Three recent court cases against Pakatan Rakyat leaders show the government is out to undermine its political rivals, NGO Lawyers for Liberty said today.

 

LFL's executive director Eric Paulsen held that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration was embarking on political persecution.

He pointed DAP's Karpal Singh was fined RM4,000 for sedition today, following a jail sentence of five years meted out to Anwar Ibrahim last Friday for sodomy.

 

In January, the courts also gave PKR's vice-president Tian Chua ( right ) a month's imprisonment and a fine for disobeying police orders.

 

"Malaysia surely must hold the unwanted record of using the sedition law the most anywhere in the world.

 

"Sedition is an antiquated and undemocratic offence designed by our British coloniser to shore up the position of minority white rule. It certainly has no place in Malaysia and most modern democratic states have repealed or put it into disuse," Paulsen said in a statement.

 

He said that under the current administration, the misuse of sedition law reaches a "shocking and unprecedented" level.

 

Paulsen noted that there were pending sedition charges against members of the opposition or dissidents like Tian Chua, Tamrin Ghafar, Haris Ibrahim, Safwan Anang, Adam Adli, Hishamuddin Rais and Suhaimi Shafie, while P Uthayakumar is presently in jail.

 

"The continuous use of sedition goes to show that Najib's words have no value since he has repeatedly broken the promise he had made on 11 July 2012 when he announced that the Sedition Act would be abolished, " Paulsen said.

 

In the High Court today, Judge Azman Abdullah fined Karpal RM4,000 for uttering seditious remarks in 2009 when a constitutional crisis happened in Perak.

 

Karpal is appealing the decision. Should it fail, he stands to lose his Bukit Gelugor parliamentary seat.