Dewan Rakyat speaker rejects petition to abolish Sedition Act

KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Rakyat speaker rejected a petition to abolish the Sedition Act 1948 for having names of petitioners without signatures or thumb-prints and their identity card numbers.
Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia rejected the petition to be read in Parliament saying that it contained names without signatures and IC numbers and that the government is already reviewing the Act.
He also said that the format of the motion filed was not in order.
"When I read your motion, the one thing I noticed is the format. The main format was (not) fulfilled and was addressed to the Dewan's secretary instead of the speaker. The government's position has been made clear and the issue has been addressed," Pandikar said in response to Khalid Samad (PAS-Shah Alam), who filed the motion.
Refusing to give Khalid the platform to even read the petition in the Dewan, Pandikar hit out at him saying that he was raising the matter for publicity for himself.
Khalid said that Pandikar's excuses for rejecting the motion is unreasonable as out of the 3,005 names, the names without signatures, thumb prints or IC numbers are just about 1,000 and there are still over 2,000 signatures that can be considered.
"There are 2,000 over petitioners with signatures, names and IC numbers. That is sufficient to raise the matter in Parliament. I feel your reasons to reject the petition to be read are unreasonable. The petition is to raise concern and call for solution," he said.
Meanwhile Lawyers for Liberty and human rights activists marched into Parliament to hand over the petition, which contained 3,005 signatures to the Dewan Rakyat.
The petition details the fundamental problems of the much criticised draconian Sedition Act, which has been allegedly abused to punish those who have been vocal against the government and the system.
The petition also contains demands for dropping all pending charges on and that no similar Act is introduced.
Sivarasa Rasiah (PKR-Subang) criticised that Pandikar's decision does not reflect the spirit of the Standing Order as the motion was raised based on Standing Order 19, which stated that ordinary citizens can bring matters of their concerns to be debated in the Dewan Rakyat.
"It is not a fair decision. He must be fair and be seen to be fair. Almost every signatures are okay. There is no big issue here. To reject it just based on several signatures that he deemed incomplete is unreasonable. And the remark by speaker to say that Khalid stood up for publicity is crossing the limits of his position as a speaker," he said.
Sivarasa said it was inappropriate for Pandikar to say that.