My role as a lawyer in Fahmi Reza's case

During our critical thinking tutorial, each of us were given roles to play involving Fahmi Reza's case. Fahmi Reza is a Malaysian graphic artist who was charged on June 6 for violating multimedia laws by caricaturing Prime Minister Najib Razak as a sinister clown to protest at allegations of massive corruption. So, the role given to me was to be a lawyer for Fahmi Reza. The following are some of the points spoken by me during the role play.

My first point to defend Fahmi Reza’s act was every citizen living in Malaysia are entitled to their own opinion. The reason Fahmi Reza performed such act was because he feels the Prime Minister is guilty. Instead of punishing him, he should be given a chance to confess the reasons why he committed such act. Not only that, I also emphasized the reason why he performed such act is because he sees social media as the best platform for him to attract million of followers. If he wants to present his opinion in a legal manner, there would be higher chance that his opinion will be ignored.

My second point is to abolish Sedition Act. Sedition Act was enacted by the British and have also abolished it. If British who invented Sedition Act and have abolished it, why can’t Malaysia abolish Sedition Act? The Sedition Act is becoming an obstacle for citizens of Malaysia to voice out their opinions or dissatisfaction about the government. If the opinions of the citizens in a country are not taken into consideration, how can a country progress?

In my personal opinion, Sedition Act should be abolished in our country because it gives room for politicians to commit mistakes and not being questioned. I believe an appropriate platform should be created to allow citizens of the country to express their dissatisfaction towards the government.

To conclude, I thoroughly enjoyed my role as a lawyer to defend Fahmi Reza because it gives me experience on how a lawyer would defend their client. Even though, I may have violated the court procedures, but it was an exciting experience.