Digitally savvy Malaysian police have been taking to social media to issue warnings to critics of Prime Minister Najib Razak in an unusual online campaign that critics say is unlikely to work.
Najib is facing the biggest political crisis in his seven years in office over a multibillion dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and deposits of US$681 million in his private bank account.
Najib, chairman of the 1MDB advisory board, has denied any wrongdoing and says he did not take any money for personal gain.
Malaysian Attorney General Apandi Ali last week closed investigations of Najib and said the US$681 million was a donation from a Saudi Arabian benefactor and most of it had been returned.
That has not stopped Malaysians taking to social media to voice their exasperation.
A caricature of Najib with a clown face and the words “in a country full of corruption, we are all seditious,” was widely shared recently.
The police responded within hours, with an online warning to the artist who drew it, Fahmi Reza, telling him they were watching his Twitter account and he should use it “prudently and in line with the law,” he said.
“The ruling elite of this country has always been intolerant to dissent,” Fahmi said. “They’re always afraid of losing their throne.”
“But the people have changed. The culture of protest and resistance is growing stronger,” he said.
Fahmi was not the first person to be warned over social media comment as the police for the first time make use of Twitter to identify people who are being watched and caution them about repercussions.
“Action will be taken against individuals who spread false information,” is a typical warning to appear on Twitter, often accompanied by the Twitter handle of the person it is being directed at.
Responding to criticism of the attorney general’s decision to drop the investigations of Najib, police told another Twitter user: “Investigations will be carried out on the posts made by the owner of this Twitter account.”
A police spokeswoman confirmed that the Twitter account issuing the warnings was an official Malaysian cyber unit account, but she declined to comment on specific warnings, such as the one issued to Fahmi.
She referred queries to the head of the police cyber unit, but he declined to make any immediate comment. The Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs, which is in charge of the unit, did not respond to a request for comment.
Najib has taken steps that critics say are aimed at stemming opposition. He sacked a deputy prime minister who was critical of him, replaced a former attorney-general and authorities have suspended some media and blocked Web sites.
Asked to comment on criticism of suppression of dissent, Malaysian Minister of Communications Salleh Said Keruak said police and the communications regulator were enforcing the law.
“It is not a crackdown. We are just doing the ordinary enforcement,” he said, adding that authorities had taken action in nearly 3,000 cases last year under a telecoms and multimedia act.
Fahmi responded to his warning by reposting the clown and with a new sketch of the police with hashtag #BigBrotherIsWatchingYou.
No further action was taken against him, while other artists expressed solidarity by sharing the clown sketch with the hashtag #KitaSemuaPenghasut, or “we are all seditious” in Malay.
Najib’s Facebook page has over the months been flooded with criticism and calls on him to resign.
A former Cabinet minister, Rafidah Aziz, said in a Facebook post on Monday that cracking down online would not work.
“It is so very naive to think that shutting down blogs and intervention in social media will actually stop people from talking,” she said.
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