PETALING JAYA: Sketches of Prime Minister Najib Razak depicted as a clown have now surfaced thousands of kilometres from Malaysia – in Perth, Australia.
Artist and activist Fahmi Reza earlier today uploaded on his Facebook page, pictures of the sketches on the wall of the Malaysia Hall building, which belongs to the Education Ministry.
Attributing the emergence of the images of the PM in a clown get-up to the “stifling of democracy in Malaysia”, he also urged Malaysians residing in Australia to share more such photographs in their respective social media accounts.
He said the stifling of democracy was evident as many Malaysians had been “hauled up by the authorities for voicing dissent against the Government.”
“It is easy to label youth who do political graffiti as vandals and troublemakers, but have we ever tried to understand why they resort to such actions in the first place?” he asked in his post.
He added the acts of spray-painting graffiti emerged because protests made through “the right channels” had been ignored or stopped.
“When brave voices are acted upon by authorities who protect a ‘corruptor’, youths will create their own channels to send a message to those in power,” he said.
On February 23, Fahmi wrote on Facebook that he was being investigated by the police under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and Section 504 of the Penal Code for posting the clown posters on Twitter on January 31. He was also told his Twitter account was under police supervision.
He has however said he was prepared to continue fighting for the people’s rights and freedom to criticise “corrupt rulers”, and that he was not afraid to face whatever action was taken against him.