Muslim MPs, education groups say animal slaughter in school compound is wrong

by Elizabeth Zachariah and Yiswaree Palansamy

The Malaysian Insider

October 22, 2013

Muslim MPs from PAS and PKR as well as educational organisations have spoken out against the practice of carrying out ritual slaughter in schools during the recent Hari Raya Aidiladha celebrations.

PAS Kuala Krai MP Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli said any school should be off limits for the slaughter of animals.

“Be it religious schools, ethnic-based schools or national schools,” said Dr Hatta.

“In the truest nature of observing the holy Qurban, there is no need to openly slaughter animals in the presence of others, especially in an area where people of other faith reside, work or carry out activities,” he added, referring to the Arabic word for sacrificial slaughter.

“The deed is to be noted between the Almighty and oneself and not with the public.”

Dr Hatta pointed out that nowadays, some have resorted to carrying out animal slaughter in abbatoirs as they are more hygienic and systematic.

PKR Indera Mahkota MP Datuk Fauzi Abdul Rahman said the Quran stresses the need to respect other religions.

PAS Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad, however, expressed shock that such events are being held in school compounds.

“In my time this was quite unheard of. It is not right,” he said.

Khalid suggested that the slaughter of animals be carried out in mosque compounds or other proper designated places.

The comments come after several Hindu parents complained about the use of school grounds to slaughter cows in conjunction with Hari Raya Aidiladha celebrations. The cow is considered sacred by Hindus.

It was reported that parent S. Dineswary was told by her daughter that a cow and a calf were slaughtered last Thursday for a Hari Raya feast at a Kuala Lumpur school. Similar events were held at schools in Bandar Baru Bangi and Puchong.

National Parent-Teacher Association Collaborative Council president Datuk Mohd Ali Hassan said Muslim authorities in schools should understand the religious practices of non-Muslim students.

“They cannot openly do things that can hurt the feelings of others but instead, they should find ways to do things discreetly, if what they want to do is deemed sensitive by other faiths,” he said.

“The school is a place to teach and learn. Not for anything else,” Mohd Ali added.

President of the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP), Hashim Adnan said “it was not a nice thing to happen in schools”.

“If the school only has Muslim students, then there is no problem. But if there are Indians and Chinese, their feelings must be taken into consideration too.

“We should respect those who study in the same compound and we just cannot do things as we wish,” he said.

Non-Muslims, he said, would only respect Islam if the Muslims also respect their beliefs and are sensitive to them.

“The cow is sacred to the Hindus. Why was it so important to slaughter it in the schools for all to see?

“Why would non-Muslims come and study in national schools if these things keep happening?” Hashim lamented.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Hindu Sangam president Datuk R. S. Mohan Shan stressed that they were not against the ritual of slaughtering cows, but added that it sould have been carried out elsewhere.

“We are not questioning the slaughter itself as we respect Islam. We don’t mind they want to slaughter cows in mosques and suraus but not in schools, in front of non-Muslims students,” he said.

He revealed that he had received many complaints from Hindu parents over the years and has written to the Education Ministry many times on the matter.

“But till today there has been no reply or action from them. We are very disappointed with this and the statements made by some parties are equally disturbing,” he added.

He was referring to Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia’s deputy president Aminuddin Yahaya, who defended the practice of slaughtering animals on school compound.

“Why should we bow to pressure from them (Hindus)? It is as if we do not have our own identity. This is our country and it is an Islamic country,” he was quoted as saying by a news portal.

“We want to slaughter cows, who cares? What is the percentage of the Indian community in Malaysia? Only 1% or 2%,” said Aminuddin. – October 22, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 3:59 pm and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Putrajaya desperately back-pedalling over Allah issue, say constitutional lawyers

by V. Anbalagan

The Malaysian Insider

October 21, 2013

There appears to be a conscious effort by Putrajaya to dilute the Court of Appeal ruling on the Allah issue, an approach driven by fear of losing further support among East Malaysians, say constitutional lawyers.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insider, the lawyers said Putrajaya was in “damage control” mode as the Court of Appeal ruling had far-reaching implications, having caused an uproar among non-Muslims.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak told an audience in Sabah that East Malaysian Christians are free to use the word Allah in their worship and publications, including the Al-Kitab, which is the Bahasa Malaysia bible.

Earlier, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Joseph Kurup told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur that even Christians in Peninsular Malaysia can use the word freely in their services in church.

Later in the Parliament lobby, Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the ban on the word Allah only applied to the Catholic weekly, Herald, and no other publications.

