Lawyer Paulsen arrested for sedition - Malaysiakini

Lawyer for Liberty (LFL) director Eric Paulsen was arrested for sedition at Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur today, believed to be linked to his tweet accusing the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) of promoting extremism.

He is arrested under Section 4 of the Sedition Act and taken to the Dang Wangi police station, LFL co-founder Latheefa Koya told Malaysiakini.

This was confirmed by police chief Khalid Abu Bakar in a tweet at 9.40pm today.

"We expect police to keep him overnight. We are on standby for the remand tomorrow," Latheefa said when contacted.

LFL said that about 20 police personnel arrested Paulsen.

"It is unnecessary and a waste of police resources," it said in a tweet.

This is because Paulsen had earlier agreed to co-operate with the investigation by presenting himself at Bukit Aman tomorrow, it said.


Police took Paulsen to his firm Daim & Gamany in Petaling Jaya to seize his laptop, Padang Serai MP and LFL co-founder N Surendran said.


In a 10.55pm update on Faceboook, LFL campaign coordinator Michelle Yesudas said police also seized Paulsen's mobile phone.

"Outrageous and horrific for this to happen to a human rights lawyer over a tweet.

"Clearly another red herring to confuse people between the man-made institution of Jakim and the sanctity of religion," she said.

Paulsen last Friday tweeted that Jakim is promoting extremism every Friday.

"Government needs to address that if serious about extremism," he wrote on Twitter, but he later deleted the tweet.

Jakim produces Friday prayer sermons published on the Jakim website and read out in mosques in the Federal Territories.

'Anti-Islam'

Among those who condemned the tweet include PAS Youth deputy chief Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi who said it was anti-Islam.

Paulsen (right) today also lodged a police report over a death threat made against him through Twitter and instant messenger application WhatsApp.

In a statement yesterday, the human rights lawyer criticised police for acting against him after pressure from "pro-Umno cybertroopers".

IGP Khalid said police will probe Paulsen for sedition after pro-Umno bloggers trained their guns at the lawyer over his tweet.

Khalid also posted a picture of DAP's Kampar MP Ko Chung Sen, claiming that the latter too will be probed for calling for Islamic civilisation studies be scrapped.

But the photograph with Ko's supposed quote was edited and the MP flayed the IGP for not following his own advice to not spread false information.