its part by criminalizing the doing of any act or the uttering of any words having a seditious tendency, and dealings with seditious publications. The Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act ("MRHA") is another piece of this legislative jigsaw. It was introduced to ensure that adherents of different religious groups exercise tolerance and moderation, and to keep religion out of politics. Minister for Home Affairs S. Jayakumar stated that the MRHA takes a pre-emptive approach and can be invoked in a restrained manner to enable prompt and effective action. In contrast with the punitive approach of the Sedition Act where a breach of the statute carries criminal liability, under the MRHA restraining orders may be imposed upon people causing feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between different religious groups, among other things. Criminal sanctions only apply if such orders are contravened. While the MRHA is meant to efficiently quell mischief of a religious nature, the Sedition Act encompasses a broader category of mischief. A plain reading suggests that section 3 of the Sedition Act governs racial and class activities. However, it has been argued that the mischief of the MRHA is subsumed under the Sedition Act. This is because in Koh Song Huat Benjamin, Senior District Judge Magnus employed the phrases "anti-Muslim" and "anti-Malay" interchangeably and suggested that the Sedition Act governs acts which connote anti-religious sentiments. Unlike the Sedition Act, the MRHA excludes the word "tendency", which means there must be evidence that the person has "committed" or "is attempting to commit" an act that harms religious harmony, instead of having a mere tendency cause such harm. Penal Code, section 298A Another statutory counterpart to the Sedition Act is section 298A of the Penal Code, which was introduced in 2007 to "criminalise the deliberate promotion by someone of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different racial and religious groups on grounds of race or religion". Unlike the Sedition Act, section 298A includes the additional requirement of knowledge, and excludes a proviso which decriminalizes certain bona fide acts. Nonetheless, even though section 298A is regarded as an alternative to the Sedition Act, it has been proposed that the law should make clearer when section 298A, instead of the Sedition Act, should be employed. Proposal for legislation for inter-group antagonism Currently, the Sedition Act has both "vertical" and "horizontal" dimensions. The Act has vertical effect in that it criminalizes statements which incites