The IGP should be non-partisan professional top policeman to uphold law without fear or favour and not to act like the Security Chief of  Prime Minister  to harass and persecute dissent

I commend the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar for his composure and being unfazed by a video of three men threatening to blow up his car with him inside it, which is expected  of all holders of public office and trust when confronted with extremist threats to cow them from carrying out their public duties.

Khalid sets a good example in declaring that he  is not intimidated by the death threat against him, his denunciation of the group known as “Anak Malaysia Anti Demokrasi” as irresponsible for not respecting parliamentary democracy and not knowing the real meaning of democracy.

All Malaysians will support the firmest actions taken by the authorities to punish severely those involved in IS-type videos to threaten violent acts, including murder the current IGP, as Malaysians must not allow such  deplorable culture to take root in the country.

On Feb. 15, a video was uploaded under a You Tube account named ISIS Malaysia 69 which featured four masked men threatening to light up fireworks in courts across the country, which was followed by another one, featuring a group of three individuals that called themselves Anak Muda Anti-Democracy (AMAD) on Tuesday which threatened to kill Khalid, by blowing up his car with him inside it.

The last thing Malaysia needs is the introduction of IS-type of barbarities and atrocities on our shores.

A day before the IS-type video death threat to Khalid, I had issued  a statement criticizing  the IGP for a wrong  sense of priorities, setting up the world’s first police special unit on sedition for him to twitter instructions to harass Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGO activists while overlooking the bigger national threat of Islamic State extending its tentacles to vulnerable young Malaysians including 14-year-old boys and girls.

I do not know whether the IS-type video death threat to the IGP the next day is serious and genuine evidence of the arrival  of IS-type culture to Malaysia or a sick stupid joke, but the substance of my criticism of the IGP’s recent obsessions remains valid and pertinent.

I agree with the Home Minister, Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who said yesterday that the post of IGP must be respected as whoever assumes the role acts as an institution and not an individual.

It is precisely because Khalid as IGP represents an institution and not an individual that he should be mindful of his role and responsibilities  – to always act as a non-partisan professional top policeman to uphold law without fear or favour, regardless of whether the transgressors are from the Opposition and civil society or from government ranks,  and not to act like the Security Chief or point man of the Prime Minister’s praetorian guard to harass and persecute dissent.

Khalid’s recent conduct as IGP has fallen fall short of such high professional standards expected of the institutional high office of an IGP, undermining national and international confidence in the  credibility and integrity of the institution of IGP.

It is like the referee of a soccer game forgetting his non-partisan professional role and  taking sides with one team against another during the game, allowing not only  foul kicks by the team he sided but disposing of a few foul kicks himself!

The IGP should stay out of the political fray of the nation involving the political contestants, whether the government, the Opposition or civil society, scrupulously and jealously guarding his political neutrality, upholding the law without fear or favour and acting against those who transgress the law, whether government or opposition.

Unfortunately, Khalid has built quite a negative image of himself as point man for the Prime Minister, leading the campaign to harass, intimidate and even intimidate Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGO activists while totally blind to the violations and transgression of the law committed by Barisan Nasional and pro-UMNO/BN elements.

Khalid will only undermine the credibility and integrity of the office of IGP if he continues in such a selective and  misguided fashion.

Is Khalid  prepared to halt all harassment and persecution of Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGOs activists like the latest cases involving DAP Perak State Chairman and MP for Taiping, Nga Kor Ming, the PKR Secretary-General and MP for Pandan, Rafizi Ramli, the Penang Exco and PKR Youth deputy chief Dr. Afif Bahardin, the PSM Secretary-General S. Arutchelvan, cartoonist Zunar or Zulkiflee SM Anwar, and NGO activists like student leaders Adam Adli Abdul Halim and Fariz Musa, human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen, Bersih activist Hishamuddin Rais and begin to take actions against UMNO people like the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Ibrahim Sabri and the former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Mashitah Ibrahim for their hate speech and lies?

However, of great concern to all keen and observant Malaysians is the sense  that the police and government  authorities have lost the plot as far as  the new and grave security  threat posed by the new phenomenon of Islamic State to Malaysia.

There should otherwise have been no initial enthusiasm for the advances of Islamic State as expressed publicly by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak at an UMNO function last June.

It is a matter of grave security concern that despite police efforts to keep the Islamic State threat under check in the past six months, the Malaysian authorities seem to be fighting a losing battle as the threat of Islamic State has increased by leaps and bounds  over the months to not only lure Malaysian Muslim youths and even 14-year-old boys and  girls to join them in their international terrorist activities in Syria and Iraq, but to be able to operate their cells in the country as to plot the kidnap of Malaysian Chinese towkays and to stage bank robberies – as revealed by the  Home Minister in one of his  recent but questionable pronouncements.

On Christmas Eve last December, police arrested a 27-year-old woman at the KLIA planning to travel to Syria to join a ISIS fighter she had married over Skype two weeks earlier.

Last month, a 29-year-old Malaysian deportee from Australia was arrested in Kuala Lumpur on suspicion of running a transit cell to Syria for Malaysians recruited for the terrorist group Islamic State.

Only yesterday, it was reported that there had been a sixth Malaysian death  in Syria fighting for the Islamic State cause.

Not less than 60 Malaysians have been recruited by people in the Islamic State terrorist activities in Syria. The police have detained about 50 Malaysians so far, for attempting to join the IS or for facilitating their recruitment.

The conflicting and even confusing statements made by various Cabinet Ministers and government departments, including  the Education Ministry, the Home Ministry, the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development, the religious departments, when a 14-year-girl from Muar, Johore who studied in a tahfiz school in Shah Alam was arrested at the KLIA as she was about to fly off to Syria last week, is the best proof that the police and government authorities are quite lost as to how to deal with the Islamic State threat.

The arrest of the 14-year-old girl on Feb. 17 is believed to be the second time a teenager was detained over suspected IS-involvement as on Oct. 13, a 14-year-old was among five of his family members nabbed for attempting to join the IS terrorist group.

Commenting on the influence the Islamic State terrorist group have over Malaysia, former Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Musa, said the relevant authorities should do more to educate the people on how the terrorists have deviated from the true teachings of Islam and advised Malaysians to stay away and avoid getting themselves involved with these Syrian-based terrorists.

Musa said:  “The Malays in our country, when speaking about Islam, they are easily influenced to help based on sympathy. So we have to remind them that this (IS) is not our problem, don’t get involved in other country’s problems.”

It is this type of  laid-back reactive rather than creative and proactive strategy which  explains why the  challenge of the  idea of Islamic State transcending national borders is not “” matched effectively, as the appeal of Islamic State does  not rely on traditional media or channels to spread their message but on their mastery of the social websites with thousands of efficient and fast-working cybertroopers promoting the IS ideology.

The Malaysian mainstream media, reflecting the thinking of the their political masters in government, still present a fairly benign image of Islamic State despite their barbarities and atrocities like beheadings, crucifixions and mass slaughters.

A leading article in the latest issue of Atlantic, “What ISIS Really means” has agued: “The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse.”

The Islamic State is hinged on the Salafi-Jihad ideology which promotes Daulah Islamiah through waging wars and declaring as “infidels” governments that do not uphold Syariah laws, which includes all the heads of state of every Muslim country with man-made law above Sharia – including Malaysia.

With the announcement of the restoration of the  “Caliphate”, Islamic State is now engaged in a new phase of “offensive jihad” – the forcible expansion into countries that are ruled by non-Muslims or do not submit to the Caliphate.

As an IS ideologue explained, “without a caliphate, offensive jihad is an inapplicable concept. But the waging of war to expand the caliphate is an essential duty of the caliph”.

The barbaric  laws of war which the Islamic State practises are presented as policies of mercy rather than of brutality –  that the  state has an obligation to terrorize its enemies with beheadings,  crucifixions and enslavement of women and children, because doing so hastens victory and avoids prolonged conflict.

The  political and government authorities must quickly grasp the full complexities and challenges of the Islamic State threat to the security and even nation-building process of Malaysia and work out an effective national strategy to counter and defeat it.

The Prime Minister  Datuk Seri Najib Razak should present a second White Paper when Parliament meets on March 9 on the latest update of the Islamic State threat to Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 27 February 2015, 8:19 am and is filed under
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Arifin Zakaria should explain whether the Ayer Molek case is one reason why Justice Hishammuddin has been denied elevation to the Federal Court twice  – a case of former CJ Eusoffe Chin exacting his final vengeance

Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who is also Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), should explain whether the controversial Ayer Molek Rubber Company vs Insas Bhd case is one reason why Justice Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus has been by-passed twice and denied elevation to the Federal Court, the first time in September 2013 and the second time in the latest batch of judicial elevations this year  – a case of former Chief Justice Tun Eusoffe Chin exactly his final vengeance.

Arifin owes not only the local and international legal and jurist community, but the whole nation, a proper and satisfactory explanation as a series of recent cases and events have put the Malaysian judiciary in the dock as to its ability to uphold a truly independent judiciary with  just rule of law.

The latest judicial shocker is the revelation by retired Court of Appeal judge Justice K.C. Vohrah who wrote in an in-house Malaysian judiciary publication last year to mark the Court of Appeal’s 20th anniversary that the former chief justice Eusoff Chin tried to influence a Court of Appeal judge who was about to hear the appeal of the controversial Ayer Molek case in 1995.

Vohrah had  sat on the panel hearing of the Ayer Molek appeal with Court of Appeal Judge NH Chan and a co-opted High Court judge, Siti Norma Yaakob, who later rose to become the first female Chief Judge of Malaya.

