Challenge the Prime Minister to stop the political persecution of opposition lawmakers and fight the opposition fair and square at the next general election

Press Statement by M Kula Segaran, DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Ipoh Barat in Ipoh on August 27, 2014
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Challenge the Prime Minister to stop the political persecution of opposition lawmakers and fight the opposition fair and square at the next general election

This morning, DAP Seri Delima assemblyman R.S.N Rayer was slapped with two separate sedition charges over his controversial "celaka Umno” remark which he had made on May 20 this year at  the Penang legislative assembly sitting.

He has become the latest addition to the list of opposition lawmakers hauled to court charged with sedition or criminal defamation.

The list has included the late Karpal Singh, Mohd Sabu, Tian Chua, Teresa Kok, Khalid Samad, N Surendren, and Nizar Jamaluddin.

DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang is also being investigated under the draconian 1948 Sedition Act for allegedly seditious remark on the unexplained death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock.  Will he be hauled to court soon? 

Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin who was recently charged in Ipoh with defaming Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak two years ago has informed me that there was a police raid at his house on August 6 to get more information with regard to his tweet on WWW1 car registration. The investigation is related to sedition.

The draconian Internal Security Act, until its repeal, was used as a weapon to stifle political dissent and silence government critics. It is now clear Sedition Act has now become the new weapon.

The hauling of opposition lawmakers to court has proven that the Prime Minister Datuk Najib’s talks about political reforms and being a moderate are plain hollow talk.

Although Najib did bring about some legislative changes, it is plain that those changes   were made for the purpose of saving BN in the 2013 general election.

Let me tell Najib that with the political persecution of oppositionists, he will definitely go down in history as only a pseudo reformist.

Najib must not think that  the public have forgotten his pledge to repeal the Sedition Act . He should know that the people have not forgotten his pledge and can also see how many extremists who made seditious remarks aimed at inciting religious or racial tension have not been dealt with by the laws.

In 2012, when commenting on the Bersih 3.0 sit in protest which attracted 200, 000 participants, Najib had said:-

“To these people, I challenge them to fight' at the ballot box. If you are anak jantan (man), let us fight there."

So I wish to challenge the Prime Minister to stop the political persecution of opposition lawmakers and fight the opposition fair and square at the next general election.