White House re-enabled Free Anwar petition on its website, says US Embassy

The US Embassy Kuala Lumpur on Thursday has released a statement in response to the removal of a petition calling for the release of jailed Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’, from the White House website.

The statement was released on the US Embassy website early Wednesday.

The 'Free Anwar' petition titled, “Make the Release of Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim from Prison a Top Priority for U.S. Policy toward Malaysia’ was first published on the White House portal on February 10.

Yesterday, Astro AWANI reported that the petition was removed from the White House website. It was re-uploaded less than 24 hours later, said PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil on his Twitter, early Wednesday.

Free Anwar

A screengrab of the Free Anwar petition which was first published on the White House website on February 2. - Screengrab Image

An attempt to obtain a reaction from US Embassy officials, yesterday turned futile.

Below is the official U.S. Embassy statement:

"On March 9, White House standard fraud checks indicated a high number of anomalous signatures on a petition related to the imprisonment of de facto leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

There were multiple petitions related to this issue, and after follow-up assessment, the White House determined that the petition it removed was not the one that contained fraudulent signatures.

To account for the error, the White House has since re-enabled the petition titled “Make the Release of Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim from Prison a Top Priority for U.S. Policy toward Malaysia,” and is extending the deadline to account for the time lost while the petition was disabled.

No signatures were removed."