The Ayer Molek case had been an infamous example in the catalogue of cases and events in the eighties and nineties which marked the downfall of Malaysia’s national and international reputation for  true judicial independence and just rule of law – starting with the  sacking of Tun Salleh Abas as  Lord President of the Supreme Court and two Supreme Court Judges, Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawan Teh and Datuk George Seah by the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in 1988, a judicial devastation which Malaysia had not fully recovered after more than a quarter of a century and change of two Prime Ministers in 2015.

As explained by Vohrah, the Ayer Molek case involved the grant of an ex-parte order to compel Ayer Molek to effect the transfer of 540,000 ordinary shares of Ayer Molek to Insas in the share register of the company and to issue new certificates in Insas’ names within two working days of their receiving the share certificates.

On April 12, 1995, Ayer Molek filed an application to set aside the ex-parte mandatory order of April 10, 1995.

That application came up for hearing before the High Court on April 13, 1995 but the judge adjourned it to April 27, 1995 which was after the two days period he allowed for compliance of his ex-parte order.

The defendants immediately applied for a stay of the ex-parte mandatory order pending disposal of their application to discharge it. The High Court judge refused to grant a stay of his ex-parte order.

On April 14, 1995, the transfer of the shares was registered in the share register of Ayer Molek and new share certificates were issued to Insas under compliance of the ex-parte order.

On April 18, 1995, Ayer Molek filed a notice of appeal against the ex-parte order at the Court of Appeal. On the same day, they filed a motion for a stay of the ex-parte order pending their appeal.

As Vohrah wrote  in his article, it was abundantly clear at the Court of Appeal that grave injustices had been perpetrated in the case at the High Court level.

Insas – through their legal advisers – have abused the process of the High Court by instigating the injustice through misuse of the court’s procedure by manipulating it in such a way that it becomes manifestly unfair to the defendants.

The Court of Appeal ruled: “By doing what they did, these unethical lawyers have brought the administration of justice into disrepute. While it does not render the proceedings to be in any way invalid, it may give the impression to right thinking people that litigants can choose the judge before whom they wish to appear.”

This was where  Court of Apeal judge Justice N. H. Chan made his celebrated quote from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in saying that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” as the High Court case heard when the courtt was housed in Wisma Denmark or Denmark House in Kuala Lumpur.

The Court of Appeal granted the stay order on July 26, 1995 and written grounds were given five days later.

Vohrah wrote: “Swift as an arrow a stay application on appeal against that decision was filed on July 27, 1995. The application and appeal were heard at the Federal Court on August 1, 1995 before a three-member bench comprising Eusoff (above), a Court of Appeal judge and a High Court judge. The written grounds was provided 12 days later which set aside the Court of Appeal decision.”

The former judge noted that the Malaysian Bar was aghast at the decision made by the Federal Court and issued a strong statement against it while saying the panel headed by Eusoff had been illegally constituted.

I brought up the case in Parliament in October 1995, raising the constitutional issue in the Ayer Molek controversy where a High Court judge made a “double jump” to sit as a Federal Court judge, totally at variance with Article 122(2) of the Federal Constitution.

I argued that it was  very clear that constitutionally as well as going by common sense, only a court of Appeal judge and not a high Court judge can be appointed in special circumstances to fill  a vacancy in the federal Court  panel as otherwise, we will have the extraordinary spectacle of a High court  judge doing a “double-jump” leaping over the Court, of Appeal to sit as a federal Court judge.

 .

In the Ayer Molek case, a high Court judge was appointed as one of the three-member panel of judges of the  federal Court, which would make its judgment a nullity and the judgment of the court of Appeal as the highest judgment on the issue in the land.

My position in Parliament was vindicated in the RM100 million defamation suit later brought by  V.K. Lingam, the lawyer for Insas against Euro Money Publications over an article titled “Malaysian justice on trial” which was published in the International Commercial Litigation magazine.

The case came up before Justice Mohamad Hishamudin Mohd Yunus. While Lingam submitted that the Court of Appeal judgment in the Ayer Molek case had been expunged, Justice Hishamudin stood his ground saying the Federal Court panel by Eusoff was not legally constituted as it comprised only “two legally competent judges, namely, Eusoff and a Court of Appeal Judge. The third judge of the panel, Pajan Singh Gill, was not legally competent to sit on that bench as he was only a High Court judge then”.

Justice Hishamudin ruled that the judgment of the Court of Appeal by Chan, Siti Norma and Vohrah in the Ayer Molek case is still wholly intact and is still a valid and binding judgment and “I am entitled, indeed I am duty bound, to take cognisance of the judgment in deciding on Lingam’s claim in this action”.

Eventually, Lingam’s suit was dismissed by Justice Hishamudin.

Is  the Ayer Molek case  one reason why Justice Hishammuddin has been denied elevation to the Federal Court twice – a case of former CJ Eusoffe Chin exacting his final vengeance?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 9:02 am and is filed under
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Baggy clothes didn’t stop my rapist, victim tells Ridhuan Tee

The Malay Mail Online

February 24, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 — Baggy jeans and a loose T-shirt did not prevent her sexual assault in 2001, rape survivor Rosheen Fatima told controversial columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah who claimed that women’s bodies attract rapists.

In an article titled “My body is not an invitation” published on the website of women’s magazine Elle Malaysia, Rosheen insisted that there is no justification for rape and said Tee was merely engaging in victim-blaming.

“Shame on you, Ridhuan Tee. Put the blame where it belongs. There is only one thing that causes rape: rapists,” Rosheen said.

“Rapists make a choice to rape. There is no invitation, no fate that intervenes. It is a choice to rape. A choice to brutally assault and traumatise a fellow human being. There is no justification. Ever,” she added.

Tee wrote in a February 16 article in Malay-language daily Sinar Harian that women were motivating men to commit rape by “exposing and flaunting” their bodies, sparking outrage from women’s groups who said sexual assault is not linked to one’s clothing.

The lecturer at the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin’s Research Institute for Islamic Products and Civilisation also said it is “fate” if a woman who covers her “aurat” is raped.

“Aurat” in Malay refers to “intimate body parts” that Muslims must cover with clothing; exposing these is considered sinful.

Rosheen said she was raped by strangers in 2001 – one of 1,386 reported cases – and pointed out that rape cases have increased since, with 2,998 rapes reported in the country in 2012, citing statistics from women’s group Women’s Aid Organisation.

“These figures show that rape culture exists. And misogynistic comments like Ridhuan Tee’s that attempt to justify rape are only adding to the problem,” she said.

Rosheen also criticised the comments on Tee’s article that justified rape culture and twisted Islam, singling out a commenter who wrote: “This statement is okay. What’s the problem? There is no issue of insulting women, or insulting other religions. It is clear that his comments are telling us to follow the religion’s laws that’s all”.

Rosheen described rape culture as an indifferent society in which rape is normalised and where victims are blamed.

“It is rape culture that forces survivors to be silent. To not come forward. To be ashamed of something that is not their fault,” she said, noting that only one out of 10 rapes is reported.

Rosheen said she was not ashamed of what happened to her.

“It was not my fault. I am a woman. My body is not an invitation,” she said.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 6:10 am and is filed under
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Dear Ridhuan Tee

― Shafiqah Othman

The Malay Mail Online

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

FEBRUARY 17 ― Your blatant disrespect for other faiths (or people) increasingly infuriates me and I cannot help but finally pen this down. I have, in many occasions, dismissed your rude statements, but it has come to a point where I no longer can stand your nonsense.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for freedom of speech. By all means, go ahead, run amok and pollute Malaysian minds with your ignorance, but that also means I should be able to speak against the trash that I think you are spouting.

First, what you said on women’s bodies was just plain disturbing.

You say that women’s bodies attracts rapists because “the logic is simple”. Women’s bodies are arousing and alluring. Then you go on to say “If it’s fated that many of those who cover their ‘aurat’ are raped, then it’s fate”, and the only reason loosely-clothed woman are more commonly raped is because their article of clothing is more easily removed as compared to tight clothing.

Are you serious? The fallacies in your logic are mind-blowing, sir! I don’t mean to be the one to point this all out to you, but please:

A huge percentage of rapes are committed by acquaintances, friends or relatives. It is undoubtedly true that a lot of rapes are also committed by strangers, but what are you trying to say about the people who were raped by their own family members? How mentally ill does one have to be to get “turned on” by your own kin?

Rape is not all about sex and getting aroused. Rape is not an over-spill of sexual energy. Arousal plays little to no part in rape, and it mostly has to do with dominance over the other party. People rape those they think are weaker than themselves, and this is the reason why there are people raping children, babies, and even men raping other men. What is your solution to this problem? Or are you just going to tell a mother that it was fated her son was molested?

Considering the diversity of women’s bodies, could you say that all women’s bodies are arousing and alluring to you? I have many male friends who do get aroused by women, but not to the point of rape. One has to be a real devil to rape, and how shallow are you to think that getting aroused immediately leads to rape? Again, the problem is not in what the women are wearing, but in the way the men react to her. Just because you are aroused by someone in public does not mean you run towards her with an erection and penetrate her without her consent.

Rape can be prevented, yes, by raising boys into respectable men. Not by restricting what women can or cannot wear. How else then will you explain the high rape cases in Middle Eastern countries where women are so heavily-clad from top to bottom? Is it because their clothes can be easily removed? If we’re following this logic, shouldn’t nude beaches be scenes of mass orgy and rape considering the fact that there is nothing to remove in the first place? But no. Apparently these people handle their sexual drives better than we do, don’t they? These… these “uncircumsized” people, as you put it.

Which brings me to my next point.

