Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s record on legal reforms has come under scrutiny after a journalist was detained under a colonial-era Sedition Act for asking a “sensitive question” linking the Gaza crisis to the treatment of ethnic Chinese in the Malay-majority country.
Rex Tan, 31, a journalist for local news site Free Malaysia Today (FMT), was arrested early on Saturday morning after he asked the question at a public debate five days earlier in Kuala Lumpur.
Tan is being investigated under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 505(c) of the Penal Code, which relate to statements intended to cause alarm, after three police reports were lodged against him, his lawyer said.
Police said he was released on bail after his statement was recorded.
The arrest followed a question Tan asked at January 12’s “Gaza Exposes the Complicity of International Actors” lecture that featured firebrand British politician George Galloway among the speakers.
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