Raja Petra Kamarudin declines visitors in jail, but gets a pair of spectacles from his wife

Raja Petra behind bars at the PJ Court lock-up

Raja Petra Kamaruddin remains incarcerated in the Sungai Buluh prison, adamant in his refusal to meet anyone, not even his wife, who twice attempted to see him on Wednesday 7^th May 2008.

After having failed to meet him on her first visit earlier in the day, Marina Lee Abdullah tried again at 12:30, however RPK still declined to see her, she was accompanied by their 19 year old daughter and lawyer Matthias Chang, but she did managed to deliver, via a prison warden, the pair of spectacles he had requested earlier.

Marina said she believed Raja Petra is refusing meals in prison, besides declining visitors, as he had acted similarly when was detained under the Internal Security Act for three months in 2001.

Raja Petra is the first blogger to be charged under the Sedition Act 1948, making this a test case.

He is accused of publishing the article "Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell", on website www.malaysia-today.net., Raja Petra was been charged under Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act 1948 for allegedly making seditious statements in an article that he had written on his website Malaysia Today, which was posted on 25^th April 2008. it was alleged to have contained nine paragraphs containing supposedly seditious matter.

The article allegedly implied that Deputy PM Najib and his wife, Rosmah were involved in the murder of a Mongolian lady Altantuya Shaariibuu.

The supposedly seditious nine paragraphs (click on image for larger view)

In the Altantuya murder case, political analyst Razak Baginda, a close associate of Najib's, is charged with abetting the grisly murder of Altantuya, by two Special Action Force (UTK) policemen in 2006, who allegedly blew her up with C4 plastic explosives.
The trial, which began in June 2007, is still under way.

Raja Petra, a member of the Selangor royal house, pleaded not guilty to the sedition charge.

'We bloggers have declared war on the government. We want to change the government,' he told reporters before he was formally charged.

The charge was lambasted by the opposition as an attempt to clamp down on blogs.

Originally RPK was instructed to attend the court in Kuala Lumpur, but before his case was mentioned, he was told be telephone to go to the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court, one can only speculate the reasons for this, but it does put the Malaysian judicial system in a bad light, and it sounds very suspicious too, since there seems to have been no official explanations as to the reason for the change of court.

A Petaling Jaya Sessions Court judge Nurmala Salim set a period of five days for the trail, from 6^th October 2008, and offered Raja Petra bail of RM5,000.

Raja Petra subsequently, refused to post bail and was taken to Sg Buloh prison.

Meanwhile, the Bar Council of Malaysia has called on the authorities to withdraw the charge against Raja Petra.

“The Sedition Act is a draconian, archaic and repressive legislation that has long outlived any perceived utility it might ever have had,” it said in a press release.

Ne cede malis

- Yield not to evils