“I was just given the green light to start this process (of amending the Act) two weeks ago. The objective is not to tighten controls but to determine how we can invoke the act to manage the situation that has been referred to as the 3R (race, religion and royalty) phenomenon,” he said.

The minister was speaking on an episode of the Keluar Sekejap podcast in response to former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s query whether Putrajaya intended to review the Sedition Act.

In July last year, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said the Cabinet agreed to review the Sedition Act so that the law would only be used against those who insult royalty.

Azalina’s announcement came shortly after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim cautioned the opposition against criticising the Malay rulers, saying that such actions were unacceptable. The prime minister said he would never use the Sedition Act against his critics but only file lawsuits or, at most, police reports against them.

Anwar’s remarks came after PAS election director Sanusi Nor claimed trial to two counts of uttering seditious remarks against the royalty.

Saifuddin repeated Anwar’s stand, saying the government is against using the Sedition Act for political matters. “However, for matters related to religion and the monarch, this law is all we have,” he said.

He said police received 170 3R-related reports last year, of which only seven led to criminal charges.

In January, rights group Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture urged the government to honour its pledge to only apply the Sedition Act to provocation towards the royal institution.

This was after blogger Wan Azri Wan Deris, a former Umno Youth leader, was slapped with a sedition charge for claiming that the government was “pro-Israel and pro-Western nations”.

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