Malaysian politics: If you can’t beat them, charge them

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Mr Najib speaks his mind

IS NAJIB RAZAK, Malaysia’s prime minister, a reformer? Those who say that he is can point to the economic liberalisation of his first term, from 2009 to 2013, and to his repeal of the dreaded Internal Security Act, which allowed indefinite detention without trial. However, over the past few weeks, those more sceptical of his reformist tendencies have been handed some good evidence of their own.

Since August 26th three opposition parliamentarians have been charged with sedition for making statements critical of the government. Most notable of them is N. Surendran, an MP who is also a lawyer defending Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, against charges of sodomy. Mr Surendran was charged over a press release he issued last April that called an appellate-court judgment against Mr Anwar “flawed, defensive and insupportable”, and for an online video in which he said that the sodomy charges against Mr Anwar were “an attempt to jail the opposition leader of Malaysia” for which “we hold Najib Tun Razak [Malaysia’s prime minister] personally responsible.”

In addition, Rafizi Ramli, a senior opposition politician, was investigated for sedition but charged with insult and provocation in a manner likely to disturb the peace for alleging that Mr Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), sowed religious discord for political gain. On August 25th Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, another politician, was charged with defaming Mr Najib in a speech two years earlier. And on September 2nd the dragnet widened: Azmi Sharom, a law professor, was charged with sedition for remarks made about a governance crisis five years ago in the state of Perak. None of these statements is seditious, in the usual sense, in that none of them advocated the government’s overthrow.

Yet Malaysia’s sedition law is almost comically broad. It defines seditious statements as any that “excite[s] disaffection…against any Government” or “against the administration of justice in Malaysia” or “promote[s] feelings of ill will and hostility between different races or classes of the population in Malaysia”. It is also selectively enforced. Mr Ramli’s remarks triggered a sedition investigation, whereas those made by UMNO’s vice-president reportedly calling ethnic-Chinese Malaysians “ungrateful” and accusing non-Malays of “insulting Islam and the Malays under the pretence of democracy” did not.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, a human-rights advocate and chairwoman of Bersih, a coalition of groups advocating free and fair elections, accuses the government of using the Sedition Act to “assert power over the people and to create a climate of fear. And it’s working.” Those charged could eventually prevail in court, but they face long trials and possibly multiple appeals. Mr Surendran believes the charges against him were intended to make it more difficult for him to defend Mr Anwar. He says he has been “bogged down” while preparing for trial, and says the charges are “part of a wave of repression”.

In 2012 Mr Najib promised to repeal the Sedition Act. He intends to replace it late next year with legislation that, in the vague words of a government spokesman, “promotes national harmony whilst protecting Malaysian citizens from racial or religious hatred.” Fears of racial discord run deep in multicultural Malaysia, as they do in Singapore. Hundreds of Chinese and Malays died during communal violence in 1969. But Ms Sreenevasan believes the government “plays to those fears…the only way they can hold onto power is by dividing people.”

Some believe that Mr Najib’s foot-dragging on repeal, as well as the sedition charges, are a response to pressure from the right wing of his own party—particularly from Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister who publicly withdrew his support for Mr Najib on August 18th, one day before the first sedition charge was filed against Mr Surendran. But, in pandering to the right, Mr Najib risks tarnishing his own reformist image. It is hard to be the face of progress and moderation while leading a government that seeks to jail its critics.

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