Malaysia’s Najib left red-nosed as netizens clown around

Malaysia’s Najib left red-nosed as netizens clown around


Caricatures depicting Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak in clown face have gone viral, as netizens share images across the web in solidarity with an artist whose social media was placed under police surveillance. Fahmi Reza had tweeted the original portrait of Najib with clown-like features, as part of a campaign against Malaysia’s heavily criticised sedition act. Malaysia’s Police Cyber Investigation Response Centre then tweeted at him, warning him to use his account more “responsibly” and “in compliance with Malaysian laws” and informing him that they were now monitoring his account.

The warning promptly backfired. In an outpouring of protest, other clown-faced images of Najib were shared across the hashtag #kitasemuapenghasut (we are all seditious) accompanied by criticisms of the political and corruption scandals involving the Prime Minister, who was recently cleared of all wrongdoing in the infamous 1MDB scandal.