You’ve really outshone yourself this time by calling all non-Muslims uncircumsized. That just goes to show how much you know about other religions. Do you honestly think that Islam is the only religion that circumsizes? In fact, did you know that Judaism was the first religion to start the tradition of circumcision? Well, now you do.

It just appals me to no end how you are practically putting all the blame on women. If you wear tight clothes, it’s your fault if you get raped. If you wear loose clothes, it’s fate that you were raped. Either way, there’s no winning, is there? Just happy paedophiles and rapists waiting to emerge because there will always be people like you who will be defending their case. It’s unacceptable when a man rapes a baby, a child, an animal or even another man, but the moment a man rapes a woman, there are bigots like you who ask “What was she wearing?” and doing the victim-blaming.

If your son raped, would you reprimand him or blame the girl for arousing him? If your daughter was raped, would you just tell her that it was fate? I can only imagine what a horrible confidant you would be when people who are traumatised by rape come to you for consolation.

I would like to end by redirecting one of your quotes back to yourself,

“In brief, don’t be a smart aleck or act like a ‘know-it-all.’ It’s damaging to your own faith.”

And I sir, honestly think that you are the damage to your faith.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 6:19 am and is filed under
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I didn’t ask to be sexually assaulted

Boo Su-Lyn

Malay Mail Online

February 27, 2015

FEBRUARY 27 — We were arguing over something and then, with a pen knife in his hand, my then-boyfriend demanded to get intimate with me.

I didn’t want to.

I said a hesitant “No.” But he kept asking me, in a low threatening voice, with the blade still in his hand, to let him do it. Over and over again, he asked.

So I relented and let him do what he wanted. I was afraid of what would happen if I said no. I had seen him punch walls before in anger. I didn’t know what he would do with a knife.

It wasn’t rape under Malaysian law as the law defines rape as the insertion of a penis into a vagina without consent. But it was sexual assault.

Columnist and lecturer Ridhuan Tee Abdullah said in a February 16 article in Sinar Harian that women’s bodies invite rape. He also claimed that wearing short skirts could lead to rape and sexual assault.

In other words, he’s saying that rape victims were asking for it.

Tee’s column came after the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) said in a Friday sermon that covering up one’s aurat would prevent rape and sexual harassment.

The Friday sermon had outraged women’s groups who said rape is not linked to one’s dressing, pointing to a few high-profile rape cases of victims wearing tudung and “modest” clothing.

I got the courage to write this piece after reading Rosheen Fatima’s article in the Elle Malaysia website, where she said wearing baggy jeans and a loose T-shirt didn’t prevent her from getting raped.

Unfortunately, I can’t hide behind loose or “modest” clothes.

When I was sexually assaulted by my then-boyfriend sometime in my early 20s, I was wearing a spaghetti-strap top.

But I can tell Ridhuan Tee and Jais that my ex would have sexually assaulted me anyway even if I were wearing a burqa.

He had seen me dressed before in all kinds of clothes — shorts, trousers, knee-length skirts, mini-skirts, dresses and what-have-you. But he never did anything, until that day when he decided to point a knife and sexually assault me.

I never reported it to the police. At that time, I couldn’t comprehend how he could have done it when he was supposed to be the one protecting me from the evils of the world. So I convinced myself then that it wasn’t really sexual assault, that it wasn’t really rape, that he was just angry and he didn’t mean it.

We broke up eventually and never spoke again.

I can’t make a police report now anyway even if I wanted to. I can’t remember the exact year of the incident, much less the date and time.

I can only remember his terrible fury and the cold glint of the blade.

When clerics and men like Ridhuan Tee tell women to cover up to prevent sexual assault, it makes rape victims second-guess themselves. It makes them wonder if there was anything at all they could have done to prevent being raped.

It makes it seem as if the rape victim is complicit in the crime against her.

I used to question my behaviour too leading up to the sexual assault. If I wasn’t in a room alone with him, if I didn’t make him angry, would it have stopped him from doing it?

Rape myths are not just preposterous but also dangerous. They justify the control of women’s bodies and absolve men from blame over crimes that they should take full responsibility for.

I don’t know why men rape. Women’s groups say that sexual assault is power-play. Perhaps it is. But it shouldn’t matter anyway, whether it’s a case of exerting dominance or pure lust.

Lust does not excuse rape. If that were the case, a hungry person could storm into any McDonald’s and grab burgers or fries without paying. We wouldn’t be telling restaurant staff to keep their food out of sight and to hide it behind lock and key. We would tell the criminal instead that his appetite is no excuse for stealing.

Rape myths are not just preposterous but also dangerous. They justify the control of women’s bodies and absolve men from blame over crimes that they should take full responsibility for. ― Reuters picRape myths are not just preposterous but also dangerous. They justify the control of women’s bodies and absolve men from blame over crimes that they should take full responsibility for. ― Reuters picIn feminism, the personal is political. That’s why I decided to write this after staying silent for so many years.

I did not report my attacker to the police. But I hope that this will give other women the courage to come forward and seek justice.

Women never ask to be raped.

The sole blame for rape lies with the perpetrator, not the victim.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 6:00 am and is filed under
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Pakatan Rakyat’s disintegration would mean Umno rules by default

― Liew Chin Tong

The Malay Mail Online

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

FEBRUARY 27 ― The potential disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat would mean Umno can continue its 60-year rule without challenge from a credible alternative or replacement. Umno has ruled the country since the first Federal Election on July 27, 1955.

The 2008 and 2013 elections have clearly shown that Malaysia is now in a 50-50 two-coalition competition, as far as elections are concerned. Yet the ruling coalition led by Umno is trying very hard to turn the clock back to a time when it was the sole power holder.

To turn the clock back, redelineation of electoral boundaries is high on the agenda of Umno leaders and the Election Commission. A constitutional amendment with two-thirds majority approval is required to increase the number of parliamentary seats. But Barisan Nasional has only 134 seats, which is 14 seats away from the two-thirds threshold.

So how can Umno do this?

Either a break-up of Pakatan Rakyat with PAS working with Umno or a break-up of PAS with the UG (Unity Government) group aligning with Umno would give Barisan Nasional the required number of votes in Parliament to change the electoral boundaries and increase the number of seats in its favour for the next general election.

Umno’s fingerprints are everywhere in its overt and covert efforts to undermine and disintegrate Pakatan Rakyat through, among other things:

The incarceration of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim,

The hudud overtures by the Federal Government and Umno to the UG elements in PAS, and

The overall heightened racial animosities promoted by Ministers like Ismail Sabri and media outlets controlled by Umno such as Utusan Malaysia and TV3.

The jailing of Anwar Ibrahim is aimed at taking away the alternative Prime Ministerial candidate from Pakatan.

The hudud overtures by Umno are meant to break either Pakatan Rakyat or PAS from the within. It is well-known that Umno has no intention to implement hudud; why then it is so eager to push PAS towards hudud?

The break-up of Pakatan or disintegration of PAS would mean Umno stands to gain from those who align themselves with Umno via the UG project, especially in terms of seat redelineation.

And the continued heightening of racial animosities is aimed at projecting Umno as the sole Malay saviour in the hope that Umno would not lose in the coming election.

Understanding these dynamics would help us read the current scenarios better.

* Excerpts from a speech about the current political scenarios by DAP National  Political Education Director and MP for Kluang Liew Chin Tong, is delivered today, February 27, 2015 at a private meeting of diplomats.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 6:26 am and is filed under
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Racial supremacism

Syerleena Abdul Rashid

The Malaysian Insider

27 February 2015

\

There is nothing more man-made than the concept of race. Issues relating to race and ethnic relations are often regarded as highly controversial. As a result, communities are left making assumptions (usually the worst) about one another’s motives rather than openly discussing issues that can help us understand things better.

Malaysians are habitually “reminded” to tip toe around conversations that touch on the 3Rs – race, religion and royalty. To most, these are the three that must never show up in conversations, literature or even thoughts. To the rest of us, we find the lack of debates quite unsettling, given the increased animosity fellow Malaysians are starting to show one another.

Supremacism is best defined as a belief system that chooses to identify, divide and control others less informed about the ever-changing political and cultural climate of modern sophisticated civilisation. It is the worldview that a certain age, ethnicity/race, religion, gender, social class or culture is superior to others and warrants those who identify themselves with this blinkered view to tower above everything humane and rational. This mob mentality happens when political parties hijack the concept of culture and religion.

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a man I have known for a few years – a professional acquaintance of sorts. This middle aged Malaysian Chinese man converted to Islam at the age of 19, shared stories of racial bigotry he had encountered as a teenager, an adult male and most recently, two years ago, at a nearby bank. After waiting at the bank for over an hour, unattended, he was informed that the non-Bumiputera quota for a particular application was full. Needless to say, he was not too thrilled to receive this news (after waiting for more than an hour) and demanded to see the manager. Several staff rudely chided him and reminded him of his ethnicity – “You hanya masuk Islam bukan Melayu. You masih lagi Cina!” they said. Thus he was not considered worthy of government assistance or their time.

The unabashed condescending remarks hurled at this man exhibited the deep-rooted xenophobia our local communities still have towards our own fellow citizens. A simple cordial verbal notification would have been sufficient but the tirade of nauseating racist banter that occurred instead exhibited the dense supremacist mentality that seems to override civility and respect. Regrettably, reports of open bigotry and shameless discrimination happen quite frequently.

At the end of the day, it really is not about religion but a distorted sense of entitlement – only the select few are welcome into this “exclusive club”. One must fulfil certain rigid requirements before they can accept you as their own kind. Failure to do so leaves you an outcast for the rest of your life – at least until socio-political reforms happen, anyway.

