Putrajaya has amended several provisions in the bill to amend the Sedition Act 1948 after a number of complaints from backbenchers and opposition MPs.

The most significant change is the removal of a clause stipulating that sedition is to be a non-bailable offence.

Another crucial amendment is the imposition of a minimum three-year jail term, instead of five years.

Other changes are replacing the offence of “importing” seditious publications with the offence of “propagating” seditious publications.

The government also has withdrawn an illustration on the definition “secession sedition”, but the amendment for such an offence stays.

The illustration that was deleted read “A excites a person or a group of persons to demand for the secession of state B from Malaysia. Such act is seditious.”

The original illustration was placed in the initial bill was “to make clear” that the act of exciting a person on secession is seditious.

The amendment bill was restructured after the government received much criticism for introducing new provisions , including no bail upon arrest and a maximum jail sentence of 20 years for offences causing bodily injury and damage to property.

Among the staunchest critics of the Sedition Act amendment bill, ironically, were not opposition MPs but backbenchers in the likes of Azalina Othman Said (Umno-Pengerang) and Bung Mokhtar Radin (Umno-Kinabatangan).