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Malaysia police arrest editors for sedition

By Editor
01 April 2015   |   5:38 am
MALAYSIA police have arrested five staff members of a news website after their publication ran an article discussing royal opposition to amendments to the constitution that would enable Islamic penal law. Lionel Morais, Zulkifli Sulong, and Amin Iskandar were held after authorities raided the offices of the Malaysian Insider late on Monday. The trio was charged with sedition later yesterday.
Malaysian police. Image source eni

Malaysian police. Image source eni

MALAYSIA police have arrested five staff members of a news website after their publication ran an article discussing royal opposition to amendments to the constitution that would enable Islamic penal law.

Lionel Morais, Zulkifli Sulong, and Amin Iskandar were held after authorities raided the offices of the Malaysian Insider late on Monday. The trio was charged with sedition later yesterday.

A further two members of staff at the publication, Jahabar Sadiq and its CEO, Ho Kat Tat, were also arrested yesterday, a lawyer for the website told al Jazeera.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, told Al Jazeera that the arrests could not be justified and called the law used to hold the men archaic.

“The government is using the law on sedition to intimidate those who criticise it, including civil society groups, the opposition, and now journalists,” Sreenevasan said.

“There is no scope within the law to protect journalists, there are exceptions but the government can use it selectively to go after whoever they want.”

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