As twisted as it is, people like Ridhuan Tee exist because they have been conditioned to accept their new founded identity and reject, with great detestation, their own kind. Internalised racism is as real as the sun, the moon and the stars; it is a by-product of supremacism. So it should not come as a surprise when Ridhuan Tee made some tasteless remarks regarding Lawyers for Liberty co-founder Eric Paulsen’s eyes; there are people like Tee who have completely removed themselves culturally and are determined to show the rest of the world that they are better than the rest of us.

Most Malaysians are kept in perpetual bewilderment and shock at the same time when pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-scientists construct stereotypical oversimplification without fact-checking true history (not the one taught in our national schools) or consulting real experts to validate the truth. Who came to this land first is inconsequential and equally petty are attempts to label what our ethnicities convey about our economic prowess.

We live in modern times, filled with high tech gadgets and we are discovering awesome things about our ever expanding universe. With rapid globalisation occurring as we speak, the idea of a homogenised planet, tearing down ritualism and social inequality should be seen as a noble idea. Unfortunately, our society still supports the concept of cultural and racial supremacy in some form or another.

I guess we are still figuring out the true Malaysian identity and the hate-mongers will continue to seize this opportunity to create mass confusion by spreading supremacist ideologies based on who set foot on this soil first. Clearly it works for some but for the rest of us, well, that is last thing we need right now. – February 27, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 5:40 am and is filed under
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Ridhuan, if this happens to your little girl would you fault her body for rape?

― Zhu Mohammad

The Malay Mail Online

February 27

FEBRUARY 27 ― Su-Lyn, I read your column and am outraged by Ridhuan Tee’s comment that a woman’s body on its own is an invitation to rape. I feel compelled to tell my story; like you, I didn’t manage to report it to the police because it happened when I was 12 years old.

Like a lot of kids at that age who are attached to their grandparents, I was to my grandfather on my father’s side, who I think at that time was about 67 or so.

I was sort of his favourite grandchild, and I enjoyed his attention. We used to sleep together, with my other siblings too.

One thing that he used to do when i was laying down next to him was that he would fondle my intimate areas. But I didn’t understand any of it, and didn’t resist.

It was this particular night, when I was awakened as he was forcing himself on me. I froze, and let the whole thing go on until he was finished. I don’t know whether he was aware that I was awake at that time, because soon after he went to sleep.

I got up and went to the next room, and cried the whole night. I remembered feeling dirty, at one point I took a shower, and in an attempt to cleanse myself, I proceeded to read the Quran. It didn’t help, because I kept feeling dirty for the next 10 years.

We acted like nothing happened, but I stayed away from him. I didn’t tell my parents because I was scared as my grandfather lived with us, and he presented himself as a pious Muslim.

It occurred to me that my parents would not believe me. I became very aware of my surroundings after that, as I often do not feel safe.

There is another thing that I cannot forgive myself. I witnessed my grandfather fondling my sisters while they were sleeping. I don’t know until today, why I didn’t scream.

He passed away two years after that due to pancreatic cancer, I didn’t shed a single tear. I was glad he was finally gone and stopped touching me and my sisters. Relatives were puzzled as to why I was not sad over his death, because they didn’t know that his appearance as a harmless old man who was very particular with his solat routines was a monster to his own grandchildren.

I could only tell my parents about this 16 years after it happened; my mother was outraged and told my father she will never forgive my grandfather for assaulting me ― something I wished I knew when I was 12, that she would have my back no matter what happens.

To Ridhuan Tee: I was 12 when my grandfather raped me, a family member who is supposed to love me and enrich my childhood. I was wearing a T-shirt and long pants that night, but he raped me anyway. He betrayed my trust and my love that any grandchild had for their grandparents.

I was a child who couldn’t make out what happened to me ― how am I to be blamed for making my child-girl body an invitation to rape by a family member? Have you no decency at all? So I know exactly what it means when clothes on a woman’s body is not the thing that gets them raped, but predators like my grandfather who prey on the weak, even if those people are his flesh and blood.

Please shut up, Ridhuan. You are an insult to the struggle I’ve been through for the past 22 years in trying to clean myself of people who are not worthy to live amongst civilised people.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 5:53 am and is filed under
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Will Najib survive the March 8 Umno divisional leaders’ solidarity meeting?

The single political issue in the country after the Federal Court’s 5-0 dismissal of Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal in Sodomy II on February 10, resulting his fourth incarceration in his 47 years of public life and struggle for freedom, democracy, human dignity and good governance should be: “Quo Vadis, Anwar?”

Instead, the question has swiftly become “Quo Vadis, Najib?”

National focus should be on the “March to Freedom” ceramah to restore freedom for Anwar Ibrahim on March 7, but  attention has now suddenly swerved to  whether Najib could survive the Umno divisional leaders’ meeting on March 8.

This   is most extraordinary as the UMNO Division Meeting of March 8 is being called to show solidarity and support for Najib and not to ditch him.

Why is there such sudden change of political focus and climate in UMNO?

This is a reflection of the turbulent times in UMNO.

For some time, there had been great pressures on Najib to resign, and the former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad cannot make it clearer when he said in the middle of the month: “If I were PM now, I’d resign”.

However, Najib had  ignored these pressures as he seems to be a  real paradox – one of the weakest Prime Ministers in Malaysia but a strong UMNO President.

Najib’s weaknesses as Prime Minister are evident from the fact that all his major policy initiatives have proved to be failures, whether 1Malaysia policy, the New Economic Model, National Transformation Programme or the Global Movement of Moderates.

But he has been quite invincible in his power position in UMNO – and there is no way the Prime Minister of Malaysia could be toppled unless the UMNO President could be removed.

So long as he remains untouchable as President of UMNO, he remains untouchable as Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Is there a sudden sea-change in UMNO politics that Najib’s position could suddenly be so vulnerable at the UMNO Divisional Meetings on March 8?

There is no doubt that Najib is facing unprecedented siege, both locally and internationally.

I have never seen an ASEAN mainstream media which had carried such a dismissive and contemptible article about another ASEAN leader as appeared in the recent issue of The Myanmar Times which carried a write-up entitled “Najib’s slow death”, ending with the foreboding forecast that the “omens” for Najib are not good.

Najib’s host of problems, old and new, seem to have come together in a boil, whether the “mother and mother of all financial scandals”, RM42 billion 1MDB scandal;  the nine-year-old Altantunya Shaariibuu murder which has returned to haunt Malaysian politics with Sirul at large in Australia ;  the fourth-incarceration and five -year jailing of Anwar Ibrahim which has made Malaysia again an international “bad boy” or the embarrssing controversy over Tun Razak’s “inheritance” which has seen public differences between the Prime Minister and his four brothers.

Political developments in UMNO and Malaysia can change so far that what was unthinkable only a month or a week ago could suddenly be possible, as for instance, however improbably as it may seem, the sudden posingn of the question: will  8th March be the Ides of March for Najib?

UMNO is in deep political trouble and this is further reason why UMNO strategists are trying to distract attention from Najib’s and  UMNO’s troubles by stepping up their plots to destabilise, divide and destroy the Pakatan Rakyat with the false lure of “UG” (Unity Government between UMNO and PAS) and hudud implementation in Kelantan  which explains for the UMNO decision to stay out of the Chempaka state assembly by-election in Kelantan caused by the death of Tuan Guru Nik Aziz.

All Pakatan Rakyat parties must be on the look out for these UMNO plots and counterplots to destabilise, divide and destroy PR for they are only tactics and strategies to save Najib and UMNO and not in the best national interests.

(Speech at the Gelang Patah DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam Ceramah on Saturday, 28th February 2015 at 3 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 February 2015, 7:25 pm and is filed under
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Call on Najib to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal with 1MDB the sole agenda of Cabinet on Wednesday

I have  just seen the Sarawak Report  website  claiming that together with London’s Sunday Times newspaper, it has completed an in-depth investigation into the trail of the missing billions at the heart of Malaysia’s 1MDB (One Malaysia Development Berhad) financial scandal.

It claimed to have obtained access to thousands of documents and emails relating to transactions by 1MDB, including its initial joint venture with the little known oil company PetroSaudi International from 2009.

It alleged that  the documents establish  that, in spite of copious official denials, the entire joint venture project was conceived, managed and driven through by the Prime Minister’s associate and family friend the party-loving billionaire tycoon, Jho Low and that the documents also prove that the USD$700 million so-called “loan” that was supposedly repaid to PetroSaudi as part of the joint venture agreement, was actually a “front” to channel the money to a company controlled by Jho Low.

It had previously been reported that all computers and servers at 1MDB had been called in and wiped clean just before the end of last year, and if it it is true that the combined investigation team of Sarawak Report and London Sunday Times have obtained access to “thousands of documents and emails” relating to transactions by 1MDB, then we have the makings of the  biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history.

The RM42 billion 1MDB scandal  is setting a record as the greatest of  all the financial scandals in the country, eclipsing even the worst and biggest of Mahathir’s financial scandals.

Irony of ironies, even former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has publicly taken a stand against Najib’s RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, declaring that he could not accept the explanations that have been offered so far about the 1MDB scandal.

Najib cannot continue to evade the issue and I call on him to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, and in particular at the Sarawak Report that it has obtained access to thousands of documents and email relating to the transactions of 1MDB.

If the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal is not handled in a responsible and satisfactory manner, we may have the the first  resignation or removal of a Prime Minister in Malaysia because of a financial scandal.

The Cabinet, at its meeting of Wednesday, should have the 1MDB scandal as its sole agenda and a full and proper accounting should be made by the Cabinet as all Ministers cannot also continue to feign ignorance or irresponsibility for the 1MDB scandal.

