Is Najib Razak the  Prime Minister of a two-headed government – whose PM wants Malaysia to be the world “best democracy” but whose AG’s sedition spree aims to make Malaysia the world’s “worst democracy”?

Is Datuk Seri Najib Razak the Prime Minister of a two-headed government – whose Prime Minister wants Malaysia to be the world’s “best democracy” but whose Attorney-General’s recent sedition spree of selective and malicious prosecutions aims to make Malaysia the world’s “worst democracy”.

This question automatically arises from the parliamentary answer today on the recent sedition blitz by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who asked the Prime Minister whether the government’s use of the law against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, activists and intellectuals was in line with the prime minister’s commitment to make Malaysia more democratic.

Answering during Parliament’s Question Time, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri defended the spate of sedition prosecutions, claiming that the Malaysian government practises and upholds the doctrine of the separation of powers and as such the government does not interfere in the Attorney-General’s Chambers affairs.

Nancy is very mixed-up as she has made a fatal error about the doctrine of separation of powers, as the Attorney-General is part of the executive and not the judiciary in the doctrine of separation of powers among the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.

The doctrine of separation of powers is totally irrelevant and does not apply in the  blitzkrieg of sedition prosecutions – which is an executive action and not an action of the judiciary.

Although Article 145(3) of the Malaysian Constitution vests in the Attorney-General the sole discretionary power “to institute, continue or discontinue any proceedings for any offence”, the AG’s prosecution decisions are actions of the Executive and not of the Judiciary, which means the Prime Minister must assume full responsibilities for the AG’s decision and cannot disclaim responsibility on the ground of the doctrine of separation of powers.

It is completely unthinkable in any parliamentary democracy that the   Attorney-General could give the country a bad international reputation by launching a dragnet of selective and malicious prosecutions under a  repressive colonial law like the Sedition Act, and the  Prime Minister can fold his arms to disclaim responsibility on the ground that he is not responsible for the  actions of the AG on the ground that this is a judicial and not an executive exercise of power.

A responsible Prime Minister would have reined in the Attorney-General and end the spate of sedition prosecutions, especially when they are completely at odds with his mandate to make Malaysia the world’s “best democracy” and  are selective and malicious as being aimed at opposition leaders, critics and activists, or  alternatively, sack the incumbent and  appoint a  new Attorney-General.

Why is Najib allowing the Attorney-General to make mince-meat of his pledge to make Malaysia the world’s best democracy with his spate of sedition prosecutions – unless the Prime Minister has given secret authorisation to the AG but dare not openly admit responsibility?

In her reply, Nancy also claimed that the government does not practise favouritism in taking action against anyone found guilty of committing sedition.

There is not only a long list of cases to prove Nancy wrong, and substantiate the sad state of affairs where  the administration of justice in Malaysia has gone very awry not only with the  selective and malicious prosecution under the Sedition Act but also selective and malicious investigation by the Police under the same Act.

The latest instance happened only today.

Last Sunday, the UMNO mouthpiece, Mingguan Malaysia front-paged and headlined  the proposal by a junior Umno leader that the UMNO general assembly next month should debate whether the Chinese vernacular schools should be abolished on the baseless and spurious ground that it had been  used by the opposition to breed racial and anti-government sentiments.

Junior MCA, Gerakan and SUPP leaders reacted by calling for the junior UMNO leader to be charged for sedition, but the police today said that they will not investigate the junior UMNO leader for sedition over his suggestion that the Chinese vernacular system be abolished.

Although MCA Youth had even lodged a police report, the Malay Mail Online quoted the Sepang police chief Supt Mohd Yusoff Awang as saying that the case has been categorised as a civil matter after police investigations.

Isn’t this the latest example that the police had been guilty of selective and malicious investigation (or lack of investigation)  on sedition cases, apart from the selective and malicious prosecution by the Attorney-General’s Chamber?

Dare the MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers protest at such double standards by the police and the Attorney-General’s chambers in their administration of justice in the next Cabinet meeting and to demand for a halt of the sedition dragnet, with the dropping of all sedition charges?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 5:26 pm and is filed under
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Street fighting rages in Syrian town as Islamic State moves in

By Daren Butler

Reuters

Oct 6, 2014

MURSITPINAR Turkey (Reuters) – Street fighting raged between Kurdish defenders and Islamic State militants who advanced into Kobani on Monday after subjecting the Syrian border town to an assault lasting almost three weeks, residents and fighters said.

Islamic State had earlier raised its black flag over a building in the outskirts and forced thousands more of Kobani’s mainly Kurdish inhabitants to flee for their lives across the nearby border into Turkey.

The head of the Kurdish forces defending the town said late on Monday that Islamic State forces were 300 meters inside Kobani’s eastern district and were shelling the remaining neighborhoods.

“We either die or win. No fighter is leaving,” Esmat al-Sheikh, leader of the Kobani Defense Authority, told Reuters. “The world is watching, just watching and leaving these monsters to kill everyone, even children…but we will fight to the end with what weapons we have.”

Islamic State wants to take Kobani to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria, in the name of an absolutist version of Sunni Islam, that has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.

Strikes by American and Gulf state warplanes have failed to halt Islamic State’s advance on the town, which it has besieged from three sides and pounded with heavy artillery.

Forced to flee Kobani by the latest fighting, frightened residents crossed into Turkey through Yumurtalik, an improvised border crossing, and ambulances with blaring sirens shuttled back and forth between the Syrian town and Turkey.

“We can hear the sound of clashes on the street,” Parwer Ali Mohamed, a translator for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Reuters by phone as he fled. “More than 2,000 people including women and children are being evacuated. Turkish police are checking our luggage now.”

A black flag belonging to Islamic State was visible from across the Turkish border atop a four-storey building close to the scene of some of the fiercest clashes in recent days.

Mortars have rained down on residential areas of Kobani, and stray fire has hit Turkish territory frequently in recent days wounding people and damaging houses.

Islamic State also fought intense battles over the weekend for control of Mistanour, a strategic hill overlooking Kobani. A video released by the group on Sunday appeared to show its fighters in control of radio masts on the summit, but the footage could not be independently confirmed.

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party called for street demonstrations in Turkey to protest at Islamic State’s assault on Kobani, where the situation was “extremely critical”.

Militants also carried out two suicide attacks in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, the Observatory said, killing at least 30 people.

“The attacks targeted checkpoints run by Kurdish fighters on the western entrance of the city. They occurred within minutes of each other,” Abdelrahman said.

ONCE A HAVEN

Until recently, Kobani had hardly been touched by the civil war that has ravaged much of Syria, and even offered a haven for refugees from fighting elsewhere, as President Bashar al-Assad chose to let the Kurdish population have virtual autonomy.

But beheadings, mass killings and torture have spread fear of Islamic State across the region, with villages emptying at its approach and an estimated 180,000 people fleeing into Turkey from the Kobani region.

On Sunday, a female Kurdish fighter blew herself up rather than be captured by Islamic State after running out of ammunition, local sources and a monitoring group reported.

Turkish hospitals have been treating a steady stream of wounded Kurdish fighters being brought across the frontier.

Witnesses who had fled Kobani said that old women were being given grenades to throw, and young women with no combat experience were being armed and sent into battle.

Speaking last week, the co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) told Reuters that Islamic State had brought large parts of its arsenal from its de facto capital at Raqqa, 140 km to the southeast, to the assault on Kobani.

“We are happy about the U.S. air strikes,” Aysa Abdullah said. “But really, this is not enough. We need more air strikes to be effective against (Islamic State) weapons, to eradicate and destroy (them).”

In neighboring Iraq, the U.S. military said it had flown Apache helicopters against Islamic State rebels for the first time, striking mortar teams and other units near the western town of Fallujah.

APPEAL TO TURKEY

On Monday, Kurdish politicians confirmed that the PYD’s other co-chair, Saleh Muslim, had met Turkish officials to urge them to allow weapons into Kobani from Turkey.

Turkey has so far made no move to join the fight against Islamic State close to its borders, beyond returning fire at Islamic State fighters in response to mortar shells landing on Turkish territory.

Over the weekend, President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to retaliate if Islamic State attacked Turkish forces, and on Monday Turkish tanks deployed along the border for the second time in a week, some with guns pointing towards Syria, apparently in response to stray fire.

Still, Islamic State’s release last month of 46 Turkish hostages, and a parliamentary motion last week allowing Turkish troops to cross into Syria and Iraq, have raised expectations that Ankara may be planning a more active role.

But Ankara is wary of helping Syrian Kurdish forces near Kobani as they have strong links with the PKK, which the Turkish state fought for three decades.

(Additional reporting by Hamdi Istanbullu in Mursitpinar, Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Ayla Jean Yackley and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Writing by Jonny Hogg and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Giles Elgood and Dominic Evans)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 8:34 am and is filed under
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Will Najib mention in his 2015  Budget speech on Friday the exclusion of Malaysian universities from the THE Top 400 University Ranking for fifth successive year?

Will the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak mention in his 2015 Budget speech on Friday the exclusion of Malaysian universities from the Times Higher Education (THE) Top 400 University Ranking 2014  for the fifth successive year?

Or has he forgotten and regretted his challenge to the University of Malaya nine years ago to be among the world’s Top 50 universities by year 2020, which is only five years away?

