KUALA LUMPUR: Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, who was arrested under the Sedition Act on Monday for an alleged remark in the Dewan Rakyat, was released yesterday on police bail, said her lawyer and Subang MP R Sivarasa.

“Nurul Izzah was released at 12.30pm. We are not sure whether Nurul Izzah will be charged in court,” he was reported as saying by Bernama.

Kuala Lumpur CID chief, Senior Assistant Commissioner Zainuddin Ahmad confirmed that Nurul Izzah had been released.

Nurul Izzah was held under the Sedition Act on Monday to assist in the investigations into a gathering here on March 7 and a remark on the judiciary she had allegedly made in the Dewan Rakyat last week.

Nurul Izzah’s arrest prompted a global jurists’ group to condemn Putrajaya’s continued use of the Sedition Act 1948, The Malaysian Insider reported. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), comprising 60 judges and lawyers from all regions of the world, said the Sedition Act’s vague and broad provisions were incompatible with international human rights standards.

“The Malaysian authorities must stop the continued use of the offence of sedition to arbitrarily detain and stifle freedom of expression,” ICJ Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi said in a statement on Monday night.The commission said the Sedition Act “contemplates restrictions on the exercise of freedom of expression that are grossly overbroad and inconsistent with basic rule of law and human rights principles”.

It added the term “seditious tendencies” mentioned in the act was “ambiguously defined” to mean any kind of speech or publication that causes hatred or contempt, or excite disaffection against any ruler or the government or promotes ill will and hostility among the different races or classes.

“Furthermore, sedition is a strict liability offence in Malaysia, which means that the intention of a person allegedly making seditious statements is irrelevant. For instance, a person making a statement may not have the intent to cause ‘hatred or contempt’ towards the government, but may nonetheless be held liable for sedition if authorities believe that the person in fact incited such feelings,” said ICJ.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said Nurul Izzah’s arrest meant that the government was bent on stifling free speech and criminalising dialogue considered normal in political discourse.— The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 18, 2015.