(Speech at the DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam Ceramah in Labis on Sunday, 1st March 2015 at 5 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 March 2015, 6:27 pm and is filed under
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Call on Malaysians regardless of race, religion or politics to unite and rally behind the SSS Anwar campaign for 3Saves –   to Save Anwar, Save Pakatan Rakyat and Save Malaysia

When Nurul Iman, the second youngest of Anwar Ibrahim’s six children, spoke just now about the injustices, trials and tribulations of Anwar Ibrahim, having to be incarcerated at the age of 67 for the fourth time in his 47 years of public struggle for justice, freedom, human dignity and good governance , I am reminded of my first arrest under the Internal Security Act (ISA) 46 years ago in 1969.

Nurul was eight years old when Anwar was given the infamous “black eye” after he was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister and detained briefly under the ISA, the heavy price he paid for standing up against the autocratic  Prime Minister of the time, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad against corruption, cronyism and nepotism.

When I was first arrested in May 1969, the Chief Minister of Penang Lim Guan Eng was also only eight years old. My other three children were respectively seven, five and three years old.

When the May 13, 1969 racial riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur, I was in Sabah. I was never in Kuala Lumpur after the May 10, 1969 general elections but this has not  stopped  UMNO propagandists and  cybertroopers from continuing with their dastardly campaign of  lies and falsehoods especially on social media through tweets and Facebooks alleging that I was in Kuala Lumpur from May 11 – 13, 1969, leading “victory processions” and hurling anti-Malay slogans to cause the May 13 racial riots.

I was speaking at a public rally in Kota Kinabalu on the night of May 13, 1969 when I first learnt that racial riots had broken out in Kuala Lumpur.

I was in the invidious position of being stranded in Kota Kinabalu and several hours later being expelled from Sabah by the then Sabah Chief Minister, Tun Mustapha for the fierce criticisms which I made against him at the Kota Kinabalu public rally in aid of an independent parliamentary candidate.

I kept in touch with party comrades and family members who advised me not to return to Peninsular Malaysia as I was on the ISA “blacklist” and sure would be arrested on my return. They advised me to stay away from the country for a period until the “crisis” was over.

I had just been elected on May 10, 1969 as Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, and I felt that I owed a duty to the voters of Bandar Melaka and the people of Malaysia that I should not run away but  return to Peninsular Malaysia to be with them when the country and people were in trouble, whatever personal price in terms of liberty or even life that I had to face.

I came back to Peninsular Malaysia three days later and was immediately arrested at the Subang Airport, starting my first sojourn under the ISA.

Anwar had been advised by his friends in Turkey, Indonesia and United States not to return to Malaysia as he was most likely to be jailed for Sodomy II, but he felt he could not run way from Malaysia but must come back to the country to face whatever consequences awaited him, by a system of administration of justice which is regarded internationally as having fallen far short of minimum  international standards.

What did I return to Malaysia in 1969 to sure ISA arrest?

Why didn’t Anwar take the advice of his international friends and go into exile from the country to avoid another spell of incarceration – a five-year jail sentence followed by another five years of disenfranchisement of his civic and citizenship rights banning him  from elective office and even the right to cast his vote, until he is 77 years old?

This is because we are Malaysian patriots who  dedicate our lives to the betterment of our country so that our children and children’s children can hold their heads high as citizens of a country where there is justice, freedom, human dignity and good governance.

Nurul Iman with her husband Feirdhauz have joined us in a five-stop whistle tour in Bukit Gambir, Grisek, Kundang Ulu, Labis and Segamat today not only to convey Anwar’s Chinese New Year greetings to all Malaysians from Sungai Buloh Prison, but also as part of the DAP’s SSS (Support, Sympathy and Solidarity”) Anwar Ibrahim campaign.

On behalf of Anwar’s children, the second generation of  six Anwar siblings have one clear and consistent message – that they will not rest until Anwar regains justice and freedom!

Nurul Izzah is in Kajang, Nurul Huda is in Penang, and the other siblings, son Mohd Ihsan, daughters Nurul Ilham and Nurul Hannah are all over the country and the world to seek justice for their father.

Anwar has lost in the courts of law in Malaysia, but there are still higher courts where Anwar has already won – the court of Malaysian public opinion and the court of international opinion.

In the 14th General Elections in three years’ time, the voters of Malaysia will be the judges and if they unite to reject  UMNO/BN and elect the Pakatan Rakyat Federal Government in Putrajaya, then the stage will be set for Anwar to finally regain justice and freedom.

The SSS Anwar campaign is not just for Anwar but for the restoration of justice, freedom and dignity for all Malaysians.

I call on all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion and politics to support the SSS Anwar campaign, the March to Freedom and all other programmes to restore to Malaysia our self-respect as citizens of democratic country where there is economic justice,  human rights, the rule of law and good governance.

The SSS Anwar campaign is dedeicated to “3Saves” objectives  –   to Save Anwar, to Save Pakatan Rakyat and to Save Malaysia!

(Speechby at the DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam/SSS Anwar  ceramah in Segamat on Sunday, 1st March 2015 at 8 pm:

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 10:50 am and is filed under
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Call on Najib to announce before Chempaka by-election nomination on March 10 that UMNO will not contest in  any Permatang Pauh by-election arising from Anwar’s disqualification  to demonstrate his commitment to promote Malaysian unity and not just Malay unity

When the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced on Wednesday that UMNO will not contest the Chempaka State Assembly by-election in Kelantan caused by the death of Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, he said this was to promote Malay unity.

I responded in a series of  four tweets, viz:

•	Expected in my pre-Cabinet Open Letter yesterday;

•	Should announce same to show bona fide! http://goo.gl/2dnOqx  No decision on Permatang Pauh yet, says Najib (MMO).

•	UMNO decision to stay out of Chempaka welcome but it should herald a virtuous cycle of national unity/reconciliation.

•	Make it national unity, not just Muslim unity, Kit Siang tells Umno (MMO).

Najib’s announcement took no one by surprise as it was very much to be expected at this stage of UMNO power play and the plot by certain UMNO leaders to cause a break-up of Pakatan Rakyat by promoting the “UG” (Unity Government) concept of UMNO-PAS Government.

]

In fact, when the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council met  on 13th February within 24 hours of the death of Nik Aziz, the writing was on the wall that UMNO would stay out of the Chempaka by-election and the sole purpose of the sudden BN Supreme Council meeting was for Najib to inform the leaders of the BN component parties of such a possibility.

This was also why I predicted that UMNO will stay out of the Chempaka by-election in my third pre-Cabinet Open Letter addressed to the MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and Gerakan President, Datuk Mah Siew Keong, before the Cabinet meeting on 25th February, 2015, asking whether they would notify the Cabinet that their resignations from Cabinet would instantly come into effect when the Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen support PAS hudud legislation in Kelantan State Assembly in March.

It is clear that the UMNO decision to stay out of Chempaka by-election was part of a Machiavellian UMNO political ploy to cause a break-up of Pakatan Rakyat and had really nothing to do with post-flood relief work in Kelantan.

It is most unfortunate that 58 years after Merdeka, the Prime Minister who started his administration with the 1Malaysia Policy, has reverted to talking about “Malay unity” instead of talking about “Malaysian unity”.

Although Najib has announced many policy initiatives like the 1Malaysia Policy and Global Movement of Moderates, Malaysia has never been more  divided, troubled and uncertain about the future, with extremist, bigoted and intolerance voices stirring racial and religious hatred and conflict allowed to rear their ugly heads unchecked.

This is the time for inclusive politics embracing all Malaysian races, religions, classes and individuals and not exclusive politics to further divide  Malaysians into smaller units, whether on race, religion or whatever.

Malaysian politics must start anew – and UMNO/BN staying out of Chempaka by-election would be a good start if it is the first step of a long journey to promote Malaysian unity and not just to promote Malay unity.  As I said in my tweet: lets “herald a virtuous cycle of national unity/reconciliation”.

Is Najib  Prime Minister of all Malaysians or just Prime Minister of UMNO Malays seeking to tempt PAS Malays join them in a “UG” (Unity Government) against the Pakatan Rakyat?

DAP will give Najib full support in any initiative to effect national unity and reconciliation by expanding the politics of inclusion of all Malaysians to replace the old politics of exclusion, based on narrow division or identification along ethnic, religious or  socio-economic groups.

For this reason, I call on Najib to announce before Chempaka by-election nomination on March 10 that UMNO will not contest any Permatang Pauh by-election arising from Anwar’s disqualification to demonstrate his commitment to promote Malaysian unity and not just Malay unity.

The new Parliament session for 2015 will be officially opened by the Yang di Pertuan Agong on Monday, March 9.  Although Anwar has started his fourth incarceration in his life in Sungai Buloh Prison, he  is till Parliamentary Opposition Leader and MP for Permatang Pauh until the outcome of the petition for pardon.

In the circumstances,  Najib should ensure that Anwar can attend the official opening of Parliament on March 9.

(Speech at the DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam ceramah in Bukit Gambir, Johore on Sunday, 1st March 2015 at 12 noon)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 7:48 am and is filed under
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Hudud: Umno has trapped and shackled Pas

— P Ramakrishnan

The Malay Mail Online

March 2, 2015

MARCH 2 — No one dreamt that Pas would be easily enticed to cooperate with Umno. But Umno has its hidden agenda to break up Pakatan Rakyat in order to weaken the opposition.

It has promised to support Pas when the hudud bill is tabled on 18 March in the Kelantan state assembly. This is being taken as support for hudud — which is utterly fallacious.