Lawyers pointed out that all these statements by Barisan Nasional leaders today, made a week after the contentious Court of Appeal decision, also showed that Putrajaya was back-tracking in a desperate effort to score political points.

“The statements today were to pacify Christians all over the country that they could practice their faith as guaranteed under the Federal Constitution.

“But they cannot run away from the ruling which had far-reaching implications,” said lawyer Edmund Bon (pic).

Bon said Christians could not use the word Allah as the court had ruled that it was not part of their faith and practice.

“The judgment has gone further than what was intended and it was due to submissions made by Putrajaya,” he said, adding that it is clear that the decision affected Christians in East Malaysia.

He pointed out that the ruling has also nullified the 10-point solution that allowed the Al-Kitab to use the word Allah,” he said.

Lawyer Karpal Singh said his observation also pointed that government leaders were attempting to give a “different complexion” to the ruling.

“This is going against the grain of the Court of Appeal judgment. They have to accept the ruling as of now,” he said.

Karpal said they should not contradict the judgment and further confuse the public.

Datuk Bastion Pius Vendargon said the leaders were coming on record a week after the court ruling because the issue had attracted wide publicity internationally.

“They are speaking up now to paint a rosy picture that the government is accomodating to the Christians,” he said.

Vendargon also said the ruling had serious implications as the Home Minister could now ban any non-Muslim publication that used the word on grounds of national security and public security.

Lawyer K. Shanmuga said politicians from the ruling government were now speaking up because of fear of losing support from Christians.

“Only now, they want to assure Malaysians that a dominant religion cannot impose its will on minority religions,” he said.

However, Shanmuga said the ruling had paved the way for Islamic religious authorities to take action against non-Muslims for using the word.

“They can rely on the Court of Appeal decision to restraint non-Muslims from using the word,” he added. – October 21, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 1:24 am and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Umno polls show that what goes around comes around

Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

Oct 20, 2013

COMMENT
The results are in. Despite the last-minute swing to Mukhriz Mahathir due to the sympathy factor associated with the false reporting of vote-buying and buoyed by his father’s support, the count clearly shows that Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s personal influence in Umno has waned.

 In fact, when one looks at the election of the 25 spots for the Supreme Council, Mahathir loyalists have lost badly. The question arises whether this party election indeed spells the end of an era, a changing of the guard of sorts within Umno.

 While personal loyalties may have moved on and Mahathir’s influence has been checked, his legacy persists within the party and given the competitiveness of the results, Mahathir’s own role will continue to shadow Najib’s premiership.

A closer look

 Mahathir’s son Mukhriz came within striking distance of Najib’s cousin and closest ally, Hishammuddin Hussein, in the keenly fought contest for a vice-presidency.

 In the last 24 hours before polling, sympathy swung strongly in favour of Mukhriz who was seen to be unfairly reported in the media for indulging in money politics (an issue that will likely be debated in the days ahead) and not being picked as the ‘chosen one’ in the candidate list.

NONEUsing Umno reverse psychology, Mahathir tapped into sympathy over the unfair attacks to boost his son’s chances – and Mukhriz (right) did come very close to winning.

 For Hishammuddin, this election showed how vulnerable he is within the party, with the battle for the post-Najib leadership highly competitive. And for Mahathir, his goal of securing a position for his son failed – at least for now.

 Mahathir loyalists also lost out in the Supreme Council. Out of the 25 spots, they can be seen to secure only two positions. Adding to those close to Mahathir’s ally, deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin, this number increases to five, representing about one-fifth in the powerful council.

 The composition of those elected can be seen as follows: 20% Mahathir-Muhyiddin loyalists, 24% Najib loyalists, 32% Abdullah Ahmad Badawi loyalists, 20% seen as both Abdullah and Najib camps, and another 4% independent.

 Many of the Mahathir loyalists rode the wave of sympathy around his son into the Supreme Council. With Najib’s ability to appoint additional members to the Supreme Council, Mahathir’s position inside the existing hierarchy has been significantly marginalised.

The implication of this is that through the structures of power inside the system, Najib is unlikely to face a challenge, at least in the short term. Najib has clearly secured his position within Umno for now.

Abdullah’s victory

 While the power of incumbency and position is one of the major factors influencing the results, the outcome must also be understand as a victory for Malaysia’s fifth premier, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

 Ironically on the day Abdullah formally retired from politics, his influence was at one of its heights. In fact, looking at the ties and loyalties of those elected into the Supreme Council, Abdullah was the main victor as his appointees, including his former personal secretary and now head of the Kepala Batas division, Reezal Merican Naina Merican, won.

