Lawyer Eric Paulsen arrested, again

Human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen has been arrested by police around 5.45pm today at the Art for Grabs fair at Dataran Underground.

It is believed he was detained over his recent tweets on hudud, which were deemed seditious.

The Lawyers for Liberty (LFL), in its tweet, said Paulsen has been brought to the Dang Wangi district police headquarters.

His lawyer, Melissa Sasidaran, was with him during his arrest. The police also confiscated his phone.

Police are here at #ArtForGrabs to arrest @EricPaulsen101 and confiscate his phone.
— Melissa Sasidaran (@melissa_ms) March 22, 2015

LFL tweeted that police might keep Paulsen overnight and remand him.

Eric is currently at Dang Wangi police station and the police plan to keep him overnight and remand him
— Lawyers For Liberty (@lawyers4liberty) March 22, 2015

Paulsen this morning had tweeted his comments about hudud, among them saying there is no basis that the implementation of hudud will run smoothly in Malaysia.

He had also described hudud as a “word to show injustice especially to girls and women”.

In another tweet, Paulsen had said hudud law has no place in today’s modern world as it involves torture, is a brutal law and inhumane.

Subsequently, Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said action will be taken against the LFL co-founder.

This is the second time that Paulsen has been arrested this year. He was arrested on the night of Jan 12, also under the Sedition Act 1948, over his tweets criticizing the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) for spreading extremism via Friday sermons.