Three weeks ago, Najib twittered congratulations to the five Malaysian universities which were ranked higher in the Top 400 of the QS World University Ranking 2014, namely University of Malaya (UM) ranked 167 last year to 151; University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) from 269 to 259; University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) from 355 to 294; Universiti Sains Malaysia from 355 to 309; Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) from 411-420 to 376.

But there has been a deafening silence from Najib as well as from the DPM-cum- Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in the past week over the exclusion of Malaysian universities in Top 400 in  another global university ranking – THE University Ranking 2014-2015.

I congratulate Mahasiswa Keadilan Malaysia (MKM), Progressive University of Malaya, University of Malaya Association of New Youth (UMANY) & Gabungan Mahasiswa Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (GMUKM) who have in their joint statement deplored the non-participation of University of Malaya (UM) and National University of Malaysia (UKM) in the Times Higher Education (THE)  World University Rankings which only strengthened the perception that Malaysian universities are inferior to foreign universities.

They urged both UM and UKM to see “the bigger picture” and to participate in the all the World University Rankings to ensure that our local universities are world-class.

The arguments which have been advanced so far to justify the boycott of UM and UKM in the THE Top 400 World University Rankings while continuing to participate in the QS World University Rankings are very weak and most untenable.

Would UM and UKM be excluded from the THE Top 400 altogether  if they participate?

Four other Malaysian universities had participated in the THE World University Ranking 2014-5, but none made it into the Top 400 of the THE rankings.

It will be real shame to both UM and UKM if anyone of the four other Malaysian universities had succeeded in being ranked among the THE Top 400.

Although Najib challenged University of Malaya to be ranked among the Top 50 universities when he was Deputy Prime Minister in 2005, the former University of Malaya Vice Chancellor Tan Sri Professor Dr Ghauth Jasmon, had set a more realistic target when he was heading the university  from 2008 to 2013 – to enter QS World University Ranking’s Top 100 by 2015.

Can UM achieve Ghauth’s target of entering Top 100 in QS World University Ranking next year?

This is an impossible mission, as UM’s best QS ranking is  151 this year.

UM’s placing in QS World University Rankings since 2010 are:

2010	207

2011   167

2012  	156

2013	167

2014	151

Will Najib dare to address in his budget speech on Friday why University of Malaya will fail to achieve the much lower target set by Ghauth to be among the world’s Top 100 Universities (QS) by 2015, not to mention his own  superlative target to be among the Top 50 universities in the world by 2020?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 5:10 pm and is filed under
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Can state Islamic authorities decide what you can’t read?

By Zurairi AR

Malay Mail Online

October 9, 2014

PUTRAJAYA, Oct 9 — In a landmark case that will determine the extent of the freedom of expression in Malaysia, the country’s top court will weigh today the constitutionality of a state Shariah law to ban “religious” publications deemed against Islam.

Local publishing house ZI Publications Sdn Bhd and its director Ezra Zaid are challenging a Selangor state law that essentially criminalises any person who “prints, publishes, produces, records, or disseminates in any manner any book or document or any other form of record containing anything which is contrary to Islamic Law”, or “has in his possession any such book, document or other form of record for sale or for the purpose of otherwise disseminating it”.

If found guilty under Section 16(1) of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Selangor) Enactment 1995, the offender faces a fine not exceeding RM3,000 or two years’ prison, or both.

In addition, Section 16(2) of the same law empowers the state Shariah Court to order any book, document or other form of record to be “forfeited and destroyed”, even when nobody is convicted under Section 16(1).

State law versus federal law

“What is interesting here is that you have a state trying to restrict expression… Things like books and attire, those are things that only the Parliament is entitled to restrict,” the publisher’s lead counsel, Nizam Bashir, told Malay Mail Online ahead of today’s monumental hearing at the Federal Court.

“We don’t want a situation where the states says they also have the power to regulate them,” he added.

The court battle began nearly two years ago on May 29, 2012, when the publisher’s office was raided by officers from Selangor’s Islamic Religious Department (Jais), who confiscated 180 copies of “Allah, Kebebasan dan Cinta”, the Malay translation of a book titled “Allah, Freedom and Love” by Canadian author Irshad Manji, under Section 16 of the Selangor religious law.

The publisher contends that under the Federal Constitution, the Selangor state assembly does not have the power to enact Section 16 of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Selangor) Enactment 1995 as the scope is already covered by the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984, a federal law made in Parliament.

The appellants also contend that the law contravenes Article 10 of the Constitution which guarantees the right of freedom of speech and expression to each citizen.

“One of the questions is whether the state assembly has the power to do so, given that it can only criminalise in relation to anything not in the federal list and not provided by federal law,” Nizam said.

Nizam and his colleague Malik Imtiaz Sarwar will be representing ZI Publications and Ezra who filed the challenge at the Federal Court here, pursuant to Section 4(4) of the Federal Constitution in April last year. They were given leave six months later.

While the publishing company and its director named the Selangor state government as the sole respondent in their suit, the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) and the Malaysian government have been granted rights to intervene.

ZI Publications and Ezra had previously sought for a review of Jais’ raid and seizure, in addition to Jais’ arrest and prosecution of Ezra, at the Kuala Lumpur High Court in October 2012, but failed to get a stay after the judge dismissed their application.

The High Court was reported to have cited Section 29 of the Government Proceedings Act 1956 as grounds for its inability to grant a stay against a state religious authority’s power to investigate and prosecute.

The publisher subsequently filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, naming Jais, its director, its enforcement chief, Selangor Shariah prosecution chief, the Selangor state government, and the Malaysian government as the respondents.

However, the appellate court struck out the appeal when both ZI Publications and Ezra withdrew their suit, after they were granted leave to bring the case straight to the Federal Court.

Islamic religious authorities flex muscle

But today’s case is by no means the first time a legal challenge has been mounted against the country’s Islamic religious authorities.

In a similar case, a panel of judges at the Court of Appeal lambasted another Islamic authority in August this year for raiding a bookstore for a book that only got banned weeks later, with one judge labelling the action as self-indulgent.

In a high profile case, the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) prematurely raided a branch of Borders bookstore in May 2012, also for Irshad Manji’s “Allah, Liberty and Love” and its Malay translation, which was only banned by the Home Ministry three weeks later.

However, last month the Kuala Lumpur High Court overturned the Home Ministry’s ban, ruling the action unlawful.

The constitutional review of a state Shariah law today is the second so far this year, following a challenge by three transgendered women against Section 66 in Negri Sembilan’s Syariah Criminal Enactment 1992, which prohibits cross-gender attire.

Back in May, the transwomen contended in the Court of Appeal that the law used by the Negri Sembilan Islamic Religious Affairs Department’s (JHEAINS) violates constitutional articles governing freedom of expression and gender discrimination.

No verdict has yet been delivered for both the cases involving Jawi and JHEAINS.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 9 October 2014, 8:31 am and is filed under
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Chasing a generation of globally mobile students

By Helen Warrell

Financial Times

October 7, 2014

More than 150 years ago, the Catholic cardinal John Henry Newman set out his vision for a university as “a place of concourse, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge”. As students have become more mobile, and higher education institutions more international, Cardinal Newman might be surprised at the truly diverse concourse of the modern education market.

Driving the globalisation of universities are children from the middle classes in emerging economies who aspire to highly skilled jobs. In Asia especially, the development of universities has not kept pace with rising levels of affluence, creating a shortfall of places. As a result, western economies are vying to attract a growing pool of youngsters looking to study abroad. And in fast-growing nations such as India and Brazil, the race to build more universities is on.

Much of this change is necessitated by sheer demographics. More than half of India’s population is under 25 years old; by 2020 it will be ahead of China as the country with the largest population at tertiary-education age. The flow of Chinese students overseas is expected to grow as much as 15 per cent a year until 2018. Already, 2.5m students globally are studying outside their home country, creating a sector worth $30bn a year for the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, according to the Parthenon Group education consultancy.

For these traditional markets, the boom could not have come at a better time. Austerity has squeezed higher education state subsidies, while expenditure by universities is rising as competition – for the best staff, technology and facilities – increases. In the US in particular, rising costs and falling enrolments have put the long-term viability of some weaker universities at risk.

Last year, a report by education business Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, and the Institute for Public Policy Research, the think-tank, predicted an “avalanche” in the market that would challenge 20th-century higher education institutions. Its authors observed that the traditional relationship between universities, students and national economies was increasingly under pressure.

Western governments are all too aware of the threat to their academic centres and have made efforts to boost higher education exports. Despite domestic political concerns about immigration, Australia has loosened visa rules around international students to draw youngsters away from the two most popular university destinations, the US and the UK.

In the UK, stricter border controls led to a 49 per cent drop in enrolments from Indian students between 2011 and 2013, and a 38 per cent decrease for those from Pakistan. But these falls have been largely offset by huge increases from China, and a dedicated education export unit in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is working to build better links with international universities via branch campuses and shared courses.

While revenue from overseas students has provided a lifeline for cash-strapped institutions, Mike Boxall, a higher education expert at PA Consulting Group, says there are dangers in having too many incomers. “We are hearing anecdotally that [in some universities] this has reached an uncomfortable limit,” he says. “Students who have come halfway round the world to get an English experience… come into a classroom to find there are lots of other international students there too.”