NONEIn fact, Abdullah’s appointees make up the lion’s share of those elected into the Supreme Council. Najib has been proved to be politically adept in his choice to ally with Abdullah for the Umno polls. Those in the incumbent position put into office by Abdullah held on, echoing the ‘support the incumbents’ call that went out on the eve of polls.

 The main loser was Mahathir, as the Najib-Abdullah alliance decimated those in the Mahathir camp. What goes around comes around, and yesterday Mahathir had to face the consequences of his ouster of Abdullah in the loss for his son.

 Najib also had to pay a price for the Abdullah alliance. The premier was not able to bring in many of his own new loyalists, such as Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin or Raja Ropiaah Raja Abdullah. The effect is that Najib’s base within Umno remains tied to Abdullah, as he is beholden to the immediate previous premier for his own position.

 Najib does not have full reigns with regard to his loyalists and will use the power of supreme council appointments to strengthen his position. This will limit his ability to bring in his own agenda, as he will have to continue to accommodate existing interests.

Money and power

 If Mahathir’s personal power is checked in the results, the conduct of the polls must be understood as decisively shaped by his legacy. While his son did not deserve the breadth of attacks he received over money politics, no one can deny that vote-buying remained a key dynamic in Umno polls.

 Money exchanged hands and those with money and huge war chests won out. State warlords such as Mohd Ali Rustam and Isa Samad were annihilated as they could not keep up. These individuals were from small states, which also contributed to their losses. The legacy of money politics of Mahathir’s tenure lived on and ironically disadvantaged his son.

NONEBeyond the use of money, now honed as a tool for Umno victories, another myth is the democratic nature of the polls themselves. Delegates were ‘instructed’ as to who to vote for by their leaders. In some cases on the eve of polls, the final list of candidates were not provided to the delegates, as the focus was on who was on the selected list rather than the complete candidate list.

 This election was a top-down affair as Umno delegates were expected to follow the usual pattern of following their leaders.

 There are other real gripes about the election from the delegates themselves – the lack of transparency and other problems associated with the vote count, the fairness of the mechanism for complaints, the use of state resources in campaigning, the role of the media and more.

 These factors are familiar. The Umno polls were marred by legitimate concerns over fairness. In substance, the power of the delegates to shape the results was checked by the implementation of the new electoral process.

Skewed ‘electoral college’ system

 One of the ironies in the Umno elections involves the unfairness of the electoral system for the polls themselves – the ‘electoral college’.

 As Umno has tied power to parliament constituencies, which are malapportioned in favour of rural areas and East Malaysia, the effect of the structural problems in Malaysia’s electoral system was replicated in the Umno polls.

 Sabah has the advantage due to its sizable number of parliamentary seats. The same could be said of Johor. These states voted decisively for Hishammuddin over Mukhriz. This is yet another irony of the Mahathir legacy – his decision on where to place the constituencies came back to haunt him.

 The fair share of Sabahans in the Supreme Council line-up, including Bung Mokhtar Radin and Abdul Rahman Dahlan, can also be seen as a product of the regional influence of states that have been given more than their fair portion of parliamentary seats.

 The fact is that it is not the location of Umno members that has shaped the outcome, but the location of the parliamentary seats. This brings up the reality that the Umno polls effectively disempowered the votes of its members in the places where they are in the largest number, especially Selangor.

 Consider the case of Titiwangsa, which has one of the largest number of branches. It has one vote, the same as that of Padang Besar in Perlis, which has a handful of branches. The Umno polls were based on the fact that each parliamentary seat is given one vote in the national elections.

 In places such as Shah Alam where many Perkasa supporters live, the voices of many hardliners were muted. This hurt Mahathir loyalists in the party election, but more fundamentally it illustrated how the undemocratic practices of creating a malapportioned system works.

 The delegates in Umno did not have equal power and in rural areas they had considerably more power than others. Those in urban areas – not just voters but Umno members – have less electoral influence. This is highly undemocratic, and it showcases the political marginalisation of groups within Umno itself.

Expect Mahathir to strike back

 So, what will happen when the dust settles? There will be an assessment of the undemocratic dynamics of the Umno polls, from the top-down dictates and financial advantage of incumbents to the unfair electoral system.

 There will also be an acknowledgment of Najib’s adept political decisions, but the appreciation that he is checked by his alliances and the constraints they have on his power. He is in charge but is beholden to the past, especially the immediate past prime minister, Abdullah. His scope to make decisions is limited. Incumbency and the status quo won out.

