The charges were related to a public rally on Aug 27 calling for “the arrest of Malaysian Official 1 (MO1)”.

“The students can practise critical thinking and reasoning and decide for themselves,” said Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto in a statement. “They know what’s right and wrong.”

She urged the people to sign an online petition to the vice chancellor, Mohd Amin Jalaludin, on the matter.

Kasthuri called on the people to stand in solidarity with the students “who have been victims of a paranoid, cowardly establishment that chooses to silence voices of dissent”.

She added that UM had no business prohibiting its students from a public rally or the freedom to speak their minds.

She believed the three panel members, Associate Prof Nahrizul Adib Kadri, Prof Azizah Hamzah and Prof Mohd Suffian bin Mohd Annuar, brought disrepute to UM by allowing “hidden hands to manoeuvre the conviction of the four students”.

The four students – Anis Syafiqah, Mohamad Luqman Nul Haqim, Muhammad Luqman Hakim and Suhail Wan Azahar – were found guilty for allegedly “acting in a manner that was detrimental and prejudicial to the interest and good reputation of the University of Malaya”.

Kasthuri however pointed out that the four students echoed public demands for the government to “arrest MO1 who is neck-deep in a colossal global corruption scandal”.

If the Federal Constitution, the supreme law of the land, provides for freedom to speak and assemble, said Kasthuri, “an institute of higher learning cannot contradict the spirit of the Constitution”.

The decision of the panelists clearly contradicts Article 10(a) of the Federal Constitution, she said. “It provides for freedom of speech and expression.”

Article 10(b) protects the freedom to assemble peacefully.