A Kuantan Trader Was Arrested After He Allegedly Wrote An Insulting Comment Against Agong
Before being arrested, the trader was also threatened by two other men.
By Sadho Ram — 03 Feb 2019, 12:24 PM
On Saturday, Kuantan police detained a 45-year-old man under the Sedition Act 1948 for allegedly insulting Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah on Facebook
Pahang police chief Zakaria Ahmad said the 45-year-old suspect was first detained in Kuantan before he was taken to the Temerloh District Police Headquarters in Temerloh, where a report against him was lodged earlier by 20 organisations comprising non-governmental organisations (NGOs), government departments and political bodies.
"The man was detained under the Sedition Act and will be investigated over his Facebook posting. We hope to complete investigations and submit the investigation paper to the Deputy Public Prosecutor's office for further action.
"The public should respect the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the royal institution instead of taking matters into their own hands," he said quoted as saying by NST Online.
In Jerantut, the Jerantut UMNO division, together with seven non-governmental organisations in the district, lodged a police report against the trader on Friday, 1 February.
Image via ROSELAN AB MALEK/STRThe Kuantan trader had reportedly written "muka macam 'end of the World' hihi" (face resembling the end of the World' hihi) in the comment section below the image of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong
A Facebook post which contained the image and the alleged insulting remarks went viral. While the post has since been deleted, NST Online published a screenshot.
Before he was arrested, two men had gone to the trader's premises to threaten him for his insulting comment against the Agong
They were recorded in a video clip confronting the trader.
The two - aged 32 and 36 - were later picked up after the 45-year-old victim lodged a police report at the district police station on Friday night, claiming that at 4.30pm, four men came by and cursed him and invited him to a fight.
In a statement, Kuantan police chief Mohamad Noor Yusof Ali said that "Initial investigations found the duo had scolded the victim at his shop because they were angry over the comments he had posted about the King and the Malay rulers on his Facebook site. They also uttered words whereby he feared for his safety."
According to Noor, the victim claimed that his comments uploaded on Thursday were in reply to a posting of a friend which came along with a picture of the King.
The two were detained under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation.
