KUALA LUMPUR – A Malaysian political cartoonist was arrested after criticising the conviction for sodomy of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Twitter, police and a rights group said on Wednesday.
“These lackeys in black are proud in sentencing,’’ Zulkiflee Haque, popularly known as
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Zunar, alleged posted.
According to Zainuddin Ahmad, the city’s police criminal investigation chief, Zunar wrote, “There must have been attractive rewards given by their political masters.’’
However, the post was not available on his Twitter feed on Wednesday.
Anwar saw his conviction confirmed for sodomizing a male aide in 2008, along with a five-year prison sentence, when the country’s highest court rejected his last possible appeal.
Zainuddin said that Zunar, 52, was arrested on Tuesday in front of his house in the district of Pantai Dalam in Kuala Lumpur.
Police said that he was being investigated under the 1948 Sedition Act.
The colonial-era law prohibits stirring up hatred of the government or tensions between the country’s ethnic and religious groups.
Phil Robertson, a deputy director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, slammed Zunar’s arrest as an attempt to silence peaceful dissent.
“The arrest and charges would be laughable except the police inspector-general and the Malaysian ‘Twitter police’ apparently don’t have a sense of humour,’’ he said in a statement.
According to an order by Police Inspector General, Khalid Abu Bakar, two members of Anwar’s political opposition were also to be investigated for criticising the decision of the Federal Court.
Anwar supporters were to hold nightly vigils starting on Wednesday outside the Sungai Buloh prison in the outskirt of Kuala Lumpur, where the 67-year-old opposition leader is to serve his jail term. (dpa/NAN)