Human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen today accused authorities of having political motives in investigating dissenting voices, shortly before he is due to be questioned over tweets critical of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Tuesday June 16, 2015
12:53 PM GMT+8
KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 ― Human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen today accused authorities of having political motives in investigating dissenting voices, shortly before he is due to be questioned over tweets critical of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In a series of posts on his Twitter account, Paulsen told the police and Attorney-General to focus on “real crimes” instead of going after politicians and activists.
“In most cases, blatant double standards applied for Umno/ pro-Umno personalities like Ibrahim Ali, Mohd Azli, Masitah Ibrahim, Ismail Sabri…while cracking down hard against dissidents and opposition for anything remotely controversial eg Surendran, Azmi Sharom, Adam Adli, Rayer, etc” he wrote.
“These cases are wasting valuable public resources ― police & AGC should address real crimes, rather than on politically motivated offences.”
Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) announced on Twitter yesterday that Paulsen will be questioned at the federal police headquarters at Bukit Aman at 3pm today for investigations under Section 504 and 505 of the Penal Code for provocation and public mischief.
Paulsen’s lawyer and fellow member in LFL, Latheefa Koya, confirmed that the police have contacted him over his tweets in the past few weeks for criticising Najib.
“Yes, they called on Sunday,” she told Malay Mail Online.
Paulsen confirmed one of the few tweets he is being investigated for was a June 6 post with a link to a Bernama report posted titled ‘Najib in Saudi Arabia for 3-day visit, umrah’.
In the post, he tweeted: “Oh dear, under siege, can’t answer for 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) disaster ― cabut to do umrah. Alim lah konon”.
He was referring to Najib’s absence in the highly-anticipated “Nothing2Hide” forum that was cancelled at the last minute for “security” reasons.
The human rights lawyer was charged with sedition twice this year for his tweets criticising the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and hudud.
