KUALA LUMPUR: Police detained Nurul Izzah Anwar (pic) under the Sedition Act yesterday, over a speech made in Parliament, making her the latest opposition lawmaker to be held under the colonial era law.

She will spend a night in jail at the Jinjang police station, as her remand hearing has been set for 10am today.

The Lembah Pantai MP had gone to the Dang Wangi police station to get her statement taken when she was arrested.

Nurul Izzah, who is also PKR vice-president, had been ordered by police to give her statement at the Dang Wangi police headquarters yesterday in connection with the #KitaLawan rally held in Kuala Lumpur on March 7.

She is also under investigation for sedition over a recent speech she made in Parliament, where she criticised the judiciary over the Federal Court verdict that upheld her father, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s, conviction for sodomy.

Nurul Izzah told reporters earlier at around 2.30pm yesterday that the police informed her that she would be investigated under Section 4(1) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012.

She said that last Friday, an ASP Muniandy had arrived at her home with two police cars looking for her and she expressed surprise at the need to do so as she had already agreed to go to the police station yesterday.

The day before police went to her house, former Perkasa vice-president Datuk Zulkifli Noordin lodged a police report against her over her speech delivered in Parliament on March 10. In her speech, she read out portions of the text of Anwar’s speech since the opposition leader is in Sungai Buloh prison serving a five-year jail sentence.

Nurul Izzah reiterated Anwar’s claim that the sodomy charges and trial were a political conspiracy, and also accused the judges of “bowing to political masters”, also calling them “partners in a crime that contributed to the death of a free judiciary”. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 17, 2015.