The police are investigating five Malaysians for posting seditious messages on the Internet, the Dewan Rayat was told today.

He said one of them had already been arrested and investigations into the case are in its final stages.

The police are considering whether to charge him for the alleged offence, he added.

Met at the Parliament lobby later, Fu said the arrested individual was PKR webmaster Nathaniel Tan, who was hauled up in July over a 'seditious' comment posted on his blog.

As for the four others, it included an email containing seditious remarks pertaining to race. The rest are a company director, whose company website carried a seditious posting, one 'Dr Ng Seng' who posted a seditious article on the Prime Minister's Department's website and student Wee Meng Chee for his satire of Negaraku posted on Youtube.

Earlier, Fu told the Dewan Rakyat that the government is serious about blogs and websites which post distorted facts and remarks.

He said the formation of the Cyber and Multimedia Criminal Investigations Unit would enable the police to monitor new developments on the Internet.

"Those who use their blogs to spread seditious messages will be charged under the Sedition Act 1984, Penal Code and the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998," he said.

Extremely seditious postings

According to Fu, action will only be taken against blogs and postings that post extremely seditious remarks that can threaten the nation's security.

Otherwise, he said, the government does not wish to curtail freedom of expression.

"The government will not breach its promise made in the Bill of Guarantee when the Multimedia Super Corridor was launched," he added.

Fu was responding to Raime Unggi (BN-Tenom) who asked the internal security minister to state the action that can be taken against bloggers who spread lies and manipulate facts

In a separate development, the government has expected to lose RM128.6 billion in revenue following the repeal of the Real Property Gains Tax.

Parliamentary secretary to the Finance Ministry Hilmi Yahaya said that for the same period, the government will lose RM1.2 billion following the repeal of one percent company tax.

"However, we would not lose out if the abolishment of taxes encourages economic activities in the country," he explained.