300 academicians show solidarity with Azmi
Two academicians have rounded up 300 colleagues and other "concerned citizens" to show solidarity with Universiti Malaya law lecturer Azmi Sharom on the sedition charge levelled against him.
Two academicians have rounded up 300 colleagues and other "concerned citizens" to show solidarity with Universiti Malaya law lecturer Azmi Sharom on the sedition charge levelled against him.
In a joint statement today, the group initiated by Andrew Aeria (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) and Lee Hwok Aun (Universiti Malaya) said, "We, the undersigned academicians and concerned individuals, stand united and in solidarity with Azmi Sharom whose only alleged ‘crime’ is to think and to publicly share his considered opinion on matters related to his professional expertise as a law professor."
They said the government's action "reveals the lack of respect this government has towards the universal principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression".
The statement is supported by signatories nationwide, from Penang to Kuching, and abroad, from Melbourne to London.
Among them are Ahmad Farouk Musa (Monash University), Edmund Terence Gomez (Universiti Malaya), Mavis Puthucheary (retired) and Mustafa K Anuar (Universiti Sains Malaysia).
They said all Azmi did was cite the Perak court case to call for legal conventions to be followed.
"What’s so seditious about that?" said the group, adding charging the professor showed the government's hypocrisy as Azmi is employed to teach the law.
"Does it not defeat the very purpose of his work and indeed the work of thousands of other academics within a nationwide university system, if he is to be summarily hauled up for merely doing his duty as an academic?" they asked.
Where's Najib's transformation?
Such actions, said the group, showed the government is "unable to appreciate civilized democratic values nurtured by enlightened universal education".
"Prime Minister Najib Razak’s on-going mantra of commitment towards academic excellence, democracy, government and economic transformation rings hollow."
Following numerous calls this week for the government to definitively end the "repugnant" colonial-era law, the group concluded, "Free Azmi Sharom from this perversion of justice! Free Malaysia!"
Meanwhile, the Academic and Administrative Staff Association of Universiti Sains Malaysia (PKAPUSM) also slammed the persecution of Azmi as an act to undermine academic freedom and scientific thought.
“PKAPUSM takes seriously all actions that attempt to limit academic freedom in expressing their views that based on the knowledge in their respective fields of expertise,” said association president P Sundramoorthy in a separate statement today.
He also called for the authorities to drop the charges against Azmi and to respect academic freedom "and take into account the right of academic freedom to express their views, particularly in the context of their expertise”.
Azmi was charged on Tuesday for sedition over the remarks he made in a news report on the ongoing Selangor menteri besar crisis.
He was among the list of people who have been charged or probed in what some have called a systematic crackdown that included Malaysiakini journalist Susan Loone.
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