Many of us in the Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the UPR Process (MACSA) are lawyers and leading academicians, and the recent article by Eric Paulsen titled ‘The sun has set on Victorian-era laws’ gives us all pause. Eric would have us believe that our nation of Malaysia having freed herself from the shackles of British colonialism must now rid herself of sundry so-called ‘oppressive’ laws enacted during the time our ancestors had to endure the same. These include sections of the ‘archaic’ Penal Code on sodomy (sections 377A and 377B), enticement of a married woman (section 498), insulting modesty (section 509) and of course, the enactment he is currently being charged under for wantonly accusing Jakim of promoting extremism by the preparation of Friday sermons,
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