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For­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray has ac­cused the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion of ap­ply­ing “dou­ble stan­dards” on free­dom of speech, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent ac­tions mir­ror com­plaints once made by the Op­po­si­tion when it sat on the oth­er side of Par­lia­ment.

In a de­tailed pub­lic state­ment, Paray said his re­view of po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments be­tween Feb­ru­ary 16, 2016 and Feb­ru­ary 16, 2026 iden­ti­fied at least six in­stances in which the then-Op­po­si­tion ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of re­strict­ing or ma­nip­u­lat­ing po­lit­i­cal speech and me­dia ac­cess.

He cit­ed calls in Sep­tem­ber 2019 for re­peal of the Sedi­tion Act, claims of po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion linked to free­dom of ex­pres­sion, and al­le­ga­tions in Ju­ly 2021 that me­dia ac­cess to gov­ern­ment events had been re­strict­ed. He al­so ref­er­enced warn­ings in Jan­u­ary 2023 about a drift to­ward one-par­ty dom­i­nance, as well as com­plaints dur­ing the March 2025 elec­tion pe­ri­od that me­dia hous­es were pres­sured to lim­it Op­po­si­tion ad­ver­tis­ing and that the State broad­cast­er re­strict­ed Op­po­si­tion air­time.