NONEOne must appreciate that the impact of the decisions to secure the Umno leadership by Najib – the introduction of the Bumiputera Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy, persistence of the use of money to woo supporters, the reversal of the Internal Security Act repeal and the racial attacks on non-Malays/Muslims have all left a mark that cannot be easily redressed. The cost of this Najib victory in substantive terms has been extremely high.

 What is unknown is how Mahathir and his loyalists will react. There is anger and disappointment. For some, there is even a sense of betrayal. The pendulum will surely swing back, as those who have lost are expected to strike back.

 Mahathir has shown in the past that he is not one who gives up easily and often responds in anger. The post-Umno election now awaits his response, as Malaysia remains locked in an ongoing focus of shoring up political power. Mahathir will likely use tools outside the party such as the media to make his views known.

 In looking at the results, the Mahathir legacy in Malaysian politics was evident in the polls themselves, and his role in politics is likely to persist despite the direct losses suffered by his family and loyalists. Put simply, Najib will have to continue to watch his back, knowing that what goes around comes around.

——————————————————————————–

DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University. Bridget can be reached at
[email protected]
.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 October 2013, 1:44 am and is filed under
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
,
Mahathir
,
Najib Razak
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


New insight into Najib’s “Endless Possibilities” – one of world’s highest civil servants-to-population ratio relying increasingly on foreign consultants even to draft national documents and masterplans

A parliamentary reply has given a new insight into the strange directions that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib is taking the country with his slogan of “Endless Possibilities”.

Malaysia has one the largest civil services in the world, with a 1.4 million civil servants accounting for 10 per cent of the labour force.

In 2009, Malaysia’s civil servants-to-population ratio was the highest in the Asia-Pacific.  The ratio was 4.68 per cent  compared to Singapore’s 1.4 per cent, Indonesia’s 1.79 per cent, South Korea’s 1.85 per cent and Thailand’s 2.06 per cent – all of which have less than half our ratio.

Strangely enough, despite having one of the highest civil servants-to-population ratio in the world, Malaysia is relying increasingly on foreign consultants even to draft national documents and masterplans.

Recently, the country was shocked by the revelation that the government spent RM20 million to international consultant McKinsey and Co to draft the National Education Blueprint, when in the past, all national plans, blueprints and official documents were drafted by local experts.

As a result, I put in a question to ask the Prime Minister to list “all the reports, masterplans or official documents in the past 10 years which the government had commissioned foreign consultants to prepare, like the Malaysian Education Blueprint which was commissioned to McKinsey & Co., the identity of the foreign consultants and the cost of each commission”.

In a written answer, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, failed to give a fulsome response, such as the identity of the reports and consultants commissioned, and the respective individual costs, except a general reply on the costs incurred by the Prime Minister’s Department  for outsourcing drafting of national reports and blueprints to  foreign consultants from 2008 to 2013, viz:

2008 – RM 3,313,121.00

2009 – RM17,751,570.00

2010 – RM20,134,063.00

2011 – RM71,904,227.45

2012 – RM84,535,849.77

2013 – RM18,349,135.80

The answer raised even more questions, including what is the Najib administration trying to hide when it failed to answer  the very clear question on the identity of “all the reports, masterplans or official documents in the past 10 years” where the government had commissioned foreign consultants to prepare, “the identity of the foreign consultants and the cost of each commission”.

In the past five years, RM212.5 million had been spent to outsource the preparation of reports, masterplans and official documents to foreign consultants, a rare practice in the early decades of the nation’s history under the administration of the first five Prime Ministers.

It would appear that in the first 52 years of the nation’s history under the first five Prime Ministers, there is greater confidence in Malaysians than on foreigners or foreign consultants in their ability to think and plan for the country’s  future, whether economic or educational, that the practice of outsourcing the preparation of national plans and masterplans to foreign consultants was a great rarity.

Is this one important meaning of Najib’s “Government Transformation Plan”?

In any event, why is the Najib administration shy to enumerate all the reports, masterplans or official documents which had been outsourced by the Prime Minister’s Department to foreign consultants to prepare, the identity of the foreign consultants and the cost of each commission?

I call on Shahidan not to commit the unparliamentary practice of avoiding my question but  to give a full reply to my question, listing all the reports, masterplans or official documents which had been outsourced to foreign consultants to prepare, the identity of the foreign consultants and the cost of each commission.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 October 2013, 5:43 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
,
Parliament
,
public service
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Prisoner of conscience Uthaya paying dearly for defying the government

CPI
 introduction

We are reproducing below the letter of P. Uthayakumar addressed to the Prime Minister, Najib Razak, and Home Minister, Zahid Hamidi, describing the horrific conditions of his imprisonment in Kajang Prison.

