Two universities have been urged to withdraw their show cause letters against their students for participating in the #TangkapMO1 rally in August.

Human rights watchdog Hakam said Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) should respect the students' right to assembly and to express their outrage over a corruption scandal that has received global attention.

"The #TangkapMO1 rally was initiated and led by youth leaders and participated by mostly youths who have courageously taken the stand to protest against the largest financial scandal which has rocked our nation.

"The scandal has been touted as the 'world's biggest financial scandal' and involves 1MDB and the official known as MO1 (Malaysian Official 1).

"This case had been highlighted by our own MPs and numerous civil society organisations for the past two years.

"Investigations by law enforcement agencies from no less than nine foreign countries are in progress.

"Newspapers and the media worldwide have published extensively on this plunder of our nation’s resources," said Hakam in a statement.

Action 'ridiculous'

In view of the scale of the 1MDB controversy, punishing those who participated in the #TangkapMO1 rally would be seen as "ridiculous", especially since the show cause letters were issued two months after the event had concluded, said the NGO.

"One can't help but notice that the show cause letters were issued only after Bersih had announced November 19 as the date for the Bersih 5 rally," said Hakam, while commending youths for exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression.

During the August 27 rally, some 1,500 youths demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur to call for the arrest of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

This followed the US Department of Justice (DOJ) forfeiture suits to seize assets it claims had been derived from embezzled funds, including proceeds from the Wolf of Wall Street motion picture.

Among others, court documents filed by the DOJ claimed that a large sum of money originating from 1MDB ended up in the bank accounts of an unnamed "Malaysian Official 1".