There are many ways this editorial could fall foul of Malaysian law. If it is too critical of Malaysia's government, or of its courts, or of its system of racial preferences for Malays (the biggest ethnic group), or of its pampered and prickly sultans, it could be deemed seditious. If it contradicts the government's account of any given event or circumstance, it could be in breach of the Anti-Fake News Act, adopted last year. Then there is a series of restrictive laws about who can publish what and who can give offence to whom (it is essential to steer clear of anything that might be construed by a paranoid prosecutor as an insult to Islam, in particular). These rules give the police an excuse to arrest irksome journalists and hand censors the authority to ban and seize offending material. If all else fails, a trio of laws that allow long periods of detention without trial can be used to lock up activists, opposition politicians or anyone else.
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