No prisoner in our country – or indeed any other civilized country – deserves such brutal and abusive treatment. It is clear that the prison authorities, with the tacit agreement of their political masters, are determined to break Uthayakumar’s health and spirit and to make him pay dearly for his defiance of the government in pursuing the cause of marginalized Indians in the country.

Uthaya’s plight is little known to most Malaysians with the mainstream mass media complicit in erecting a wall of silence on his case and refusing to share with the public the various appeals made by Hindraf; his family and Uthaya himself.

CPI hopes that other stakeholders, besides those to whom it is directly addressed, will be catalyzed by this letter to urgently take up his case as well as the larger issue of abusive and inhumane prison conditions, and the selective harsh treatment meted out to special cases that have been highlighted.

Immediate action is needed to ensure that Uthaya, who in our view clearly qualifies as a political prisoner of conscience, is treated with the decency, humanity and respect that he deserves, and for the vindictive and abusive treatment meted out to him to be stopped.

We also call on all political parties and Members of Parliament especially to urgently take up the case of reform in the country’s prison system which is long overdue and to rid it of its inhumane and abusive system and actions which are a blot on our conscience and country’s image.

P. Uthayakumar’s letter to the PM and the Home Minister

18th October 2013

Uthayakumar a/l Ponnusamy

Penjara Kajang

Y.A.B Dato’ Sri Najib Razak

Prime Minister Office of Malaysia

Main Block Perdana Putra Building

Federal Government Administrative Centre

62502 Putrajaya

Y.B. Dato Seri Zahid Hamidi

Home Minister, Malaysia

Block Dl & D2

Complex D Administrative Centre

Federal Territory

62546 Putrajaya

YAB /YB,

Fax No. 03-88883444 Email.
[email protected]

Fax No. 03-88891613/88891610 Email. webmastereamoha.gov.my

Re: P. UTHAYAKUMAR TORTURED IN CLOSED-UP ISOLATION LOCK-UP AT KAJANG PRISON, (DARK ROOM-DIM LIGHTS), 27 DAYS AND TO CONTINUE: MALAYSIA’S ONLY POLITICAL ACTIVIST DETAINEE

I have and am being tortured with mala fide at the most feared and dreaded closed isolation lock-up (tutup) of Kajang Prison all in for 27 days and to continue indefinitely. I am locked-up under solitary confinement alone, 24 hours a day not seeing sunlight or fresh air [in a] dimly lit cell and [with] just one set of prison pants and shirt in an empty lock-up. Also denied reading and writing materials and even warm water to drink. Drinking the contaminated tap water caused me to fall ill. Also denied the 15 minutes weekly phone calls to lawyers and family, denied the monthly family visit and lawyers’ visit.

I am denied even a toothbrush, toothpaste, bathing and washing soap, towel, blanket, pillow and even the ½ inch foam mattress to sleep on the cement floor that he otherwise gets.

I am forced to sleep on the bare cold cement floor despite also suffering from arthritis, forced to drink rice porridge using a dipper (gayong) I and hundreds, if not thousands of other prisoners use/have used to wash their backsides. My sole shirt and pants remain unwashed (even with plain water) for days, as it will take days to dry with the very small only one feet x 1½ feet ventilation grille. Upon returning from Court (appeal) on 24/9/2013, I was locked up for 8 days in a dirty, dark, hot and stuffy 10 feet x 10 feet “quarantine” lock-up at the death row with another open (no partition) squatting toilet bowl and bath area of 2 feet x 10 feet with no bathroom privacy even during early morning long calls together with five other dangerous and violent criminals.

As a diabetic patient of 17 years, I am still given sweet white bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the three prison doctors’ written note, I was given a plastic chair because of my prolapsed disk backbone pain.

But this is the third time it is being taken away despite my legs getting swollen and toes numb as a result of sitting on the floor and my complaints of severe pain ignored. Despite the prison authorities been given three of my specialist medical reports (since 2009), I was refused to be taken for treatment (by appointment) on 1/8/2013 with HUKM hospital consultant neurosurgeon Prof Dr Shanmugarajah despite our solicitors letter enclosing the appointment card. For complaining about the above and other prison conditions and abuse of other prisoners, I have been scolded with the words “kurang ajar” (ill mannered) by DSP Mohamad Noor and “you are a bloody prisoner” by prison Superintendent Ranjit Singh and repeatedly shouted at.

