Umno should not misrepresent US Vice-President Joe Biden's criticism of the Sedition Act as an attack on Malaysia as it is merely directed at the ruling coalition's policies, said PKR's Alor Setar MP Gooi Hsiao Leung.

 

"Let’s get it straight, Joe Biden is not attacking Malaysia or its people as what these Umno goons are trying to suggest. 

 

He is criticising Umno/BN's policy on the use of the Sedition Act and that’s a huge difference," he said in a statement today.

 

Biden in a Twitter posting yesterday said despite the growing ties between US and Malaysia, the latter's use of the Sedition Act had raised rule of law concerns.

 

He also urged Malaysia to "make things right" in opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy case.

 

Gooi ( right ), who is also PKR international bureau chief, said Umno's reaction to the criticism, including from Tourism Minister Mohamed Nazri Aziz, had been "most childish and irrational".

 

"Instead of overreacting the way the Umno ministers did, they should search their conscience and without lying to themselves, admit the truth in Biden’s tweets – that the Malaysian government has used the legal system and the colonial-era Sedition Act to stifle the opposition.

 

"I am sure if Najib had not broken his promise to repeal the Sedition Act, neither Joe Biden nor the US Ambassador to Malaysia would find it necessary to make adverse comments concerning Najib’s reversal to repeal the Sedition Act," he said.

 

Gooi pointed out that several opposition politicians, as well as teachers, students, lawyers and civil society activists, have been prosecuted or threatened with the Sedition Act.

 

At the same time, he said the government had "closed an eye" to inflammatory statements aimed at inciting racial and religious intolerance and violence against minorities by extremist groups.

 

 "Joe Biden is wholly justified when he said he is concerned about the rule of law in our country when the legal system and the Sedition Act is being used to silence the opposition," he said.