrocket and the police are taking a couldn’t-care-less attitude about crime so as to give justification for [Home Minister Datuk Seri] Zahid [Hamidi] to reintroduce laws like EO which will give Zahid as minister of home affairs the uninhibited power to silence dissidents and to oppose and suppress the opposition,” Chong suggested.
Khairy further said his Umno Youth will lodge a report against the DAP leader for the remarks.
Latheefa said Chong’s remarks must not be brushed aside as a political attack, given Malaysia’s deteriorating security situation.
“It’s a serious allegation that needs to be addressed properly by the government and cannot be dismissed as merely seditious especially since we have the sudden and frightening increase of violent crimes of shooting, bombing and killings,” she said.
Latheefa also juxtaposed these with “the repeated calls for the reinstatement of preventive detention and lack of other serious measures to deal with it, which does not infringe on individual humans rights and due process.”
Shootings, assaults and gun murders exploded into the nation’s consciousness last month when Arab Malaysian Bank founder Hussain Ahmad Najadi was assassinated in broad daylight by a gunman in Kuala Lumpur, just days after MyWatch co-founder R. Sri Sanjeevan survived an attempted hit in Negri Sembilan on July 27.
The police and Home Ministry have blamed the rash of shootings and violent crimes on the release of detainees once held without trial under the now-repealed EO, and are angling for the return of such powers.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has also vowed to provide the police “anything” they need to fight serious crime, including extra powers under a new law that is expected to be tabled in Parliament in September.
But opposition lawmakers contend that Malaysia did not need new laws to combat the growing menace, and only for the police to devote more than just 9 per cent of the force it currently does to crime fighting.