After almost 4 months being treated with at least some semblance of a security prisoner, the prison authorities are now with mala-fide forcing me to squat in line in muster (roll call) with other dangerous and violent criminals. Earlier I was allowed to remain in my cell for the other three i.e. 11.00am, 2.00pm and 4.00pm musters.

Despite my 4 pages appeal letter to the Prison Director Tuan Haji Wahab dated 2/10/2013, not only has there been no positive action but this latest torture of 27 days (plus 8 days quarantine) in the most feared and dreaded isolation cell, for citing my safety and not wanting to muster with the other dangerous and violent criminals.

APPEAL

I hereby appeal that:-

1. I, an ex-ISA detainee, is forthwith transferred to the hospital wing in view of my illnesses as this wing being the safest place in prison or at the very least the security wing, as I have also represented victims as their lawyer, whose perpetrators, 3 are in the death row and scores more gangsters in the very same prison, [as well as] previous murder attempt and live bullet sent to me and made known to directors and prison officers. Why this racial injustice when previously Malay and Chinese political leaders like Lim Guan Eng, Mahfuz Omar, Mat Sabu, Mathias Chang and Anwar Ibrahim had been detained at the safer hospital wing?

2. Forthwith send me to HUKM [Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia] appointment.

3. Stop the above and all prison torture and abuses of all other prisoners.

4. If not the Prime Minister, the Home Minister to urgently visit me in the prison to know the first -and truth.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

P. Uthayakumar, Kajang Prison

c.c. Pengarah Penjara Kajang (03-8736 7449), Ketua Penjara Malaysia (03-8739 9205)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 October 2013, 5:24 pm and is filed under
Hindraf
,
Human Rights
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


What Now After the Umno Elections?

By Kee Thuan Chye

23.10.2013

Mohd Ali Rustam lost badly in his bid for a vice-presidency at the Umno party elections last weekend. He managed to win only seven votes out of a possible 191. With the new system of electoral colleges, this means he got votes from seven divisions, as each division made up one electoral college.

In terms of number of votes from individual delegates, he obtained 15,294, which works out roughly to only about 10.4 per cent of the total of 146,500. Significantly, the people who voted are Malays, so Ali Rustam can’t blame the Chinese for his loss this time, as he did for his loss at the recent general election (GE13).

Not only is this poetic justice; it is also a vindication of the fact that the outcome of GE13 was not, contrary to what Umno President and Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed, due to a “Chinese tsunami”. Barisan Nasional (BN) did worse at GE13 because other races rejected it, including the Malays.

In Ali Rustam’s case, he stood in the parliamentary constituency of Bukit Katil, which was made up of 53 per cent Malay voters, 41 per cent Chinese and 6 per cent Indian. So for him to blame the Chinese was simply unfair as the majority of the voters were Malays.

For his Umno vice-presidency defeat, whom is he going to blame? The delegates who didn’t vote for him? Because they might have considered that in 2009, he was disqualified from contesting the same position for engaging in money politics? And that last year, he threw a lavish wedding for his son and incurred a hefty food and beverage bill of RM600,000, which prompted investigations by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)?

What, by the way, has been the result of those investigations? Are we likely to get a report from the MACC at all, or will it – like many other investigations of protected species – be kept in the Umno skeleton closet? On the other hand, since Ali Rustam has fallen out of favour, perhaps any protection he enjoyed before may now be terminated?

Poor man. Having to suffer the vagaries of politics and the experience of defeat yet again. Worse, defeat within his own party. And a pathetic defeat at that. With only seven votes out of 191. I think the Chinese must have grouped together, raised millions of ringgit and bought off the other 184 divisions so that they would not vote for him. And that’s how he lost so badly.

Speaking of the new voting system that was being adopted for the first time during these Umno elections, I wonder what is so revolutionary – or, rather, to use the fashionable word, transformational – about it.

Umno leaders make much song and dance about its now allowing 146,500 delegates to vote instead of only 2,500 before this. They say it shows how democratic the party is in allowing more people to decide who will fill the leadership positions. But does it really do that?

It would if every vote counted on its own. But that’s unfortunately not the case. The votes are instead added up within each division and in the end represent only one vote from that division.

So let’s say there are two candidates vying for a particular position, and 1,000 delegates of Division X are voting for candidates A and B. If 600 vote for A and 400 for B, A wins but only scores one vote from Division X.

Now, let’s say from Division Y, which also has 1,000 delegates, 300 vote for A and 700 for B. In this case, B is the winner, but he also wins only one vote. For the overall contest, it doesn’t help B in any way that in terms of individual votes, he would lead with 1,100 in comparison to A’s 900. The individual votes count for nothing.

