KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 12 — Human Rights Watch (HRW) today called on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s government to step up the pace of legal reforms to better protect minority communities and freedoms.

At the local launch of HRW’s World Report 2023, which records country-specific human rights abuses from last year, the international watchdog’s deputy Asia director Phil Robertson called on the Malaysian government to undertake "durable and rights-respecting” reforms, highlighting several key areas like capital punishment, free speech, and protection of refugees and people with different sexual orientations.

"The new government should commit to ending the death penalty, lifting restrictions on free speech rights, and stopping abuses against refugees and LGBT people,” he said in the online launch today.

In its 712-page, HRW said that in 2022, under former prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, authorities had aggressively cracked down on free speech and peaceful protests, and increased discrimination and harassment of refugees, migrants, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

It said that the previous government used a range of "broad and vaguely worded laws” to prosecute critical speech, including the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998.

Among the critical speech issues HRW brought up were the multiple arrests and court charges last year of artist and political satirist Fahmi Reza, as well as the police block of some 300 lawyers who in June held a march in the name of protecting judicial independence.

"In July, the government took a major step backward on police accountability by pushing a bill through parliament to create a toothless Independent Police Complaints Commission.

"The new commission will have no powers of search and seizure, limited powers to compel production of evidence, and no ability to hold hearings,” read the report.

On women’s rights, the report touched on how last August, the Court of Appeal overturned a 2021 High Court ruling that granted automatic citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysian mothers and foreign fathers.

On children’s rights, HRW highlighted Malaysian laws still allow minors to be married.It also pointed out that although the government had sought to abolish the death penalty, Parliament was dissolved to pave the way for fresh elections last November before amendments to the law could be passed.

But de facto law and reform minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said recently affirmed the Anwar administration’s commitment to end the death penalty and said it will be looking into alternative measures instead.

Among the alternative suggestions that have been raised include setting up a special tribunal similar to the Pardons Board to decide the fate of over 1,000 prisoners who are currently on death row.