‘Too harsh’ - Anwar slams Wan Ji’s jail term for sedition
PKR president Anwar Ibrahim believes Muslim preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin’s one-year jail term for sedition is too harsh and inconsistent with democratic reform.
“It is unfortunate, I have all my sympathies (sic)...
PKR president Anwar Ibrahim believes Muslim preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin’s one-year jail term for sedition is too harsh and inconsistent with democratic reform.
“It is unfortunate, I have all my sympathies (sic).
“I think the sentence is certainly too harsh.
“[...] This is not something consistent with the democratic transition,” he said when met after participating in a question-and-answer session organised by international organisation World Movement for Democracy in Kuala Lumpur this evening.
Wan Ji's nine-month sentence, which he originally received in April 2018, was enhanced this morning.
This came after the Shah Alam High Court allowed an appeal by the deputy public prosecutor (DPP).
Asked whether Attorney-General Tommy Thomas ought to explain the DPP’s application, Anwar sidestepped the question and reiterated that the sentence was “unfortunate”.
The court’s decision has courted swift criticism, with human rights NGO Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) demanding a public explanation from Thomas, given that the Pakatan Harapan government had promised to repeal the Sedition Act 1948.
It also led to yet more calls for the colonial-era law to be repealed.
Wan Ji (above), a former aide to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, began his jail term at Kajang Prison today.
He worked with Lim when the latter was Penang chief minister, and left to set up an NGO focussing on interfaith dialogue.
In 2014, Wan Ji was convicted under Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act over a 2012 Facebook post about the Selangor monarch Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, but was granted a stay pending his appeal.
Today, Wan Ji’s lawyers applied for another stay for his current sentence and have vowed to continue appealing the decision.
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