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View all search resultsFree Anwar petition back again, exceeds target
The White House on Wednesday re-enabled a petition calling for jailed Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to be freed after it was removed "for violating the website's 'terms of participation
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T
he White House on Wednesday re-enabled a petition calling for jailed Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to be freed after it was removed "for violating the website's 'terms of participation.'"
A statement from the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur indicated that the petition was initially removed because fraud checks indicated a high number of anomalous signatures.
"There were multiple petitions related to the imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim and after follow-up assessment, The White House determined that the petition it removed was not the one that contained fraudulent signatures," it said.
The embassy said they will extend the deadline to account for the time lost while the petition was disabled. They also assured that no signatures were removed from the petition.
The petition to free Anwar has since garnered 108,528 signatures, exceeding the targeted 100,000 signatures before the March 12 deadline.
The White House has, meanwhile, disabled the petition titled 'Respecting the Sovereign Nation of Malaysia' after they detected a number of fraudulent signatures.
"Once the invalid signatures are removed, the White House will re-enable the petition, extending the deadline to account for the time lost while the petition was disabled," the US Embassy said.
The White House's 'We the People' site allows Americans to ask the Obama administration to take action on a range of important issues facing the country.
It states that the White House will review a petition if it gets enough support. The government will then send it to appropriate policy experts and issue an official response. (***)