Emerging economies face different hurdles. China has an ambitious $250bn-a-year programme to develop its universities and research facilities, but governments elsewhere are more restricted. Karan Khemka, co-head of the Parthenon Group’s education practice, suggested in an essay for Harvard Business Review that the “western model” of state-funded university education “is a luxury emerging markets, with limited resources, cannot afford”.

Instead, these countries rely heavily on for-profit providers to build a university sector that is rapidly scalable and sustainable in the long term. The UK’s university unions and some parts of its academic establishment have been sceptical of private institutions, casting doubts over their quality and value for money. But across Asia and Latin America, these providers do not carry the same stigma. In Malaysia, the private higher education market was worth $2.4bn, or about 1 per cent of gross domestic product, in 2012.

“In emerging markets it is absolutely the case that private universities are responding to growing demand,” Khemka says. “In Brazil, most higher education enrolments are in private universities.”

As old and new economies battle with how to deliver good-quality education to increasingly mobile students, technology could provide part of the answer. Massive open online courses, or Moocs, beam mostly free lectures and teaching programmes designed by top academics around the world to anyone with an internet connection.

Though some fear Moocs threaten the future of traditional, campus-based universities – particularly the attractiveness of this model to overseas students – it seems more likely they will provide a different and complementary way of consuming academic content.

Nick Hillman, director of the UK’s Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank, says in large parts of the world, including much of Asia, distance learning is still an “untrusted model”. “My hunch is that Moocs have most to offer the developing world, including large parts of Africa, as the value added is greater for those people who get access to trusted world-class resources for the first time,” he says.

Disruptive technologies, demographic change and changing patterns of economic growth have shaped significant changes in how universities function. Hillman describes the new outlook as “more students, more focus on teaching, a more international outlook, a more diverse range of providers and more collaboration on research”.

Longstanding academic institutions in countries such as the UK and US are finding new ways to distinguish themselves. They are deepening links with industry to fund research and help bring their findings to market, and taking more notice of what employers want from graduates. Some are opening international campuses in Asia and the Middle East to entice local students and using the internet to reach a wider audience.

Boxall believes in the UK, at least, three broad categories of university will emerge – oligarchs, innovators and zombies. Established brands such as Oxford and Cambridge are the oligarchs, assured of survival. Innovators are the middle-ranking universities prepared to take risks to bring in new students. Meanwhile, the zombies, which refuse to change and suffer declining enrolments, will spiral into extinction.

He argues that the future challenge for higher education institutions will be to stay in the game at a time when it is easy for aspiring students to access the knowledge and skills they need from elsewhere, whether online, directly from working with industry or through hybrid courses designed and funded by an employer.

“The world is in the business of finding solutions to multi-faceted problems and yet universities are still in the business of finding applications for curiosity-driven research,” Boxall observes. “The threat is not recognising this and becoming less and less relevant as time goes on.”

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 9 October 2014, 8:39 pm and is filed under
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Najib rejects free consultations

By Mariam Mokhtar

Malaysiakini

Oct 6, 2014

My fellow Malaysians and I have saved the Malaysian government, Najib Abdul Razak and the nation hundreds of millions of ringgits. We provided free consultation services to spruce-up Najib’s image, rebuild trust in public institutions and foster good community race relations; but the ungrateful Najib hates local talent and sent the police after us.

That is why Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Minister Hasan Malek is wrong when he said that our culture was to “respect our leaders, respect the nation and be grateful”.

Hasan’s attempt to pull more wool over our eyes, has failed. People who “respect” leaders who steal and spin lies, are devoid of any self-respect.

We are hypocrites if we respect a person who tells an international audience that he is a moderate, but allows extremists to roam scot-free. Respecting a leader who robs you is a sign that you lack integrity. No one should be “grateful” to the people who take our money to enrich themselves. Their only reward should be a jail term, courtesy of the Malaysian rakyat.

Few of us would dare take liberties and use public facilities, government property and taxpayers’ money, to go on overseas holidays to the French Riviera, a fishing trip in the Bahamas, attend an engagement party, fund our children’s wedding, or buy several luxury condominiums for our pet cows.

Hasan praised his ministry’s ‘Ops Titik’ and ‘Ops Harga’ which he claimed had “achieved a lot” and “saved millions of ringgits”. If only he recognised a bargain when he saw one.

My free consultations to Najib have fallen foul of the authorities, despite saving the nation a small fortune. Najib dismissed my good intentions and probably thinks I am not good enough. Instead, he opted for Apco. My Malay friends said, “Najib suka glamour. ‘Made in Malaysia’ doesn’t sound as good as ‘Made in Amrika’”.

In 2011, Najib told Parliament that Apco’s fees amounted to RM77 million. He omitted to say that that amount was allegedly for the first year. When Apco’s contract was renewed, the service probably cost hundreds of millions of ringgits.

I have been conscientious about my responsibilities and did not employ eye-catching tactics, like jumping ship from one party to another, to strike a good deal.

Hasan needs a reality check. He claimed that under ‘Ops Harga’, a Myanmar national was jailed for six months for hoarding and profiteering. What about the elephant in the room called Umno Baru? Their subtle tactic, code-named BR1M, uses taxpayers’ money to fund payments to the poor. BR1M is just a vote-buying tactic.

Similarly, the smartphones and book voucher programmes force recipients to dish out more of their own money to obtain the said phones or books. These are government-backed scams. The only winners are government cronies.

Malaysia’s master profiteer

Will Hasan dare admonish former PM Mahathir Mohamad for his role in hoarding tin in the early 1980s, in what is known as the Maminco Affair? If profiteering was a business, Mahathir has the franchise rights and is Malaysia’s master profiteer.

Current Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein needs to be reminded of the humiliation Mahathir heaped upon his father Hussein Onn, in the aftermath of the Maminco scandal, which ruined the economy of Perak and turned Ipoh into a ghost town.

Hasan warned us not to be “cowards” like Alvin Tan who “fled Malaysia” after committing “those immoral things”.

Under Umno Baru, sex videos became political propaganda. Umno Baru denied justice for the Penan women who were raped by loggers. The murder of a Mongolian model, the mysterious death of a political aide, and all the deaths caused by people falling out of police stations or Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office windows, are unresolved. Aren’t these immoral tactics, a sign of cowardice?

Najib disappears whenever the country faces a crisis or national security breach. The PM is too timid to confront Malays who use religious provocation, to threaten the peace of the country.

Thugs daub the offices of opposition MPs with chicken blood as a warning. Muslim girls are attacked for joining an opposition party and described as being “worse than prostitutes”. Who ordered the police to hound journalists, academics, students, NGOs and opposition MPs? Who are the real cowards?

If ordinary Malaysians were as committed, passionate and level-headed as 17-year-old Joshua Wong, the public face of the Hong Kong protests, Najib and Hasan wouldn’t stand a chance. Unfortunately, our level of participation is measured by the click of the ‘like’ button on social sharing sites.

We criticise the government and its many institutions because of genuine concern. We do not provoke because we are hiding an ulterior motive, like a former PM whose barbs are designed to divide the country.

We are not afraid of speaking out, even though cowards like Najib, his home minister and the inspector-general of police (IGP), use the sedition sweep to try to silence dissent. For these cowards, the end justifies the means. The end game is to keep themselves in power.

Remember also that the sedition crackdown serves as a distraction from the mismanagement of the economy and mishandling of the country’s security. The crackdown distracts us from the nation’s serious problems, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the increase in cost of basic goods, high-level corruption and violent crime. Fear is used by insecure people. Why should we respect bullies?

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO).

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 9 October 2014, 6:27 pm and is filed under
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No joke, UM ranked among world-top 300 Universities in Times Higher Education ranking, but this UM is not University of Malaya but a university most Malaysians do not know

I could not believe my eyes when I received an email yesterday proclaiming
“UM ranked among world-top 300 universities in Times Higher Education World University Rankings”
 as every informed Malaysian should know by now after a week-long controversy that University of Malaya had suffered the ignominy of being excluded from annual Times Higher Education (THE) Top 400 University Rankings for the fifth consecutive year since the launch of the series in 2010.

When I opened the email, I found that it was indeed true that
“UM ranked among world-top 300 universities in THE rankings”
 but this UM  is not the University of Malaya but an  university most Malaysians had never heard of before.

This UM is the University of Macau.

The email contained a press release issued by the University of Macau (UM) on 2nd October 2014 that  it had been ranked among the world’s top 300 universities, between 276 and 300, by THE World University Rankings 2014-15, and that “this is the first time UM made the list, and, it should be considered an outstanding and momentum building result because merely a few years ago the university were not in the top 400”.

The “UM” announcement, which  was forwarded to me yesterday, went on to say:

“In recent years, UM has made a great effort to improve teaching and research, following international standards and making significant social and global outreach.

“In particular, it carried out a comprehensive reform of its undergraduate curriculum, established the Honours College, incorporated international perspective into its curricula, implemdenting an unique ‘4-in-1’ model of education (which consists of discipline-specific education, general education, research and internship education, as well as peer and community education) and established Asia’s largest and in-depth system of residential colleges.”