What choice has Umno in this issue? Can it vote against the Pas hudud bill? It cannot! It has to prove to the Malays that it is for hudud. It would be suicidal for Umno not to vote with Pas. There are no two ways about it for Umno.

It is merely hoodwinking Pas into thinking that it is helping the Islamist party to implement hudud in Kelantan.

Umno’s strategy is meant not only to weaken Pakatan Rakyat by successfully creating dissension within the coalition, it has an ulterior motive as well. It is also to drive away non-Malay support for Pas, which was given freely on the basis of Pakatan’s agreed common platform.

But if Pas falls for the Umno trap and goes ahead with its hudud bill, those who voted for Pas in previous elections will definitely not vote for Pas come GE14. The non-Malays who supported Pas candidates now feel betrayed by Pas’ about-turn. It won’t be easy for Pas to regain their trust.

In the last election, Pas won 21 parliamentary seats. It won’t be able to retain this number in GE14. Pas’ loss will be Umno’s gain. This is the strategy that is carefully being pursued. After this, Pas can forget about spreading its wings nation-wide and increasing its support and influence.

Pas should call upon Umno to prove its sincerity by openly challenging it to table a similar bill in Terengganu. Like Umno, Pas can promise to support Umno’s hudud bill in Terengganu. After all, like Kelantan, Terengganu had also passed the syariah enactment bill, paving the way for the implementation of hudud in Terengganu.

You can rest assured that Umno will not do this. It has more sense and realises that such a move will cost Umno the support of all thinking and caring Malaysians. It will mean vacating Putrajaya and paving the way for a change of government. It will not take the risk even for hudud!

Pas should not be lulled into believing that Umno has chosen not to contest in the Chempaka by-election to promote Malay unity. The truth is that Umno would be wiped out if it chose to contest the Chempaka seat vacated by the sad demise of the much revered Pas spiritual leader, Tok Guru. It would be a humiliating defeat that would shame Umno.

Umno must explain in plain language why it did not implement the syariah laws when it was in a position to do so with its two thirds majority in parliament. In states like Pahang, Terengganu, Kedah, Johor, Malacca, Perak, Penang, Perlis, Selangor and Negri Sembilan it could have quite easily implemented syariah laws. But it did not. There was not even a feeble attempt to do so. Why? Is it because it does not believe that syariah laws are suitable for Malaysia?

The person responsible for the present turmoil in this country is none other than Dr Tun Mahthir Mohamad. He was the one who goaded, challenged and provoked Pas to implement hudud even promising to amend the Federal Constitution to enable the implementation of hudud.

Pas, to their credit, took up the challenge and passed the syariah enactment in Kelantan. But Mahathir did not keep his word to amend the Federal Constitution to enable Pas to go ahead with hudud. He chickened out.

It is very clear that Umno has no intention to implement hudud in Malaysia. Of course, they will deny this and yell their heads off that they are for it.

If that is the case, Umno should prove its sincerity and table a similar bill in Terengganu. That is the only way to convince the Malays there was no double talk when Umno proclaimed its support for Pas!

* P Ramakrishan, the long-serving former president of Aliran, has been granted a respite and now happily serves as an Aliran executive committee member.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 5:18 pm and is filed under
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Idris Jusoh’s statement: refreshing and disappointing

 — Lee Hwok Aun

The Malay Mail Online

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

FEBRUARY 28 — Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh’s opinion piece, defending his description of Malaysian universities as world class, is refreshing – and disappointing. Kudos to him for responding to criticisms in this manner, instead of deriding detractors or going into “I was misquoted” hiding.

However, his article merely inflates his original contentious remarks: Malaysian universities are world class because they are a popular destination for international students and Universiti Malaya has a decent spot on the QS university rankings. He hardly brings anything new to the public arena. In fact, some of the evidence he presents refutes his own position. He also tries to portray critics as having their hearts in the wrong place, instead of fixing his head on confronting their arguments directly.

Idris draws on a UNESCO report which appraised Malaysia’s relative popularity as a tertiary education destination. Unsurprisingly, cultural compatibility, low cost and good value feature prominently. Malaysia is considered good for the price, and the price is relatively cheap. This is not indicating that our tertiary education is bad, but it is far from a vindication of high quality and world class.

Idris adopts a simple definition of world class: among the best in the world. It must be noted that we are speaking of universities and education systems, not individuals. This is an important distinction, because Idris lists out a number of personal academic achievements – award winning professors, inventors, and student debaters – as evidence of our institutions’ world class status. I am not devaluing these achievements, but pointing out an inconsistency in his argument.

Idris applies a selective and self-serving logic. Rebutting the charge that international students in Malaysia are academically subpar, he argues that the presence of a few “bad apple” international students do not taint the whole system. True, I’m sure we can accept this at face value, although he should furnish us the full details on the quality of foreign students, and as Minister of Education he is privy to an expanse of data blocked to the rest of us.

He then refers to a few individual achievers as evidence that institutions have attained global standing. Now, if we accept that a few rotten apples do not sully the entire harvest, then we also have to concede that a few shiny apples do not glorify the whole crate. They do not necessarily prove the system is world class.

Still, one might argue, how can we have world class persons without world class institutions? Yet Idris makes no effort at all to consolidate the link, suggesting that the link may be absent, or at best very weak. This is not surprising. It is entirely possible, and for many of us believable and even evidenced through observation and experience, that a few Malaysian academicians and students can gain global recognition, while the institutions and system as a whole remain mired in mediocrity, operating at a lower rung and striving in domestic spheres.

Idris steers us to the university rankings. The rankings business typically provokes debate that we don’t need to digress into now. There are a few of these systems, and none are perfect. However, if one is going to be heavily invested in the pursuit of rankings, one ought to be cautious in reporting the findings, especially when totally relying on the QS rankings while omitting the others. Unfortunately, Idris is overeager to broadcast UM’s performance, much like his declaration of our world class status. He reminds us that UM is currently ranked 151st, better than Vanderbilt, Exeter, Michigan State, and Georgetown, which he makes a point to note, is where Bill Clinton studied. However, on the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) rankings, in which UM has withheld from participating, these same institutions attain very respectable rankings: Michigan State (82), Vanderbilt (106), Exeter (154), and Georgetown (173).

Beware of playing the rankings game, and of name dropping. Curiously, he notes: “Many of [our foreign academics] who used to serve in our universities are now holding important positions in their home countries, as high as the prime minister (of Turkey)”.

If this is such an honour, why is this mention of a Turkish Prime Minister so oblique and cryptic? Who is this great person that cannot be named? How many Turkish Prime Ministers with affiliation to Malaysian universities can there be? It’s safe to say he is referring to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was conferred an honorary doctorate by the International Islamic University Malaysia.

I’m not questioning the merits of this award, but if Idris expects us to believe that such dignitary name dropping will elevate his viewpoint, he is mistaken. It is widely known that honorary doctorates are not conferred on academics for service to the institution but for contributions to humankind, and more importantly, it is the university that is honouring the recipient, not the other way round. Of course, in accepting the award the recipient is giving some recognition to the institution, but please, to take this as an indication of global standing is a painful stretch.

Idris also tries to land some hits on sentiment. Idris wants to paint Zairil Khir Johari, the DAP MP, as unkind and discourteous, for describing universities of our international students’ origin countries as “inferior”. Again, I find it strange that he does not just name the person, when he is clearly responding to Zairil’s public statement.

So Idris may prefer to use more polite language. But instead of addressing Zairil’s criticisms he turns the debate into a nice guy contest. Idris asserts, “while I accept that our universities outrank many of those from other nations, I would never label them ‘inferior’”. Surely our universities’ outranking theirs is a reason they are coming here to study. For the same reason, far more Malaysians attend universities in Australia and the UK compared to the number of Australian and British students enrolling here. At no point does Idris try to establish that our universities are on par with Australian and British universities. He has defined world class as among the world’s best, but for that to be true there must be second best, next best or lesser ranked, however you want to call it. Somehow he just doesn’t want to acknowledge this and substantiate his boast that Malaysia is among the best.

Idris totally overlooks one of the biggest indictments of the sorry state of our universities – our own estimation of them, when it really comes down to it. Where do we send our top government scholars, at great expense? To foreign, world class universities.

Of course, in the end, if anybody wants to believe Malaysian universities are world class, who is to stop them? Most likely, however, they will end up like Idris, holding that position on faith, because the evidence is thin.

In the end, Idris urges us to strive for betterment. I heartily endorse that commitment. But it is difficult to place confidence in a government that displays an unwillingness to face up to the realities and shortcomings of our current situation – importantly, in my view, the difficulties in attracting capable young academics to build careers, while rankings obsession biases priorities in favour of enlisting high profile professors and visiting fellows.

While he would like to cast us as doomsayers and gloom makers, many of us who respond to his triumphalism with dismay and disappointment are simply tired of chest thumping and hollow trumpeting, not because we delight in highlighting shortcomings, but because views like the Education Minister’s detract from true analysis of shortcomings and more fundamental policy responses.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 6:26 am and is filed under
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MCA and Gerakan have degenerated to be the  most unprincipled parties in their history  – even backing UMNO’s “UG” conspiracy and supporting Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen to vote for PAS hudud implementation in Kelantan State Assembly

Malaysian politics is going through one of the most tumultuous periods in the nation’s history – there is not only convulsion in UMNO, but also convulsion in PAS largely instigated  by UMNO leaders and strategists with a two-pronged objective to distract attention from UMNO’s political turmoils  as well as to divide and split PAS and Pakatan Rakyat with the false lure of “UG” government and hudud implementation in Kelantan.

This is the first time in Malaysian politics where political turmoils are taking place in UMNO and PAS at the same time. In the past, such political turmoils in UMNO and PAS had never coincided at the same time.

This time, the whole picture is also muddied with UMNO pro-actively instigating divisions within PAS and Pakatan Rakyat with the false lure of “UG” “unity government between UMNO and PAS) and UMNO support of PAS hudud implementation in Kelantan.

A new factor in the current political turmoil in the country is that Barisan Nasional component parties, in particular MCA and Gerakan, have degenerated to their most unprincipled stand in their party history – to the extent that MCA and Gerakan could even back UMNO’s “UG” conspiracy and support Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen to vote for PAS hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly later this month.

MCA and Gerakan leaders have long abandoned their party’s founding principles and political stands.

Who would have thought that MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders have degenerated to a state where they could support or at least close their eyes to Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen supporting PAS hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly later this month – which is against the founding principles not only of MCA and Gerakan, but even of UMNO, Barisan Nasional (and previously Alliance) of Malaysia as provided for in the Federal Constitution as a secular multi-racial multi-religious nation?

Now MCA and Gerakan’s sole raison d’etre is to be in the good books of UMNO so that they can enjoy Ministerial and State Exco perks at the national and state levels.

For these objectives, they are prepared to support UMNO’s “UG” conspiracy of a “Unity Government” between UMNO and PAS, as well as further the UMNO conspiracy to destabilize, divide and destroy Pakatan Rakyat with the lure of Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen supporting PAS hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly later this month.

MCA and Gerakan do not have any State Assembly representation in Kelantan, but even if they had, they would go along with UMNO Kelantan to vote in support of hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly because they know this is part of a larger UMNO plot to destroy PAS and Pakatan Rakyat.

This is also the reason why MCA and Gerakan do not object if Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen support PAS hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly.

I feel really sorry for Malaysians who in the past had supported MCA and Gerakan, for the degeneration of MCA and Gerakan  to become totally principled political parties seemed to have reached a point of no return.

This is why MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders have nothing to say about the great issues of the nation, whether RM42 billion 1MDB scandal; the rampant corruption and abuses of power in high political places; the unchecked decline  in the quality of our education, the rule of law, an independent judiciary,  accountable good governance in the country or the loss of the best and brightest of Malaysian talents overseas because of misguided government nation-building policies.

MCA and Gerakan leaders have never dared to take a stand on these great issues of the country for it would mean antagonizing or stepping on the toes of the UMNO Big Brother – which has become an absolute “No, No” in the Barisan Nasional politics today.

It is really pathetic when  MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders dare not even take a proper and honourable stand against the recent racist statement by the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, Datuk Ismail Sabri, calling on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses.

To cover up the degeneration of their party to the worst unprincipled levels, MCA and Gerakan leaders have multiplied their attacks on the DAP in recent days, but they will be sorely mistaken if they think that the Malaysian people are so easily duped by their trickeries and dishonest tactics.

[Speech (2) at the DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam/SSS Anwar  ceramah in Segamat on Sunday, 1st March 2015 at 8 pm]

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 11:52 am and is filed under
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PAS-Umno unity: A bait and a bullet

Zurairi AR

The Malay Mail Online

March 1, 2015

MARCH 1 — Last week, Umno decided to not contest in the Chempaka by-election for the sake of “Muslim unity.” The seat fell vacant after the death of PAS spiritual adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat.

Deservedly, the suggestion was lauded by PAS information chief Mahfuz Omar not only with open arms, but with a cynical suggestion for Umno to just abstain from any future elections to end politicking and social schism, insisting that Malaysia would end up “more peaceful” afterwards.

Since when has Umno cared about “unity” in any sense? In the decades it has ruled the country, Umno has unashamedly leaned on divisive racial politics and policies.

Increasingly in recent years, Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) have even condoned divisive and incendiary remarks and actions of people friendly to them, doing nothing to quell racial and religious schisms but instead perpetuating them.

Umno is only showing its true colours. It has little interest in “national unity”, caring more about just “Muslim unity.”

Even then, this newfound care for “Muslim unity” is nothing more than an excuse to cover up the fact and the shame that Umno has no chance in hell of winning Chempaka after Nik Aziz’s death, no matter who it puts in the ring.

Muslims have no reason to be united for the sake of Islam. Islam is not a gang where its members need to unite and obey the big captains in order to protect its own.

United or not, Islam will still be there to be practised and followed by those who truly believe in its teachings. Islam’s death would not come from disunity, only from non-practice.

Regardless, the call for PAS-Umno unity for the sake of Islam has rung ever louder in the past year.

Putrajaya’s goodwill for PAS-ruled Kelantan after the east coast state was ravaged by the worst flood in recent times was said to be a catalyst and a start-off point for collaborations between the two Muslim-dominated parties.

Putrajaya helping Kelantan should be the rule, not the exception. Last time I checked, Kelantan has yet to secede and form an Islamic sultanate of its own. The federal government still has its obligation to all states.

But do PAS leaders truly believe in a unity administration together with Umno?

My bet is no, chiefly for two reasons. First, history has taught PAS a bitter lesson after its five-year stint as a junior BN partner in early 1970s. Second, PAS has a deep mistrust of secular Malay-majority parties — as evident in its shaky Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ties.

PAS has consistently reaffirmed its alliance with PR in the last few muktamar, or annual congresses, despite a couple of caveats on not compromising its Islamic direction.

Last week, PAS vice-president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man — perhaps one of its most level-headed leaders — stressed that PAS can never accept Umno’s corruption.

Even Dr Khairuddin Aman Razali, a poster boy of its clerical wing, denounced rumours of a tryst, accusing Umno of trying to break off its alliance with PR.

Khairuddin might be right. PAS’ relationship with DAP has never been more tenuous than now, and is ripe for sabotage.

The two have continued to be at loggerheads over the administration of Penang and Kelantan, a situation that arguably has been made worse with the absence of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

It is perhaps no secret that some in DAP might not want PAS to stay in PR, and vice-versa.

The rise of attacks against DAP from several up-and-coming PAS leaders fulfils several needs. One, to satiate some members’ persistent worry that the party is being made a “pillion rider” in PR.

Two, to bolster said leaders’ credentials and bravado among the grassroots. After all, the next party polls will come around in just around four months’ time.

There will always be those who feel that PAS’ alliance with DAP has made it worse for Muslims in the country.

Hardline Islamists see DAP as a threat and challenge against the supremacy of the Malays and Islam. And they need this “threat” to justify their under-siege mentality and their subsequent lash-out.

It is these folks that the PAS-Umno lobbyists are targeting. Malay daily Sinar Harian, for example, has published headlines not-so-subtly supporting the idea of a unity government. It might as well play broker.

Just last week, we also had newly-returned Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin — himself a Sinar darling — suggesting that PAS-Umno unity is “demanded by Islam.” How do you argue when a mufti himself decrees it so?

There is a split in PAS, that much is obvious. The past few weeks have seen accusations lobbed against its deputy president Mohamad Sabu and election director Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli.

There are factions in PAS, but perhaps nothing to do with Umno.

On one side, we have the literalists, whose end goal is the country run as an Islamic state. The controversial Islamic penal law of hudud, for example, is a be-all and end-all.

On another are the pragmatists who see Islam as not the end goal, but a guideline for running a country with Islamic values.

And among the two, an ongoing debate over how much power should the clergy class hold in a political party that also happens to wear the hat of an religious evangelical movement.

Amid all that, a PAS-Umno unity can be another convenient bullet for one faction to assassinate the other.

PAS would survive even without BN or PR. But it can only be in a ruling coalition with either one.

If PAS wishes to join in administering a country as pluralistic as Malaysia, it best realise that the “Muslim unity” agenda should be nowhere at the top of its priorities.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 1:13 am and is filed under
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The Chief Justice Malaysia never had!

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 March 2015, 10:42 am and is filed under
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50 shades of religious harmony

by  Emmanuel Joseph

The Malaysian Insider

3 March 2015

Somehow, over the years, ‘harmony’ in Malaysia, much like ‘democracy’ and ‘liberty’, has been reduced to more of a buzzword than an accepted social norm.

We are, now, in effect, at best, an occasionally harmonious country. When it suits tourism and business interests, we put on this façade of a melting pot of culture, race and religion.

But the once-very-real concept of accepting each other as brothers and sisters of different faiths and cultures appear to have been replaced with a more practical, clinical version of harmony.

One governed more by laws and political statements rather than one that comes from genuine mutual respect for one another.

Racial harmony is something we now need to constantly promote during the four major celebrations – Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali and Christmas. For a slightly more religious flavour – we have Hari Raya Haji, Thaipusam, Wesak and Easter.

Then, once a year during Gawai and Kaamatang, Malaysians would be reminded that we have two states that do not belong to the Peninsula.

During each of these times, we would have the prime minister come out in a televised address, dressed to the occasion and deliver a feel good speech that would make you want to run out to the streets, hug your neighbour and sing “Demi Negara” And a couple of days after that, we’d be back to our bickering selves.

The current distrust between religions in this country is evidence of this. We are now actually at a ridiculous point where holy books are considered national security threats.

Since a few years ago, a series of arguments involving the bible and bible related issues, mainly involving East Malaysians’ right to use them freely in West Malaysia have seen the inside of court rooms, coffee shops, legislative chambers, churches and mosques throughout the country.

We’ve had all sorts of accusations against the bible – it’s a Jewish agenda (but why, of course it is; most of the characters in the Bible are Jews!), it’s a Christian agenda (which other major religion uses the Bible?), we heard of solar-powered Bibles (suspected to be confusion over the terms Sun and Son) and soon this new buzzword “Christianisation” was born.

The underlying prevailing argument appears to be – the Christians have an agenda. They want to convert the unsuspecting Muslims by allowing these non-English bibles in.

A pretty weak argument, really, since these bibles actually have been around all along and would have largely gone unnoticed if not for the confiscations and court cases that ensued following those confiscations in the first place.

If anyone was to be converted, they already would have been. Not unlike what the Tamil bibles did for the Tamil speaking Christians or the Mandarin Bibles did for the Mandarin speaking Christians.

These series of actions left the non-Muslim community in Malaysia somewhat rattled. There was uncertainty now on what we can and cannot do. The settled norms have been disturbed, the goal posts shifted a bit.

But gladly the issue is more or less settled. The angry busloads of protesters have gone home. The poorly spelt English banners have been taken down.

Entire talk shows and pseudo academic programmes to discuss this very important national issue have dwindled.

We were on the right path – back to discussing other important issues like what day to start work in the Lunar New Year, or who invented the popiah.

Then along comes another holy-book issue. This time – the Quran. Some Islamic NGOs have gotten together and thought it would be a good idea to distribute free translated Qurans to the public.

These NGOs’ aim, is to foster national understanding. Quite a noble intention, given the current national scenario.

After all the distrust sowed with the bible issues, the Herald issue, the whole Christianisation thing. Let’s work to foster some unity and love again. Let’s be unified Malaysians once more.

But therein also lies the problem. All the arguments used against the Christians earlier are now being turned on these NGOs. If translating a bible into another language MUST have a hidden agenda and MUST be to convert, what about the Quran?

And what more, this time it is being distributed free. And openly to non-Muslims? Surely they MUST have an agenda.

But the same lines used in support of the distribution of the bibles earlier can also be used here.

If non-Muslims are comfortable in their faith, no amount of Qurans will shake it. No harm in reading, it increases knowledge. No religion teaches harm, and therefore no amount of reading religious books can produce harm.

But perhaps before all that, the parties concerned should do more with to address the uncertainty surrounding it. After all, non-Muslims cannot use certain words. They don’t know the proper way handling of it. Are non-Muslims allowed to even own it?

Religion is an ultra-sensitive topic in this country. It’s progressively and purposely being made even more sensitive by the ultras themselves. Qurans and bibles used to sit side by side in “Religion” sections in libraries everywhere.

It’s really sad that this manufactured paranoia has turned Malaysians this way.

Hopefully, the day would come for this country where bibles, Qurans and Bhagavad Gitas can be distributed freely side by side, and no one would be questioning the motives of the distributor’s actions. – March 3, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 3 March 2015, 9:50 pm and is filed under
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As amendment bill to the 1993 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code has not yet been presented to Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council for study, suggest deferment of  any presentation to Kelantan State Assembly this month

Overnight, the political position of Datuk Seri Najib Razak seemed to have undergone a sea-change for the worse, particularly with the London Sunday Times report on Sunday, March 1, 2015 that its  joint in-depth investigations into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal  with Sarawak Report website had been completed and they had  obtained access to thousands of documents and emails relating to 1MDB, including its initial joint venture with the little known oil company PetroSaudi International from 2009.

As the news portal Asian Sentinel as aptly headlined its report, “Emails Blow Malaysia’s 1MDB Fund Wide Open”, the joint investigations by Sunday Times London and Sarawak Report had foiled  abrupt attempts by 1MDB at the end last year to call in all of its computers, employee laptops and servers to wipe them clean of all emails.

This evening, in an email interview with Malaysiakini, Sarawak Report editor and founder Clare Rewcastle Brown confirmed that she is in possession of “thousands documents” on the dealings of 1MDB and businessman Taek Jho Low’s role in the 1MDB which were neither “forged nor hacked” material.

Although these are body blows to Najib politically, he remains a paradox of being a very  weak Prime Minister whose major policy initiatives had all been dismal failures  but a strong UMNO President largely because no strong UMNO contender has emerged to threaten his position – unlike his predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi who was both a weak Prime Minister as well as a weak UMNO President, setting the stage for his easy replacement.

However, the  political dynamics and disequilibrium  both inside UMNO and outside will increase in intensity, focusing immediate attention not only on the forthcoming national UMNO Divisional Meeting on March 8 but also on the Kelantan State Assembly scheduled to meet on March 18.

The greater the political pressures on Najib arising from a host of political, economic, financial and family scandals, the more Machiavellian UMNO leaders and strategists will be to distract public attention from their political woes, which means the doubling up of plots and conspiracies to try to destabilize, divide and destroy PAS and Pakatan Rakyat as promoting “UG” (Unity Government between UMNO and PAS) and the false lure of  Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen offering  support to Kelantan PAS for hudud implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly this month.

Pakatan Rakyat should not fall prey to the wiles and trickeries of UMNO leaders and strategists at this period when Najib is actually fighting for his political life (however strong and secure politically he may appear) or  succumb to UMNO plots and conspiracies especially with regard to UG overtures and the false lure of offer to help Kelantan PAS to implement hudud in Kelantan.

I have received the Order Paper for the month-long Parliamentary meeting from 9th March to 9th April and there is no private member’s bill on hudud implementation.

Although it has been reported that the Kelantan State Assembly is to be held on 18th March, the amendment bill to the 1993 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code has not yet been presented to the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council for study, as was decided by all the Pakatan Rakyat leaders from DAP, PKR and PAS at the meeting of Feb. 8.

As there may not be enough time for a study of the amendment bill to the 1993 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code, I suggest a deferment of any presentation of such an amendment to the Kelantan State Assembly this month, not only to ensure adequate time to study the proposed amendment bill, but even more important, not to provide Najib and UMNO with a political life-life and the opportunity to further their “UG” and “hudud” political games solely to save themselves and to destabilize, divide and destroy Pakatan Rakyat unity and challenge to replace UMNO/BN in Putrajaya  the 14th General Elections.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 3 March 2015, 5:53 pm and is filed under
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Cabinet tomorrow must decide whether to establish RCI headed by Zaid Ibrahim  into RM42 billion 1MDB scandal or give support for full-scale PAC public  inquiry taking priority over all other PAC agendas

Will the Cabinet meeting tomorrow hide and run from the biggest financial scandal in the country and the issue which is casting the greatest cloud and doubt on the credibility, integrity and good governance of the Malaysian Prime Minister and government, both nationally and internationally – the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal?

The Cabinet tomorrow should give special focus to the 1MDB scandal, and either decide to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by former Law Minister Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim and other independent credible Malaysians into the 1MDB scandal or give  support for a full-scale  PAC inquiry into 1MDB scandal, taking priority over all other PAC agendas.

The five Pakatan Rakyat MPs on the Public Accounts Committee  (PAC), Deputy PAC Chairman Dr. Tan Seng Giaw (Kepong – DAP); Kamarul Baharin Abbas (Telok Kemang – PKR); Kamaruddin Jaffar ( Tumpat – PAS), William Leong Jee Keen (PKR – Selayang) and Tony Pua (PJ Utara – DAP)  want a PAC hearing on 1Malaysia Development Bhd so that the Finance Ministry-owned firm’s past and present chief executives and auditors would  be held accountable.

Even the PAC Chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Muhamad (Pulai) has recently changed his stand on the 1MDB scandal and wants the Auditor General’s Department to immediately carry out an audit of the government-owned 1MDB’s deals before PAC  calls up the company.

But this is all before the latest shock expose that Sarawak Report website with London’s Sunday Times newspaper have completed an in-depth investigation into the trail of the missing billions at the heart of the 1MDB scandal, claiming to have obtained access to thousands of documents and emails relating to 1MDB transactions which the company had attempted to wipe clean from  its computers and servers at the end of last year.

This development has changed the picture completely.

Malaysians fully agree with the five PR MPs on PAC that all documents and related email must be brought to the PAC hearing, and that this must be done immediately before any evidence is destroyed.

The question is why the other seven Barisan Nasional members of the PAC are taking a “tidak apa” attitude on the biggest financial scandal in the country and failed to rise to the occasion to demand a pro-active stand by PAC to hold to account what is probably the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history.

The seven BN MPs on the PAC cannot remain silent and must declare their stand whether they support an immediate PAC investigation into the 1MDB scandal.

The seven BN MPs on the PAC are: Datuk Seri Reezal Merican (Kepala Batas), Datuk Abdul Aziz Sheikh Fadzir (Kulim Bandar Baru), Datuk Mas Ermieyati binti Samsudin (Masjid Tanah), Datuk Liang Teck Meng (Simpang Renggam), Datuk Madius Tangau (Tuaran), Haji Hasbi bin Habibollah (Limbang) and Datuk Wee Jeck Seng (Tanjung Piai).

These seven BN MPs on the PAC should resign from the Public Accounts Committee if they are afraid to support the PAC conducting an immediate investigation into the 1MDB scandal, and give their places in PAC to BN MPs who are not afraid of investigating into government financial scandals – even those directly affecting the Prime Minister.

If the Cabinet decides against a RCI and opts instead for a PAC inquiry, the Cabinet should agree at its meeting tomorrow for an amendment to  the Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders on the first working day of Parliament on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 to specifically empower the PAC to hold public hearings.

At these public hearings, not only the past and present chief executives and auditors of 1MDB should be summoned to give testimony, the Editor of Sarawak Report, Claire Rewcastle Brown should also be invited to give her testimony, together with the thousands of 1MDB transactions and email which have come into their possession and to share with PAC the findings of investigations into the 1MDB scandal.l

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 3 March 2015, 9:40 am and is filed under
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