If you can’t beat them, charge them

IS NAJIB RAZAK, Malaysia’s prime minister, a reformer? Those who say that he is can point to the economic liberalisation of his first term, from 2009 to 2013, and to his repeal of the dreaded Internal Security Act, which allowed indefinite detention without trial. However, over the past few weeks, those more sceptical of his reformist tendencies have been handed some good evidence of their own.

Since August 26th three opposition parliamentarians have been charged with sedition for making statements critical of the government. Most notable of them is N. Surendran, an MP who is also a lawyer defending Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, against charges of sodomy. Mr Surendran was charged over a press release he issued last April that called an appellate-court judgment against Mr Anwar “flawed, defensive and insupportable”, and for an online video in which he said that the sodomy charges against Mr Anwar were “an attempt to jail the opposition leader of Malaysia” for which “we hold Najib Tun Razak [Malaysia’s prime minister] personally responsible.”