A Malaysian opposition leader was charged with sedition yesterday for allegedly insulting a royal figure, a day after his son was suspended from parliament for calling the next prime minister a murderer.
The opposition expressed fears the government was on a political witch hunt.
Karpal Singh pleaded innocent to the charge of insulting Sultan Azlan Shah of the northern Perak state on Feb. 6 during a news conference.
“Obviously it is politically motivated. There can be no doubt about that,” Singh, chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party, told reporters before entering court.
Singh, a member of parliament and prominent lawyer, was freed on bail. No date has been set for the trial.
The charge stems from a tussle for power in Perak, which used to be governed by a three-party alliance that includes the Democratic Action Party, following the elections in March last year. Earlier this year, however, three of its Perak state legislators defected, tipping the balance in favor of the ruling National Front coalition.
The sultan of Perak then fired the alliance’s administration and asked the National Front to lead the state. The sultans are hereditary and titular rulers of nine of Malaysia’s 13 states. They play a largely ceremonial role in politics.
Prosecutors said Singh insulted the sultan and committed sedition by questioning the sultan’s mandate to appoint a new administration without for calling a vote of confidence in the state parliament.
Singh had said the sultan could be sued for his actions.
Anwar Ibrahim, who leads the opposition three-party alliance, said the charge against Singh marked the beginning of a government crackdown on the resurgent opposition, which made substantive gains in the March 8 elections.
“I believe that they [the government] will go on a witch hunt against the opposition leaders,” Anwar told reporters at the court.
“This is a malicious prosecution,” he said.
Anwar said Singh was merely giving his legal opinion about the sultan’s powers.
According to Malaysian law, any act that provokes hatred, contempt or disaffection against a state ruler is considered sedition, a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
On Monday, Singh’s son, Gobind Singh Deo, was suspended from parliament for one year because he called Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak a murderer in connection with the 2006 slaying of a Mongolian woman. Najib is scheduled to take over as prime minister early next month.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate