Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S. Arutchelvan was arrested last night for his remarks about the Federal Court’s decision to uphold the conviction of opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, February 20, 2015.Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) has accused the police of using the Sedition Act 1948 to intimidate the public, after 15 cops descended on its secretary-general's home to arrest him under the colonial-era law.Dr Michael Jeyakumar said last night that such "heavy handed" police action was unnecessary as they only had to request S. Arutchelvan to present himself to the police station to explain his allegedly seditious remarks."Surely the time of the 15 police officers could have been better utilised to combat crime. The police decided to make this arrest on Chinese New Year."The police are clearly attempting to intimidate the public by using the Sedition Act – an act formulated by our colonial rulers to suppress the freedom of speech and opinion."They are attempting to clamp down on any criticism of the Barisan Nasional administration," he wrote in a statement, on behalf of the PSM central committee.He added that jailing Arul overnight was unnecessary as he and PSM were willing to cooperate with police investigations.Dr Jeyakumar (pic, right) said Arutchelvan was detained over a PSM statement on February 10 condemning the Federal Court for upholding opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction.Arutchelvan said in a statement that the courts were not independent and politically driven.
Dr Jeyakumar defended Arul's remarks, saying that court judgments were usually open to comment by lawyers and legal academics."PSM feels that this is a selected persecution by the police whom solely decides which is seditious and which is not."We demand the immediate release of Arutchelvan, and the dropping of all sedition charges against him," said Dr Jeyakumar, who is also Sungai Siput MP.Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar warned that Arutchelvan along with several other opposition figures would be investigated for criticising the court's decision.Besides Arutchelvan, Khalid also named Fariz Musa, the head of PKR's Jingga-13 movement and PKR deputy youth chief Dr Afif Bahardin, both of whom had allegedly urged Anwar's supporters to hold demonstrations.Khalid had also singled out two opposition politicians, DAP's Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming and PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli, over their tweets allegedly critical of the Anwar verdict.On February 11, popular cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, or Zunar, was arrested for sedition over his tweet criticising the judiciary, hours after Khalid went on Twitter to warn of police action.The latest onslaught on opposition leaders under the Sedition Act came after the Federal Court's guilty verdict on Anwar, who was charged of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan at a condominium unit at Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, on June 26, 2008. – February 20, 2015.
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