The UM statement went on to say that while UM welcomes the good results of THE ranking, “it would nevertheless like to stress that the university is not working for a place in the ranking” but “takes to heart the principal reason of education, namely it works to provide the best education for Macao kids to be outstanding global citizens of the 21st century”.

The University of Macau was founded in 1981 as a private university and only became a public university with Macau’s handover to China in 1999.

The Education Ministry and the University of Malaya  administrators should hold their heads in shame that a comparatively new and junior university, like University of Macau, could be ranked in the THE Top 300 World University Rankings 2014 while our national premier university,  UM,  is boycotting the THE World University Ranking for fear of  low placings or being excluded altogether from the Top 400 Universities listing.

I really wonder whether the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would mention the exclusion of Malaysian universities from the THE Top 400 University Ranking 2014  for the fifth successive year in his 2015 Budget speech tomorrow.

Three weeks ago, Najib twittered congratulations to the five Malaysian universities which were ranked higher in the Top 400 of the QS World University Ranking 2014, namely University of Malaya (UM) ranked 167 last year to 151; University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) from 269 to 259; University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) from 355 to 294; Universiti Sains Malaysia from 355 to 309; Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) from 411-420 to 376.

But there has been a deafening silence from Najib as well as from the DPM-cum- Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in the past week over the exclusion of Malaysian universities in Top 400 in  another global university ranking – THE University Ranking 2014-2015.

The arguments which have been advanced so far to justify the boycott of UM and UKM in the THE Top 400 World University Rankings while continuing to participate in the QS World University Rankings are very weak and most untenable.

I have gone through the 200 Top Universities in the QS World University Rankings 2014, and found that apart from three universities, all the other 197 Top 200 Universities were also listed in the THE Top 400 University Ranking 2014.

Have UM and UKM good reasons to believe that if they had participated in the THE Top 400 World University Rankings, both would do even worse than University of Macau and would be excluded completely from the THE Top 400 List?

Four other Malaysian universities had participated in the THE World University Ranking 2014-5, but none made it into the Top 400 of the THE rankings.

It will be doubly shameful to both UM and UKM if anyone of the four other Malaysian universities had succeeded in being ranked among the THE Top 400 while UM and UKM lose out not only to comparatively younger Malaysian universities but also to University of Macau.

Nine years ago, Najib had challenged University of Malaya to be ranked among the Top 50 universities when he was Deputy Prime Minister in 2005.

When Tan Sri Professor Dr Ghauth Jasmon was Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya from 2008 to 2013, he had set a more realistic target – to enter QS World University Ranking’s Top 100 by 2015.

Both these targets are going to be impossible missions, as UM’s ranking in the QS World University Rankings are 207 (2010), 167 (2011), 156 (2012), 167 (2013) and 151 (2014).

Najib should address the higher education crisis faced by the country in his 2015 Budget speech tomorrow.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 9 October 2014, 12:54 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s 2015 Budget overshadowed by outrageous parliamentary replies and blatant government double standards in past three days

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would not have expected that his 2015 Budget to be presented in Parliament at 4 pm today would have been overshadowed by outrageous parliamentary replies of his Ministers and blatant government double standards in the past three days.

The reply by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nancy Shukri to the Penang Chief Minister and DAP MP for Bagan, Lim Guan Eng, on the first day of the current 28-day Budget Parliament on Tuesday must take the cake for being the most outrageous parliamentary statement in the five-year Najib premiership making even the most affable bristle at the cynical contempt for what is right and wrong.

Nancy said in her reply that no action would be taken on Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali over his threat to burn the Malay-language bible as he was “only defending the sanctity of Islam”.

Nancy did not do herself any favours when she said yesterday that the Attorney-General’s Chambers decided not to prosecute Ibrahim under the Sedition Act because his threat to burn copies of the Bible with the term “Allah” was in line with the federal constitution.

It is time the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Gani Patail surfaces and explain where in the Federal Constitution does it give protection and immunity to Ibrahim to utter threat to burn copies of the Bible with the term Allah.

At the same time, Gani should also explain:

•	Whether he agrees with the Sepang police chief Mohd Yusoff Awang that Petaling Jaya Utara Umno deputy division chief Mohamad Azli Mohamed Saad would not be probed for sedition for his call to abolish vernacular schools;

•	Why the AG’s Chambers decided on “No Further Action” in the case of the Federal Territories UMNO Youth threat to torch the DAP headquarters under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation and under Section 427 for causing mischief and whether he could reply to a query by a Malaysiakini reader: “AG, what if they threaten to torch Umno HQ?”

•	Why there have been no outcome to previous and current sedition police reports made against Prime Minister Najib for his “crushed bodies, lives lost” speech at the UMNO General Assembly in 2010 and former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir for his seditious warning in the 13th General Election that I was contesting in Gelang Patah constituency to create a “racial confrontation” between the Malays and Chinese in Johore – despite the “probe within 24 hours” oath made publicly by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi on any sedition report made on Sept. 22 last month?

•	Why he had sanctioned the sedition blitzkrieg with 12 charged under the Sedition Act up to September this year, eight in 2013, and one each in 2009 and 2012; whether he had been given the “green light” for the sedition blitz by the Prime Minister who had promised in 2012 to repeal the Sedition Act as well as running contrary to Najib’s pledge to make Malaysia the world’s “best democracy” –  attracting  international censures including from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)?

In his 2015 Budget speech this evening, will Najib take note that his “moderation” pledge reiterated for the third time at the United Nations General Assembly last month had gone awry, and what he proposes to do to rescue his wasatiyyah (moderation) campaign of justice, balance and excellence from abysmal failure?

Would Najib be able to save his two most important initiatives on wasatiyyah, namely  his 1Malaysia campaign and the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), which are facing pathetic ends. The GMM has even come under the cross-hair not only of extremists but also the Attorney-General’s Chambers to the extent that it had to ask the media not to report the proceedings of the GMM forum on the “Future of Malaysia” with NGOs, because the GMM cannot ensure the freedom and liberty of the participants and protect them from the sedition “white terror” which had deluged Malaysia for over a month.

Yesterday, former Bar Council chairperson Ambiga Sreenivasan said that if she is investigated under the Sedition Act it might turn out to be a good thing because the truth would emerge.

She said if she is charged, she know she will be in good company.

Ambiga is right about the latter but I am not so sure about her former sentiment.

It would appear that  one test today of whether one is a patriot is whether one is persecuted under the obnoxious Sedition Act, which is not being used against sedition but legitimate and patriotic criticism and dissent.

This is a sad sign of the times and reflection of the grave deterioration and  degeneration of what Najib had promised to make Malaysia the “best democracy in the world”!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 10 October 2014, 8:06 am and is filed under
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Carrot and stick, and other imaginary monsters in Malaysia

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

12 October 2014

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is confused. He and Barisan Nasional (BN) seem to believe that the wealth, resources and talent in Malaysia belong to them and they can dispense with it at their will.

He doesn’t understand that a political party has to win over people with policies, integrity, consistency, fairness, etc. Bribes do not work. Threats almost always fail.

But yet Najib persists with the carrot-and-stick approach. Before GE13, the BN chairman believed that throwing goodies the way of the Chinese would endear him to the community and by extension, they would support him in the polls.

That strategy failed miserably.

So on the back of being rebuffed at the 2013 elections, Najib has brought out the veiled threats.

Speaking at the MCA annual assembly today, he said the Chinese could not make demands on his government if they continued to support Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

First, his government owns the support of only 47% of the voters. Nearly 52% of Malaysians voted for PR and these include many Chinese, and a sizeable number of Malays, Indians, Kadazans and other indigenous people.

So instead of using a hectoring tone, it would probably be advisable for Najib to show some humility.

Understand that threats and goodies don’t work. Malaysians want real leadership and policies that reflect the multiracial and multi-religious nature of Malaysia.

They want a proper distribution of wealth and not the widening income gap between the have and have-nots.

They want a PM who does not allow the Federal Constitution to be trampled on or for laws to be used in a cavalier manner. They want a ruling party that is fair, just and moderate, not a collection of self-seeking glory hunters.

Rule justly, walk humbly and Malaysians will gravitate to you like bees to honey. There is no need for threats.

Datuk Ibrahim Ali and his counterpart at Isma are dangerous characters – and not because they have a tendency to shoot from the hip but because they keep repeating a lie.

And the great big LIE is that non-Malays want to rip up the social contract. Has anybody made that demand?

What has been demanded is an end to cronyism and nepotism. What has been demanded is an end to inflated contracts and the skewed implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP).

But Ibrahim and Isma are trying to create a siege mentality among some Malays, they want to nurture the fear factor. And in doing so, they are driving a wedge between Malaysians.

Are they more dangerous or the likes of Azmi Sharom and Dr Abdul Aziz Bari, who now face sedition charges?

They need to stop creating imaginary creatures that will scare the Malays. After more than 50 years of becoming Malaysia, why do we still have politicians who use bogeymen and imaginary threats?

The simple answer is this. They want to be the heroes, the patrons and the true defender for others to seek help and leadership.

After all, if the flock runs away, what use is the shepherd? – October 12, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 12 October 2014, 6:12 pm and is filed under
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Nancy Shukri should avail herself of making  a Ministerial statement in Parliament  to rectify two major errors she committed in Parliament last week

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nancy Shukri, should avail herself of  the opportunity of making a Ministerial statement in Parliament to rectify two major errors she committed in Parliament last week.

