Six Malaysians were on Wednesday charged with sedition for participating in last month’s “illegal” demonstration against the move by the Selangor state authorities to relocate a Hindu temple.
Six others were charged for “illegal assembly.” The accused in the “sedition case,” first produced in a Sessions Court at Shah Alam, were served with an alternative charge of wounding the religious sentiments of the ethnic Indians.
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Penalties vary for proven sedition and the other offence of hurting the religious sensitivity of any community in multiracial Malaysia, where Malay-Muslims are in a majority. And, Malaysian leaders have called for communal amity.
Those charged in the “sedition” case were produced in a Magistrate’s Court as well. All 12 were later released on bail. And, according to Malaysia’s national news agency, all the accused pleaded not guilty.