This means it all hinges on the division. It means the members of the division can still be influenced by the division chief. Worse, giving each division one vote is being unfair to divisions that are big. They get the same one vote as divisions that are small.

So why have the electoral college system? Why not make it one man, one vote instead of one division, one vote? Why not let it truly determine the outcome that the members want, rather than the outcome that could be influenced by the division chiefs?

Besides, which system is more likely to discourage money politics? If every one of the 146,500 votes were to count, wouldn’t it be much harder for candidates to buy even half that number than if it were a matter of just 191 divisions?

In fact, this time round, Mukhriz Mahathir would have secured one of the vice-presidencies if the system had been one man, one vote. He obtained 57,189 individual votes in comparison to the 56,604 Hishammuddin Hussein got. The position, however, went to the latter because he won 100 electoral colleges to Mukhriz’s 91.

That being so, how deserving does Hishammuddin feel about his victory, if he could even call it that at all?

Interestingly, Mukhriz must now know what Pakatan Rakyat feels for having won the popular vote at GE13 but failing to take over the government because they won fewer seats in Parliament.

In any case, now that the Umno elections are over, I wonder whether the intolerable ethnocentric posturing by some candidates during the build-up to it will stop. Or whether we will see a resurgence of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) agitation instead.

With Najib having done nothing to stem the ethnocentric tide and saying nothing to placate the anxieties of non-Malay Malaysians, the prospects of reconciliation and inclusiveness are not bright.

In fact, what he said about GE13 last weekend sounded ominous: “Umno was actually successful in that we managed to win 88 seats in Parliament. Our colleagues did not perform that well, but Umno remains the backbone of Barisan Nasional.”

His rubbing this in nearly six months after GE13, issuing a reminder that the other BN component parties made up mainly of other races didn’t do so well, is to assert the dominance of Umno. He, however, seems to have forgotten that in 2004, Umno won 109 seats on its own, 21 more than its current 88. But of course that’s of no consequence now. He is setting the tone by warning of attitudes and policies to come.

This will be consolidated from December 2 to 7, when the party’s general assembly is held. We can expect at the event big-time grandstanding by one and all, from the supreme leaders to the grassroots representatives. That’s when Ketuanan Melayu could rear its hideous head. And the president might be the first to hold it up.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the new book The Elections Bullshit, now available in bookstores.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 October 2013, 9:07 am and is filed under
Kee Thuan Chye
,
Najib Razak
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


‘Allah’ curbs hurting M’sia’s moderate Muslim image

Stuart Grudgings

Malaysiakini/Reuters

Oct 23, 2013

Malaysia’s self-styled image as a global leader of moderate Islam has been undermined by a court ruling that only Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God, with a growing number of Muslim scholars and commentators condemning the decision.

A Malaysian court ruled last week that the word was “not an integral part of the faith in Christianity”, overturning a previous ruling that allowed a Malay-language Roman Catholic newspaper to use the word.

Since then, confusion has reigned over the interpretation of the ruling, with government ministers, lawyers and Muslim authorities giving widely diverging views on its scope.

Critics of the decision have said it casts a chill on religious rights in Muslim-majority Malaysia, which has substantial minorities of ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Commentators in some countries that practice Islam more strictly than Malaysia have condemned the ruling, arguing that the word ‘Allah’ has been used by different faiths for centuries.

Christians in Malaysia’s eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak have used the word for generations, as have Christians in the Middle East.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said in a commentary that the decision was a “sad reflection on how an otherwise modern country, widely seen as a role model for the Muslim world, is succumbing to the current trend of insularity in matters of faith”.

‘A political decision’

Reza Aslan, a prominent American Muslim theologian, called the ruling a political decision and said it had made Malaysia an international laughing stock.

“It’s an embarrassment, it’s shameful, it’s not worthy of a great country like Malaysia,” he said this week on radio.

“(The ruling) just casts this negative light on a country which… is a model for Muslims around the world, and yet this has made it a laughing stock. We are laughing at you.”

Reza noted that the word Allah literally means ‘the God’ and thus could not be considered a name.

“It’s almost a blasphemous thought to think that God has a name.”

The court’s ruling came as Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak seeks to consolidate his support among majority ethnic Malays, who are Muslim by law, and secure the backing of traditionalists following a divisive national election in May.

The editor of the Catholic newspaper is appealing against the decision.

Facing a strong backlash to the ruling, government ministers have said in recent days that the large population of Christians in Sabah and Sarawak would not be affected by the ruling – an interpretation disputed by most lawyers.