She committed the first mistake on the first day of Parliament on Tuesday, 7th October, when answering the question by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who asked the Prime Minister whether the government’s use of the law against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, activists and intellectuals was in line with the prime minister’s commitment to make Malaysia more democratic.

Defending the blitz of sedition prosecutions and the “white terror” launched by the authorities in the past few months, Nancy claimed that the Malaysian government practises and upholds the doctrine of the separation of powers and as such the government does not interfere in the Attorney-General’s Chambers affairs.

Here, Nancy made the grave error about the doctrine of separation of powers, as the Attorney-General is part of the executive and not the judiciary in the doctrine of separation of powers among the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.

Consequently, the  doctrine of separation of powers is totally irrelevant and does not apply in the  blitzkrieg of sedition prosecutions – which is an executive action and not an action of the judiciary.

Although Article 145(3) of the Malaysian Constitution vests in the Attorney-General the sole discretionary power “to institute, continue or discontinue any proceedings for any offence”, the AG’s prosecution decisions are actions of the Executive and not of the Judiciary, which means the Prime Minister must assume full responsibilities for the AG’s decision and cannot disclaim responsibility on the ground of the doctrine of separation of powers.

This also means that Parliament is entitled to a full and satisfactory reply as to whether Malaysia has got an Attorney-General who is totally out of sync with the vision of the Prime Minister, resulting in Najib leading a two-headed government – with an Attorney-General aimed at making Malaysia the world’s worst democracy which is totally at odds with Najib’s public pledge to make Malaysia the world’s best democracy!

But it was Nancy’s second mistake in Parliament in a written answer on Oct. 7 which hit the headlines and continues to make waves for her and the Najib premiership.

When answering the Penang Chief Minister and Bagan Member of Parliament, Lim Guan Eng, Nancy said that Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali was not charged over his threat to burn the Malay-language  Bible because the police had concluded that the Malay rights group leader was merely defending the sanctity of Islam, and had not intended to create religious chaos with his statement.

Nancy compounded her second error when in response to the host of criticisms against her original answer, she issued a statement on Thursday night explaining that the Attorney-General Chambers’ decision not to charge Ibrahim Ali  was because the context of Ibrahim’s  speech was in line with the spirit of the Federal Constitution’s Article 11(4).

Both these reasons have been rubbished by thinking Malaysians.

Rational leaders in both UMNO and Pakatan Rakyat have rightly pointed out that no “burning of the Bible” can be justified as defending Islam.

Furthermore, the argument that Article 11(4) of the Malaysian Constitution justified the Attorney-General’s Chambers decision not to prosecute Ibrahim Ali is totally baseless and  spurious.

Nancy now claims that she had been wronged and misunderstood, that she was merely passing on the message by the Attorney-General’s Chambers on the actions taken against Ibrahim Ali.

Malaysia does not need a “Ministerial” postman – who must be the most highly-paid postman in the country and the world – but a responsible Minister who has the courage of her convictions and principles.

Nancy has only herself to blame for becoming the butt of national scorn over her parliamentary answer, even causing her predecessor Datuk Zaid Ibrahim to accuse her of being totally unprincipled and willing to “play ball” to keep her Ministership.

Nancy Shukri should avail herself of the opportunity of making  a Ministerial statement in Parliament  to rectify  these two major errors she committed in Parliament last week, and most important of all, to put on record not only the Attorney-General Chambers’ justification for the decision not to prosecute Ibrahim Ali and the spate of “white terror” sedition charges against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, activists and intellectuals, but to state the stand  of the Najib administration as well as her own stand on these important issues.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 12 October 2014, 5:10 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s latest “You help me, I help you” variation at MCA General Assembly offensive and obnoxious for four  reasons: run afoul of his pledge to be PM for all, 1Malaysia policy,  Global Movement of Moderates initiative and pledge to make Malaysia world’s best democracy

Instead of dissociating or at least distancing itself from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s latest “You help me, I help you” variation first infamously used in the Sibu parliamentary by-election in May 2010 in the MCA annual general assembly yesterday, the MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai has accused online news portals of “twisting” Najib’s speech to give it a negative image of the government.

It would appear that MCA leaders have a totally different grasp and comprehension of ordinary language when they are made by top UMNO leaders – where arm-twisting language could be understood as friendly advice.

What Najib said at the MCA’s 61st annual general assembly is straightforward and crystal clear – that the Chinese could not make demands from the government and then support Pakatan Rakyat.

Najib had said:  “You can’t demand and then support DAP. You can’t demand and then support PR. You demand, you support BN, we will be fair to the Chinese community.”

Najib’s implicit message is obvious – that the Chinese community  cannot expect the government to be fair if they do not support the BN.

What Najib said yesterday was offensive and obnoxious as it runs afoul of Najib’s four fundamental objectives: to be Prime Minister of all Malaysians; his 1Malaysia Policy where everyone is a Malaysian first and race, religion, region or socio-economic status second;  his Global Movement of Moderates initiative and his pledge to make Malaysia the world’s best democracy.

Firstly, how can Najib claim to be Prime Minister for all Malaysians when he is arguing the case to be unfair to the 52% of the Malaysian electorate who had not supported the BN in the 13 General Election, who comprise all communities in Malaysia, whether Chinese, Malay, Indian, Kadazan or Iban?

Or is Najib prepared to give a quid pro quo to the 52% electorate to justify the government’s lack of fairness in policy and implementation by exempting them from payment of all forms of taxes including the GST to be implemented in April next year?

Secondly, how can Najib’s threat yesterday reconcile  with his 1Malaysia Policy of treating all Malaysians as Malaysians first instead of their separate ethnic identities, especially as the 52% of the electorate who voted against the Barisan Nasional come from all ethnicities. It would appear that Najib himself  is not sufficiently infused and inculcated with the 1Malaysia ethos and values.

Thirdly, the threat to penalize voters for exercising their citizenship and constitutional right to cast their votes in the 13GE runs against the very grain of wasatiyyah or moderation and therefore against his Global Movement of Moderates initiative.

Fourthly, Najib is  making a full mockery of his pledge to  make Malaysia the world’s “best democracy” when under him, Malaysian voters have only the “democratic” right to vote BN but not PR or to forfeit the fundamental right to demand fairness and good governance from the government.

Najib must be reminded that the aspirations of Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region to good governance, democratic freedoms, economic justice and progress, educational excellence and sustainable environment transcend ethnic boundaries and political differences.

Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or political differences have a right to demand justice from the government of the day, regardless of who they voted for in the last general elections.

This is the first test of whether we have a functioning democracy even before we can talk about wanting to be the world’s best democracy.

Can Najib let Malaysians know whether Malaysia under him has got a functioning democracy?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 October 2014, 10:12 am and is filed under
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The rise of extremism and death of reason

– Syerleena Abdul Rashid

The Malaysian Insider

13 October 2014

The hostility and animosity targeted at fellow Malaysians whose opposing views may not be in line with the doctrines endorsed by the ruling elite, is dangerously becoming a standardised template used to instil fear in would-be “dissenters”.

Ironically, just a few weeks ago, our prime minister told the world there was a need to “break the cycle where one group gains power only to wield it against another” and to provide an “inclusive” platform that reflects the “pluralistic society” we live in. His speech was nothing more than yet another lip service to appease and deceive international critics – an ideological dishonesty Malaysians have grown to love and hate.

On October 12, 2014, Suaram and GHAH (Gabungan Hapuskan Akta Hasutan) organised a gathering in Penang to call for the abolishment of the Sedition Act. What should have been a peaceful gathering turned into a whirlwind pandemonium, instigated by none other than the usual suspects –  hired hooligans from the far right. Just a few minutes after the event started, a mob of Malay men disrupted the event with overzealous fervour, reaffirming that the threat of extremism is fast becoming a disease that may eventually destroy our country.

The ruling elite saturate our society with fear. They tell us to fear the loss of certain socio-political rights, the Communist threat, the Christian agenda and other creative fibs they conjure in order to remain in power. They exploit the fears of those who are most gullible and uninformed. For the rest of us, we can see through the lies and recognise the price our future generation will pay if we allow the rot to perpetuate further.

Calls that condone extremism and racially motivated intimidation have become more apparent and several right wing groups have become increasingly vocal because they have been granted undue consent to do so. This occurs because the ruling elite are aware that socio-political reforms in our society are inevitable; it is just a matter of time before the walls of oppression start crumbling down.

Fanaticism and bigotry have found a certain stronghold in our society: as the acceptance and influence of universal values have slowly eroded, genuine intellectualism is now seem more of a taboo – a threat that should be exterminated rather than a quality we should uphold. Such causes are due to a number of factors and are often seen as a “chain reaction” that reflects ineffective policies, waning quality of life and education, unemployment and questionable political leadership. It can be said that although political ideologies fuel the fire of extremism, it is the psychological aspect that facilitates and perpetuates such evils in our society.

