Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) co-founder Eric Paulsen was arrested today in Kuala Lumpur, his lawyer Melissa Sasidaran said in a tweet.
She said police confiscated Paulsen’s phone and took him for questioning at the Dang Wangi police headquarters.
“Police are here at #ArtForGrabs to arrest @EricPaulsen101 and confiscate his phone,” she tweeted.
This was soon followed by another tweet: “@EricPaulsen101 will be brought to Dang Wangi soon to be investigated for sedition over tweets #MansuhAktaHasutan”.
Sasidaran said Paulsen was arrested at Dataran Merdeka underground at 4.50pm when he went to attend the Arts For Grab event there.
“He is arrested for violating the Sedition Act but detail are sketchy,” she said.
She added that police would not be recording his statement today and would likely keep him in a police lock-up while awaiting a remand order tomorrow morning.
Paulsen’s arrest was believed to have come after a series of his tweets questioning the implementation of hudud in Kelantan.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar today told The Rakyat Post that Paulsen should “watch his habit and mouth” in making comments on sensitive issues, such as religion.
“Who is Eric Paulsen to question whether the hudud law is fair or not? It’s a sensitive issue, why question that?
“I will review the tweets he sent out and the police will take action.” he was quoted by the news portal as saying.
The report said Paulsen’s tweet, “Do not simply believe that everything will be okay with hudud implementation – no basis that hudud will run smoothly in Malaysia”, drew angry comments on Twitter, leading users to tagged Khalid’s Twitter account, @KBAB51.
The report said Khalid later responded by saying, “@PDRMsia look at these comments on religion seriously by those who are not an expert in it. PDRM has no choice but to take action against them.” – March 22, 2015.
– See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/human-rights-lawyer-eric-paulsen-nabbed-for-sedition-in-kl#sthash.ILIWlb5H.dpuf