With sedition dragnet, Malaysia takes step back to Mahathir era

Members of the Malaysian People's Volunteer Corps (RELA) confront university students during a rally calling for the repeal of the Sedition Act outside the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs building in Putrajaya September 5, 2014.

(Reuters) - Malaysian authorities are carrying out the broadest crackdown on the political opposition and social activists since the era of strongman leader Mahathir Mohamad, as traditionalists in the long-ruling ethnic Malay party appear to gain the upper hand.

The setback for civil liberties in the multi-ethnic former British colony, which had appeared set on a path of greater openness just two years ago, comes as democracy retreats across mainland Southeast Asia following a military coup in Thailand and fading reform hopes in Myanmar and Cambodia.

Susan Loone, a reporter at online news site Malaysiakini, which is critical of the government, was the latest to be detained by police on Thursday under the colonial-era Sedition Act, days after a law professor was charged over comments in an online news article on a 2009 political crisis.

Prosecutors have charged four people with sedition in the past two weeks, including the professor, with new police investigations against opposition figures or activists being announced frequently.

This year, seven opposition politicians, six of them members of parliament, have been charged with crimes, including sedition, for things they have said. Another has been convicted.

The opposition's de facto leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was convicted and sentenced to jail in March on a sodomy charge that rights groups say was politically motivated.

The three-party opposition, which has eroded the ruling coalition's majority in two straight elections, says the 1948 Sedition Act is being employed selectively against its members, allies and social activists to undermine the alliance.