The disillusionment that becomes increasingly apparent in some factions gives way to radical and extremist philosophies. Only the victims of severe socio-economic and political inequalities will start rebelling against universal values that uphold tolerance, respect and sound moral logic. When disenchantment and resentment become widespread, it makes it easier for the ruling elite to utilise the “divide and rule” tactic – masked under nationalistic catchphrases and patriotism that is anti-democratic, totalitarian and somewhat fascist.

The sentiments of an overtly strong nationalism and weak democratic practices allow extremism to flourish. The ruling elite will use this concoction to manipulate the broken dreams and the unfulfilled hopes of certain factions by feeding them government-backed propaganda.

The only way out of this is through comprehensive and accurate understanding of such phenomenon. Extremism and other racially motivated violence are all part and parcel of a political agenda created by the ruling elite. Although Malaysia’s political ethos may not seem to honour democracy and the just rights conferred on its citizens, the terror created by extremism is man-made, fabricated and by all means not natural and therefore can be brought down. – October 13, 2014.

* Syerleena Abdul Rashid currently serves as Dapsy Bukit Bendera secretary and DAP Wanita Bukit Bendera political education director.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 October 2014, 11:19 am and is filed under
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Nancy Shukri has become the  template for MCA and Gerakan Ministers seeking to deny the truth instead of facing up to harsh realities

The Minister in the Prime Ministers’ Department, Nancy Shukri, who was in the eye of a national storm for  a whole week for her parliamentary answer to the Penang Chief Minister and Bagan MP, Lim Guan Eng,  why Perkasa President, Ibrahim Ali was not charged over his threat to burn the Malay-language  Bible seems to have become the template and model for MCA and Gerakan Ministers and  leaders seeking to deny the truth instead of facing up to harsh realities.

The storm over Nancy’s outrageous reply why Ibrahim Ali was not charged will not end  unless and until Nancy faces up to the harsh reality that neither common sense nor the  law of the land can accept the defence of Islam or Federal Constitution Article 11(4) as valid reasons to  justify threats to burn the Malay-language Bible or any sacred religious scripture enjoying immunity and impunity from lawful prosecutions or sanctions.

Have Malaysian lawlessness reach a stage where the threat to commit crime, subversion or even terrorism can be justified on the ground of defending the sanctity of any religion or the Constitution?

Nancy still owes Parliament and the nation a full apology for her shocking reply and subsequent explanation over why Ibrahim was not charged for his threat to burn the Malay-language Bible.

Yesterday, Ibrahim Ali defended his threat to burn the Malay-language Bible in January 2013 saying it was only meant for Muslim parents of students who were allegedly given the holy book outside their school last year.

Ibrahim’s latest explanation is not borne out by the media reports at the time, i.e. in January and February 2013; and  in any event, it is  for Ibrahim to put up his questionable  defence in a court of law and not for the police or the Attorney-General to second-guess what would be the court’s decision.

Ibrahim made the threat to burn the Malay-language Bible in Permatang Pauh in Penang on January 19, 2013, which was followed by a series of police reports lodged against him.

By the end of the month,  the Penang Police Chief Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi announced  that the police had completed its investigations and was ready to hand its papers to the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

It is noteworthy that at the time, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail had said that action will only be taken against Ibrahim if bibles were burnt and that the latter’s statement was not of grave concern which caused the former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib who served as AG for 13 years from 1980 to 1993 to join the chorus of voices expressing concern about selective prosecution.

It is surprising that Nancy Shukri seems to have provided the template for MCA and Gerakan Ministers to deny the truth instead of facing up to  the harsh realities as illustrated in the controversy over the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s speech at the MCA annual general meeting on Sunday.

MCA and Gerakan Ministers are united in their claim that online news portals had “twisted” Najib’s speech, and I am even accused by a former MCA Deputy Finance Minister of having “twisted” Najib’s speech.

This is what this former Deputy Finance Minister said:

“I have spent years in Parliament and I know Kit Siang well. He is very good at twisting facts. He brings up good ideas on democracy and freedom.”

I thank him for admitting that I had brought up “good ideas on democracy and freedom” in Parliament, but I welcome him or the current  MCA and Gerakan Ministers to pinpoint how I had twisted Najib’s speech at the MCA general assembly on Sunday.

In my statement yesterday, I said Najib had come up with a new variation of his “You help me, I help you” line, which he made infamous in the Sibu parliamentary by-election in May 2010, when addressing the MCA general assembly where he said:

“You can’t demand and then support DAP. You can’t demand and then support PR. You demand, you support BN, we will be fair to the Chinese community.”

Isn’t Najib’s implicit message very obvious – that the Chinese community  cannot expect the government to be fair if they do not support the BN?

I am prepared to stand corrected and to apologise if MCA, Gerakan and UMNO Ministers and leaders can point out where I had “twisted” Najib’s speech.

It is indeed pathetic that MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders dare not even tell  Najib that his speech at  the 61st MCA general assembly  was offensive and obnoxious as it ran counter to  Najib’s four fundamental objectives: to be Prime Minister of all Malaysians; his 1Malaysia Policy where everyone is a Malaysian first and race, religion, region or socio-economic status second;  his Global Movement of Moderates initiative and his pledge to make Malaysia the world’s best democracy?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 9:21 am and is filed under
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Nancy Shukri, Yours is Not to Reason Why?

By Kee Thuan Chye

Yahoo! News

12 Oct 2014

De facto law minister Nancy Shukri is being bombarded left, right and centre for her written reply in Parliament to the question of why Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali has not been charged for his alleged threat last year to burn Malay-language Bibles. And she deserves it.

She has tried to cover up her blunder by insisting that she was not defending Ibrahim Ali’s act and that her critics got her wrong for saying she was. I agree she wasn’t. I agree some of her critics, like Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang, misread her reply – because, as she has claimed, she was merely conveying a justification handed to her by the Attorney-General’s Chambers without herself subscribing to it. She never said in her parliamentary reply that it was all right to burn Bibles to defend Islam. That is true.

Nonetheless, she can’t get away with not facing up to her responsibility. Her passing of the buck to the A-G’s Chambers is not acceptable as an excuse for not doing her job right, which amounts to not doing her homework and not thinking before acting.

In fact, her admission of conveying only what the A-G’s Chambers told her actually makes her look worse. It clearly shows that she was merely acting as a messenger instead of doing her job as a minister.

If she did her job right as a minister, she would have first checked the validity of the A-G’s justification for not charging Ibrahim. She would not have proceeded to write this reply to Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng’s question: “The statement made by (Ibrahim) was not intended to cause religious disharmony but was only to defend the sanctity of Islam. Therefore, no prosecution was carried out.”

Anyone given such a justification would have instantly balked at it. Any thinking person would have realised the import of its implications.

Even if Ibrahim were defending the “sanctity of Islam”, he can’t simply say things like that. He’s inciting people to commit an act that would inflame the sensitivities of others. And why talk only of the sanctity of Islam and not the sanctity of other religions? The Federal Constitution may state that Islam is the religion of the Federation, but the sanctity of other religions should surely also be respected. If you burn Bibles, you will desecrate the sanctity of Christianity. But the same Constitution guarantees that other religions “may be practised in peace and harmony”. So how can you say something that violates that peace and harmony?

Surely, Nancy should have asked herself these questions before she accepted the A-G’s justification?

She should also have asked why Ibrahim’s statement “was not meant to cause religious disharmony”. Burning Bibles is not causing religious disharmony? It’s not desecrating the sanctity of another religion? Hearing the statement, Christians will just smile and turn the other cheek?

Even in the United States, a pastor in Florida was arrested last year while he was on his way to burn 2,998 copies of the Quran. And the U.S. is predominantly Christian.

Did Nancy not realise what she was going to say in her reply before she wrote it? On receiving the justification from the A-G’s Chambers, did she not wonder about the oddity of it, the lack of logic in it, the misconception of Islam it will convey? Did she not think before she presented it to Parliament? And if she did not, how can she be a minister, what more a minister in charge of law?

She also tried to exonerate herself by blaming the media for taking only excerpts from her parliamentary reply and ignoring the rest of it in order to “create misinterpretation and misunderstanding”.

Her reply had said as well that Ibrahim addressed the statement only to a particular group that had purportedly distributed the Bibles to students, including Muslims, at a school in Penang. As such, the statement was not a threat to the larger society.

But the reasoning is flawed. Even if Ibrahim was directing it at only a group of people, the fact remains that he uttered the statement at a press conference, which means his message was meant to be published in the media and disseminated nationwide. How then could it not be a threat to the larger society?

Her reply also said, “The decision by the Attorney-General’s Chambers to not prosecute Ibrahim was because the context of his speech was in line with the spirit in Article 11(4) of the Federal Constitution.”

The article provides for state and federal law to control or restrict the propagation of other religions to Muslims, but how is that relevant? This case is about burning Bibles. Does the spirit of Article 11(4) extend to the desecration of the sanctity of other religions as an acceptable method of controlling the propagation of other religions to Muslims? Surely not!

Former deputy minister Saifuddin Abdullah, an Umno member himself, is therefore right in criticising the Government for using an argument that “does not reflect the true teachings of Islam and cannot be used to justify such a statement from Ibrahim”.

Quoting from the Quran, he points out that Islam urges Muslims to respond accordingly when defending Islam: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best.” (an-Nahl:125)

“The Government,” he adds, “should not come up with this kind of argument … because it may lead to a misconception of Islam.”

Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim shares the same view in saying that Islam would never condone the burning of Bibles. “It is just, I should say, the Umno position or the minister’s position,” he says.

In his own understanding of Islam, “we must respect all religious beliefs and, of course, religious texts”.

So, next time if a Muslim extremist were to kill someone of another religion and claim he was defending the sanctity of Islam because his victim was subverting Islam, Nancy would come riding in her shining armour on her white horse, quote Article 11(4) and absolve him of his crime? And then say it was justified by the A-G’s Chambers? See how dangerous that justification is?

And speaking of the A-G’s Chambers, I suppose it would only be right for us to now go after the A-G, Abdul Gani Patail, himself for allowing this kind of insidious nonsense to come out of his office. And – more importantly – for not taking the appropriate legal action when it is called for. The buck has to stop with him.

In the meantime, it still means that Nancy Shukri the de facto law minister is not off the hook for not doing her job right. She will have to upgrade her performance to prove that she is the right person for the job – or risk being remembered as a minister who does not reason why.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the new bestselling book Can We Save Malaysia, Please!

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 6:46 am and is filed under
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Is reasoning with Najib and UMNO/BN government about iniquities and injustices of Sedition Act a dialogue with the deaf?

Rank and blatant injustices seem to have become the order of the day in Malaysia – five years after Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s premiership.

The latest example is the police arrest of a protestor who held a slipper against a poster of Najib during a protest outside Parliament last Wednesday.

In fact, nobody knew about the incident until the photograph of the man placing his slipper against the Prime Minister’s poster was circulated online by UMNO/BN cybertroopers.

What the protestor did was wrong but all over the country today, Malaysians are asking what type of justice we have in the country when a person could be arrested for being photographed  holding a slipper against a poster of the Prime Minister during a protest against fuel subsidy cuts and the goods and services tax (GST) when the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nancy Shukri can tell  Parliament that Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali would not be charged over his threat to burn the Malay-language Bible as Ibrahim Ali was defending the sanctity of Islam!

What is worse, Nancy compounded her lack of understanding and insensitivity of the gross injustice of her parliamentary statement with the subsequent clarification that Ibrahim Ali’s action was protected by Article 11(4) of the Malaysian Constitution!

If Ibrahim Ali’s threat to burn the Malay-language Bible is allegedly protected by Article 11(4) of the Constitution, is the protestor photographed holding a slipper against a poster of the Prime Minister protected by Article 10 (1) on freedom of expression?

The arrest of the protestor and the immunity of Ibrahim Ali have further highlighted the rank and blatant defects and abuses  in the administration of justice in the country, at a time when the Najib premiership is shocking the nation and the world with  a “white terror” regime unleashed by a blitz of selective and malicious sedition prosecutions against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, activists and intellectuals.

Malaysians must wonder whether they are engaged in a dialogue with the deaf when they try to reason with the Umno/BN authorities against the “white terror” sedition blitzkrieg when there are UMNO/BN MPs who could even propose that sedition suspects should be treated as guilty until proven innocent or brag  about the “fair trial” for sedition in Malaysia when “in China or during Japanese occupation, those found guilty of sedition are shot dead”.

I have no doubt that if there is an  independent and impartial exercise of prosecution powers instead of selective and malicious prosecutions on sedition, Utusan Malaysia would dominate court time and space and  head the list of sedition charges and trials in Malaysian courts.

In such a situation, are these UMNO/BN MPs still in favour of treating sedition suspects as guilty until proven innocent or to be “shot dead” when found guilty of sedition?

If reasoning with the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and Cabinet Ministers about the iniquities and injustices of the recent sedition dragnet is a dialogue with the deaf, then the Malaysian Bar’s “Walk For Peace and Freedom against the Sediton Act” tomorrow is not only historic and memorable but most appropriate and timely.

It is indeed shocking that the Minister for Information, Communications and Multimedia Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek could be so complacent about Malaysia’s poor Press Freedom Index (PFI) ranking by Reporters Without Borders, placed No. 147 out of 180 countries, when he should have spoken up in Cabinet that Malaysia’s press freedom index ranking could worsen if the government continues with its “white terror” sedition blitzkrieg against the media and  academicians in trying to stifle   legitimate criticism and dissent.

The tragedy in Malaysia today is that although no  Cabinet Minister  would defend the sedition “white terror”  blitzkrieg in private, no Minister would dare to speak up in Cabinet and government to call for a halt for such a travesty of justice and  trampling of democracy.

Even the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Idrisz Jala who had  twittered his opposition to the sedition charge against Prof Dr. Azmi Sharom was not  prepared to take a stand against the sedition blitzkrieg against Azmi and others in Cabinet.

Is  Najib the mastermind behind the sedition blitzkrieg, or is the Prime Minister no more in full control of his government, with  an  Attorney-General who is marching to the beat of a different drummer heading in the  opposite direction of Malaysia as the world’s best democracy as pledged by Najib?

Is this why even Najib’s own initiative, the Global Movement of Moderates, is coming under attack and close to be regarded as a seditious organisation with increasing calls from extremist groups and individuals for the head of the GMM Chief Executive, former Higher Education Deputy Minister, Datuk Saiffuddin Abdullah?

If Najib cannot even protect his own brainchild, the GMM, and speak up to stop  the extremist demands against the GMM Chief Executive, what is the worth of Najib’s pledges about wasatiyyah (moderation) and Malaysia as the world’s best democracy?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 15 October 2014, 1:29 pm and is filed under
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Zahid to be charged with sedition? Tell it to the Marines!

The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abdu Bakar announced this morning that the police have recorded a statement from Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi over his speech at the Pengkalan Kubor by-election which Perak DAP and DAPSY had made police reports as being “seditious”.

Perak DAP State Secretary Wong Kah Woh and DAPSY chief Teoh Kok Seong lodged the police reports more than three weeks ago on Zahid’s

“seditious” speech inciting racial sentiments, and it makes a total mockery of Zahid’s public oath that the police would investigate “within 24 hours” any sedition police report when the police took more than three weeks to take  a statement from the Home Minister, who is the subject matter of the sedition police report.

The timing of the IGP’s announcement on the eve of the Bar Council’s “Solidarity Walk” against the recent blitzkrieg of sedition prosecutions against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, activists and intellectuals is also intriguing – is it to make the point that the police are even-handed and will investigate anyone who is the subject of a sedition police report?

If so, can the police explain why it has not yet investigated the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir although the DAP MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng lodged separate sedition police reports against the two on Sept. 24 more than three weeks ago?

Is the police also trying to make the point that the police, in its investigations,  is capable of recommending to the Attorney-General that the Home Minister be charged under the Sedition Act?

Tell it to the Marines!

As a former UMNO Minister had suggested during the current parliamentary budget debate that those charged under the Sedition Act 1948 must be made to prove their innocence, is Zahid prepared to be charged under the Sedition Act to let the courts decide whether he is guilty  as well as accept the shifting of the onus of  proof bearing the presumption of guilt instead of presumption of innocence?

Furthermore, would Zahid go along with the outrageous viewpoint of another Umno MP who seem to be quite agreeable with the idea that those  found guilty of sedition should be  “shot in the head”, claiming that this was what happened in China and during the Japanese Occupation.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 15 October 2014, 5:10 pm and is filed under
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Explain inaction on racial, religious provocation cases, Bar asks police, A-G

By V. ANBALAGAN

The Malaysian Insider

15 October 2014

Ahead of its peaceful walk to protest the Sedition Act tomorrow, the Malaysian Bar has a list of at least a dozen cases of provocative racial and religious remarks since 2012, and wants the police and Attorney-General to explain the status of each to the public.

The list of cases was appended in a document when the Bar passed a resolution at its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on September 19 that the Sedition Act should be repealed and a protest march be held.

Its president Christopher Leong said it was not for de facto Law Minister Datuk Nancy Shukri to speak of these matters that came under the responsibility of these agencies.

“It is for the police to explain their non-action while the Attorney-General’s Chambers on why it refused to prosecute certain cases,” Leong told The Malaysian Insider.

He said this in response to the barrage of criticism against Nancy, who last week replied on behalf of the public prosecutor that no charges would be framed against Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali for his statement last year that Malay Bibles should be burnt.

In a written reply to Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng on October 7, Nancy said Ibrahim’s remark was made in defence of Islam as the constitution provided for the state and federal laws to control and restrict the propagation of other religions to Muslims.

Leong said police investigations and prosecution were not under her purview.

Former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman in a recent interview with The Malaysian Insider also said that only the public prosecutor had the absolute discretion whether to frame or drop charges against accused persons.

Leong said the list of cases with unknown status were raised at the Bar EGM to show how the Sedition Act was being used selectively.

“The cases were referred to highlight the injustice of the situation and that the sedition law is open to abuse,” he said.

Among the notable cases in the Bar’s list were that of controversial lecturer Ridhuan Tee Abdullah and former Perkasa vice-president Datuk Zulkifli Noordin for allegedly disparaging the Hindu religion and insulting adherents of the faith in February and March last year.

Ridhuan also allegedly made inflammatory remarks in an article “Kesabaran Umat Islam ada had” (There is a limit to the patience of Muslims) on February 18 last year.

