GEORGE TOWN: The Sessions Court here today acquitted and discharged DAP state assemblyman for Seri Delima, RSN Rayer, of having uttered seditious words during a speech he had delivered in the Penang State Assembly in 2014.
In reading his judgment, Sessions Court judge Ibrahim Osman said the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case. He said Rayer had acted as a people’s representative in raising an issue in the proper forum of the state assembly.
He said the phrase “celaka Umno, biadap, kurang ajar” did not bear seditious tendency and the court had to look at all the words in Rayer’s speech in their entirety.
“I am not convinced that there was a tendency to refer to any particular race,” he said.
Rayer had used the word “celaka” in the state assembly on May 20, 2014 while speaking on the actions of certain Umno leaders who had participated in a protest with racial tones at Seberang Perai in January the same year.
He was charged under Section 4(1)(b) of the Sedition Act 1948 which, upon conviction, carries a fine of up to RM5,000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both.
Ibrahim said the prosecution had failed to prove there were seditious tendencies in the words in Rayer’s speech, stressing that the speech did not refer to any race or any individual.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Lim Saw Sim and Farah Amy Zainal Anwar prosecuted.
Upon the delivery of the verdict, Rayer thanked the judge and hugged his counsel Gobind Singh Deo, his family members and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng who was also present during the delivery of the verdict.
Speaking to reporters later today, Gobind called on the Attorney-General to “seriously consider” not filing an appeal.
He also called on the AG to withdraw an appeal in a separate case also involving Rayer where the Sessions Court had on April 29 this year acquitted and discharged him over a sedition charge involving the utterance of the phrase “celaka Umno” in a Bukit Gelugor by-election ceramah at Jalan Delima on May 22, 2014.
On May 21, 2014, the day after Rayer had made the remarks in the state assembly, a group of pro-Umno demonstrators held a protest outside the building and forced their way into the main assembly chamber.
On March 11, 2015, 15 of them were fined by the magistrate’s court RM1,500 each in default of two months jail after they pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal trespass into the state assembly building.