(March 31): The Malaysian Insider managing editor Lionel Morais, Bahasa news editor Amin Iskandar and features and analysis editor, Zulkifli Sulong were released at 8.20pm today from Dang Wangi police station.

The three were in good spirits despite spending the night at the Dang Wangi police station since yesterday evening.

This morning, the magistrates' court rejected the police's application to remand the trio and ordered the newsmen released by this evening.

They were arrested yesterday at The Edge Media Group's office in Mutiara Damansara in connection with a police report lodged by an official from the Conference of Rulers last week.

Police had also confiscated the editors' phones and a laptop to facilitate their investigation.

Two more journalists remain in detention – The Edge publisher Ho Kay Tat and The Malaysian Insider chief executive Jahabar Sadiq – who were detained today when they turned up at the Dang Wangi police station to record their statements at 10.30am.

The duo are expected to be detained for 24 hours pending a remand hearing in which police will apply for a remand order to continue their detention.

The arrests were made over a report published on March 25 which said that the Conference of Rulers had rejected a proposal to amend a federal law that would pave the way for hudud to be enforced in Kelantan.

The article said that the proposal to amend the law was in a report by the joint Hudud Technical Committee, which comprised of Kelantan state religious officials and those from the federal government. The joint committee had prepared the report on the proposed amendments for the rulers to consider at their meeting on March 11, but it did not go through.

The Keeper of the Rulers' Seal lodged a police report on March 26 to deny that the Conference of Rulers had discussed the matter and that it had never issued any statement on hudud in Kelantan.

The newsmen are being investigated under Section 4 (1) of the Sedition Act 1948, which carries a maximum fine of RM5,000, a maximum three-year jail term or both.

They are also being investigated under Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998. – The Malaysian Insider