DAP wishes to reprimand the police for practicing double standards and arbitrarily exercising their powers in seeking a 4-day remand order for Hew Kuan Yau, also known as ‘Superman’ to facilitate investigations for allegedly insulting the Prime Minister and his wife.
Even though we may not agree with what he has written, it should not justify the 4-day remand order. Such an offence under the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 for insulting the Prime Minister and his wife cannot be so severe until he has to be remanded 4 days as compared to other offences such as financial scandals which have caused great financial loss to the country and harm to the people such as 1MDB, RM52 Billion scandal and the USD1 Billion donation scandal.
DAP urges the police to exercise their power proportionately, and not excessively. If the 4- day remand order was imposed on Jho Low as a suspect to facilitate investigations into the 1MDB scandal, this will be considered appropriate but certainly not for an offence which is deemed rude and can be immediately charged in Court without needing to be detained overnight.
The imposition of a 4-day remand order would be seen as a form of pre-emptive punishment towards Hew when investigation towards his 1 line post on Facebook can be wrapped up in less than a day. While Hew has said that he is prepared to face any punishment over his 1 liner post on Facebook, such punishment if any, should be meted out by the Court and certainly not by the police through this remand order.
DAP sympathises with Hew for this excessive punishment and expresses concern over his health condition following his hunger strike protest. DAP urges the police to finish investigations against Hew quickly so that he can be released before the remand order expires on Friday.