Repeal of Sedition Act should be at next Parliament sitting – Gobind

KUALA LUMPUR: The repeal of the Sedition Act should take place at the next sitting of Parliament, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo.

He said he will call for a moratorium on the act at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

“PH (Pakatan Harapan) on track to repeal Sedition Act. AG (Attorney-General) working on it. Just checked again this afternoon,” he said on his Twitter account yesterday.

Gobind Singh also posted a link to a news article by an online portal that stated that lawyers were disappointed with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's alleged lack of commitment to a moratorium on the act pending its repeal.

According to the Dewan Rakyat calendar, the House is scheduled to sit from Oct 15 to Dec 11.

Earlier yesterday, Dr Mahathir said the government will not set any timeline to repeal the Sedition Act.

He said repealing the act will take time as it needs to be passed by Parliament.

"We can't determine exactly the timeline...we will not be able to keep to the time fixed," he said to reporters after launching a book titled "Tun Ismail Ali Paragon of Trust and Integrity" at Sasana Kijang here.

There have been criticisms by several quarters that the act has been used several times by the new government, the latest being in the case of Azman Noor Adam, a brother of UMNO supreme council member Datuk Lokman Noor Adam, who was arrested under the act.