KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 — Graphic designer Mohd Fahmi Reza Mohd Zarin has been released this evening after being held overnight for police investigations over a playlist of songs that he had compiled on the Spotify app, his lawyer confirmed.
Rajsurian Pillai, one of Fahmi’s lawyers, told Malay Mail that his client was released at 5.55pm today on police bail.
The police had arrested Fahmi last night and kept him overnight in the Dang Wangi police lock-up, and had this morning sought for four day of remands to carry out investigations but was only granted one day of remand by the magistrate.
Rajsurian had earlier today told Malay Mail that the police had sought for four days to remand or further detain Fahmi in order to record his statement and take his photograph and fingerprints, noting that Fahmi’s lawyers had argued before the magistrate that these could be done in just a matter of hours and that there was no real reason or real need to detain him for four days.
Following the granting of the one-day remand order, police had then subsequently recorded Fahmi’s statement as well as took his photograph and his fingerprints, Rajsurian confirmed.The one day remand had meant that Fahmi would be released this evening.
Earlier from his lock-up, Fahmi had written a note by hand to stress the importance of defending satire and parody as a form of protest.
Last night, Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk Huzir Mohamed in a statement confirmed his department’s arrest of Fahmi, following police reports over alleged insults against the Raja Permaisuri Agong.
Huzir said that the investigation was linked to a Facebook post on Fahmi Reza’s Facebook account containing the queen’s photo and information regarding a playlist of songs in the form of a remark “This Is Dengki Ke? 💛 100 dengki songs, all in one playlist.” as well as a Spotify playlist featuring the queen’s photo labelled with the words “This is Dengki Ke” and with the playlist featuring songs containing the word “jealousy”.
Dengki is the Malay word for resentment due to envy or jealousy.
The police also said yesterday that investigations are being carried out under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act.
