KUCHING, July 15: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) President Voon Lee Shan holds the view that Sedition Act 1948 should be inapplicable to Sabahans and Sarawakians.
The reason, according to Voon was that there was no subject matter that could become seditious when Sabah and Sarawak were not part of Malaysia.
He said in a press statement today that many legal experts have argued that since Malaysia is a federation and not a country, laws applicable to Peninsular Malaysia, may not be applicable to Sarawak and Sabah.
“Sabah and Sarawak were countries of their own when they helped formed Malaysia and therefore, at most, the sedition laws could only be applicable against Malayans.”
Voon furthermore pointed out that by intending to repeal and replace the Sedition Act 1948, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government is therefore, aware that the Sedition Act 1948 is unenforceable against peoples of Sabah and Sarawak.
“A new law in replacement for the current Sedition Act 1948 shows that the PH government has the intention to deny Sabahans and Sarawakians to voice their rights to decolonize and to exit from Malaysia as allowed under United Nations Resolutions 1514 and 1541.”
He said that by having such a law also showed that Malaysia is not free and to seal the voices of Sabahans and Sarawakians speaking on exit is to deny their rights to self-determination under international law.
“Such a law in present times is against democracy and works towards tyranny and dictatorship.”
Voon also pointed out that with the lifting of the Emergency Ordinance, the law of Malaya ceased to have any effect on Sarawak and Sabah.
“Even if Malaysia had been properly formed in accordance with international law, the Sedition Act 1948 which was extended to Sarawak under the Emergency Ordinance, could no more be applicable to Sarawak after the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government under Dato Sri Najib Tun Razak had lifted or repealed the Emergency Ordinance,” he elaborated .
Voon also believed that the Seditious Act should not be applied to Sarawak because the public has since many years ago gathered for 722 Independence Rally and spoke about independence issues but has been conducting these activities incident free.
“There had been no instances of any hatred against any community and also no hatred against the federation of Malaya,” he reminded.
Voon added that those who spoke openly on the issue were only aimed to educate the public of their legal rights about self-determination and rights of oppressed people gaining independence under international law.
“Sedition law should not therefore be used to restrict freedom of speech and liberty of people of Sabah and Sarawak,” he said. — DayakDaily