There were also police reports made after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the results of the 2013 general election was a “Chinese tsunami” on May 6 last year, and also after Utusan Malaysia published a front-page article entitled “Apa lagi orang Cina mahu? (What more do the Chinese want?) the following day.

The document presented at the Bar EGM also questioned the status of reports made against retired Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah for allegedly accusing an ethnic group of treason and then warning of retribution by another ethnic group on May 22 last year.

It also asked about the status of investigations against retired chief justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohammad for allegedly stating in early September that only Malays truly fought for independence while the other races were consumed by self-interest.

Other major cases on the Bar’s list are:

* The bloodletting of chickens in a street of Kuala Lumpur, allegedly by some members of Pertubuhan Permuafakatan Majlis Ayahanda Malaysia (Permas) and an overt reference to the racial riot of May 13 as an implied threat.

* The person involved in the burning of an effigy of Father Lawrence Andrew, a Christian priest, in January.

* A speech at a seminar entitled “Seminar Kalimah Allah dan Kristologi Nusantara” at Universiti Teknologi Mara on May 6.

* Segambut Umno division chief and Senator Datuk Kamruddin Ambok for allegedly stating that non-Bumiputeras were “biadap and kurang ajar” (uncouth and impolite) early last month.

* Former Perak state executive councillor Datuk Hamidah Osman for allegedly stating, “Bila nampak ular dan seorang India, pukul India dulu” (When you see a snake and an Indian, hit the Indian first) on Twitter on September 18, 2012.

The Sedition Act has been used against several politicians from Pakatan Rakyat, student activists, lawyers and even academicians who have been hauled up by the police since August, either for investigation or prosecution.

Among the big names are opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and law professors Dr Azmi Sharom and Dr Abdul Aziz Bari.

Leong said the Sedition Act was a bad and unjust law and must be repealed because it criminalised speech and expression of thought.

He said some people claimed that sedition was not a bad law but the Bar’s stand was that a legislation could not depend on the good faith of men.

“Our experience and history had shown that the repealed Internal Security Act and the Printing Presses and Publications Act had been abused,” he added.

He said there were others spreading false information that those who wanted the Sedition Act repealed also wanted to remove provisions that protected the position of Islam, the Malays and the Rulers.

“The Malaysian Bar abides by the constitution as these are integral and important parts of nation building,” he said.

The Bar will hold a peaceful walk in protest against the Sedition Act tomorrow from Padang Merbok to Parliament.

Leong said at the end of the walk at Parliament, the lawyers will present relevant documents to the prime minister or his representative.

He said the Bar had given notice under the Peaceful Assembly Act to the police to facilitate the event.

“There is no pre-registration (for the walk) but the support from members is very encouraging based on queries about the event,” he said. – October 15, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 16 October 2014, 8:05 am and is filed under
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In rare march, lawyers press Putrajaya to show door to Sedition Act

By Ida Lim

Malay Mail Online

October 16, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 ― Malaysian lawyers will trade the courtroom for the streets today, in an uncommon march by the legal profession to demand Putrajaya honour its two-year old pledge to repeal the Sedition Act 1948.

The rare spectacle is set to add to mounting pressure on the government to abolish the colonial-era law whose use in an ongoing crackdown has drawn criticism from both local and international groups including the United Nations.

Christopher Leong, who heads the Malaysian Bar that represents 16,000 lawyers in peninsular Malaysia, pointed out that the prime minister himself has asked moderates to speak up instead of ceding public space to extremists.

“This walk by the Malaysian Bar is part of our response to that call by the prime minister for moderates to stand up and speak out,” Leong said in an interview with local radio station BFM yesterday, adding later that the professional body believes that the national leader was right to decide to pledge the abolition of the law.

In 2012, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak vowed to repeal the Sedition Act 1948 and replace it with national harmony laws as part of his legal reforms to provide Malaysians with greater civil liberties.

But the move has since run up against resistance from conservative Malay-Muslim groups, who contend that eliminating the law would remove restrictions on alleged demands to do away with a host of constitutional provisions, primarily those concerning Bumiputera privileges.

When explaining the need for the Malaysian Bar’s “Walk for Peace and Freedom” this morning, Leong said the Sedition Act sweeps “important social issues” under the carpet instead of allowing Malaysians to freely discuss and learn to grow, saying that such matters would then “fester” in society and turn “rotten”.

Inherited from British colonialists, the Sedition Act 1948 criminalises speech that “excites disaffection” against the government, but its broadly-defined terms allow it to be wielded against virtually all forms of dissent.

The Bar’s vice-president, Steven Thiru, called the Sedition Act an “obsolete” law that represses free thought, and highlighted the fact that Putrajaya has used the decades-old law far more often than ever before since declaring its intention to repeal it.

“You cannot have a law which you have actually slated for repeal, then being used – as it is now – to the hilt,” he said in the same interview with BFM yesterday.

In just nine months this year, 12 cases have been prosecuted under the Sedition Act ― the highest figure since 2009 ― raising alarm in civil society of Putrajaya’s perceived clampdown on dissent.

Eight cases were brought to trial under the Sedition Act in 2013, while only one case each made it to court in both 2009 and 2011; there was a complete absence of sedition charges during 2010 and 2012.

Today’s march will be just the fourth in the Malaysian Bar’s 67-year history. Recent marches include the 2007 “Walk for Justice” and the 2011 “Walk for Freedom to Walk” over a judicial appointment scandal and the PAA Bill, respectively; both drew estimated crowds of between 1,000 and 2,000 people.

Despite its exceptionality and the international attention, political analysts are doubtful that the Bar’s walk will achieve more than just news headlines.

When contacted, Monash University Malaysia’s head of political science Prof James Chin told Malay Mail Online that the march today would be negative for Putrajaya as it was legal experts protesting a particular law.

“I think the government will ignore since they are planning a replacement law already. They will say the Bar Council is over-reacting and not [patient] enough,” the political scientist said in an email reply.

Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) director Dr Lim Teck Ghee described the march as damaging to Putrajaya’s bid to be recognised as a “liberal and democratic government”, saying that it would seek to avoid any “adverse publicity” by ensuring the lawyers are handled with “kid gloves”.

But he added that the walk was not as effective as bipartisan calls for the Sedition Act to go, nor will it gain traction as a one-off event.

Prof Dr Jayum A. Jawan of Universiti Putra Malaysia said the Malaysian Bar’s walk is unlikely to “pressure the government to do things drastically”, citing the “reality” where Putrajaya has to weigh the small legal community’s objections against the views of millions of voters.

He said that the Sedition Act was still needed as a temporary measure to ensure harmony in a volatile environment where Malaysians have yet to show maturity in public discourse, but acknowledged public dissatisfaction on how the ruling government has failed to use the law with “good judgement”.

Yesterday, both Leong and Steven stressed that the Malaysian Bar’s march was just one part of its ongoing #MansuhAktaHasutan (#Repeal the Sedition Act) campaign pushing for the Sedition Act’s repeal, saying that the legal body will continue to advocate for its abolition after the walk.

Leong also confirmed that the Malaysian Bar has given early notification of the march to the police, saying that the latter was legally-bound by the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA) to facilitate the walk and ensure the security of participants.

International observers are expected to monitor the march from Padang Merbok to Parliament, with support pouring in from lawyers across the region and also from as far as Germany for the Malaysian Bar’s opposition to the Sedition Act.

Malay Mail Online understands that both the Sabah Law Association (SLA) and the Advocates Association of Sarawak (AAS) ― the bodies representing lawyers in the two east Malaysian states – have yet to decide on joining or supporting the march here.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 16 October 2014, 7:46 am and is filed under
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Jurists worldwide insist Putrajaya protect lawyers rallying against Sedition Act

Malay Mail Online

October 15, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 – An international jurists group urged Putrajaya today to ensure no “police abuse” and disruptions occur during the Malaysian Bar’s planned protest against the Sedition Act 1948 tomorrow.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) — comprising lawyers, judges and academics — noted that a rally against the colonial-era law that was organised by local human rights group Suaram in Penang last Sunday was disrupted by a rival group.

“The Malaysian government is responsible for protecting the rights of those holding dissenting views, and that includes protecting peaceful protesters from police abuse as well as from violent counter protesters,” ICJ’s international legal advisor on Southeast Asia Emerlynne Gil said in a statement today.

“The Sedition Act is being misused with increasing frequency to muzzle legal professionals who express their views about existing laws,” she added.

Gil noted that according to the United Nations’ Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, lawyers have the right to participate in public discussions about the law, justice and human rights.

The Malaysian Bar will be marching from the Padang Merbok carpark in the city centre to Parliament tomorrow to call for the repeal of the Sedition Act, amid a government crackdown under the law that has targeted more than 30 people since March last year.

Critics have accused the government of using the Sedition Act to quell dissent, as the sedition dragnet has seen lawyers, opposition lawmakers, activists and even journalists being investigated, charged or convicted under the law.

“The freedom of peaceful assembly and of association is a right guaranteed under universally accepted international human rights standards. The ICJ calls on the Malaysian authorities to respect this right by facilitating the peaceful rally and not resorting to unnecessary intimidation or force,” said Gil.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 16 October 2014, 7:57 am and is filed under
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