They have also said the ruling only applied to one particular newspaper rather than the general use of the word.

Adding to the confusion, Malaysia’s tourism minister said this week that Christians in Sabah and Sarawak could use the word Allah in their home states but not if they were in peninsula Malaysia.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said in an opinion piece this week Muslim scholars outside of Malaysia found the ‘Allah’ issue “absurd”.

“Few Muslims around the world would endorse the claim that we have a monopoly on the word ‘Allah’,” he said.

– Reuters

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 October 2013, 12:35 am and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
,
Religion
,
Sabah
,
Sarawak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Asri, the voice of reason, urges politicians to steer clear of religion

by Elizabeth Zachariah

The Malaysian Insider

October 24, 2013

Malaysia will be a better place if politicians “stop politicising religion and academic matters” and leave both issues to the relevant parties to decide, says ex-Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin.

“People are confused. If they (politicians) had, from the beginning, followed this principle, then Malaysia will not be in this position,” he told The Malaysian Insider, referring to the chorus of criticism the country has been receiving following the Allah decision.

Last week, a three-man Court of Appeal bench unanimously overturned the 2009 Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling that allowed the Catholic Church to use the word “Allah” in its weekly publication, Herald.

Muslim scholars and clerics worldwide have criticised the ban, pointing out that the word predates Islam and was a word that meant God in Arabic.

Asri, a 42-year-old Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) associate professor and known to supporters as the “voice of reason” and to critics as a “promoter of liberalism”, is one of those who had condemned the ban on Allah for non-Muslims.

He had previously said that as long as the word Allah was used to refer to “the Most Supreme Being”, the non-Muslims could use the word.

“So actually it is a non-issue. Muslims believe in one God. So how can we say your God is different from mine?” he had said before.

In an interview with The Malaysian Insider recently, Asri said it is ridiculous if they say the word is exclusive to Muslims.

“Civilisations that practised tolerance prospered and stayed as a society much longer than those that did not.”

Asri, an Islamic studies graduate, heaved a sigh when asked about the country’s religious scenario.

“It is different now compared to 20 years ago,” he noted.

He repeated his earlier observation that politics and religious issues should not be mixed.

For Asri, the Allah controversy is a non-issue. He thinks it is ridiculous to say the word Allah is exclusive to Muslims. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Nazir Sufari, October 24, 2013.For Asri, the Allah controversy is a non-issue. He thinks it is ridiculous to say the word Allah is exclusive to Muslims. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Nazir Sufari, October 24, 2013.”Religious figures follow the knowledge rule while politicians have their own agenda and ideologies.”

The former mufti smiled when asked what he thought of the “moderate voice of Islam” tag attached to his name.

“This is Islam from what I understand from the Quran,” he said.

“I don’t see myself as moderate or progressive. My thoughts and whatever I say are based on what I learnt in my religion and I am independent from all political parties.”

In response to accusations that he was promoting liberalism with his views, the Penangite paused, then retorted, “I don’t like these labels.”

“What is their proof or argument on this?” he challenged.

However, Asri is not free of controversy, having been detained by the Selangor Religious Affairs Department (Jais) in 2009 for preaching without accreditation at a residential property. He was eventually charged, amid objections to his arrest, right from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to opposition leaders.

The court case, he revealed, is still ongoing.

The Muslim scholar gave a sheepish smile when it was put to him that not much has been written about his life outside the religious circle.

“Yes, that is because I like to keep my life private. My wife warned me several times not to talk about her and the kids.”

It took some persuasion before Asri revealed that he met his wife of 16 years while teaching temporarily at a school in Penang.

“I was home for a holiday while studying in Jordan when I met her. We got married in 1997.”

The couple has three girls and two boys, aged between 2 and 16.

Asri began to take an interest in Islamic studies while he was in primary school, prompting his father to send him to the Al-Irshad religious school in Pokok Sena, Kedah, for his secondary school education.

He then went to the Islamic College in Klang for his Form 4 and 5 and left for the Jordan University in 1995 to study Arabic and Shariah law.

After coming back to Malaysia, Asri taught religious studies at the SMK Raja Tun Uda in Penang before pursuing his Masters in USM.

He went on to obtain his doctorate in Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Heritage (Al-Quran and Sunnah Studies) from the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

“I worked in USM for three years and then was seconded to the Perlis state government as the mufti in 2006 until 2008.”

He had a few overseas stints following that, including a Fellowship with the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in the UK. – October 24, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 October 2013, 9:11 am and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Berapakan jumlah nilai ekuiti yang diperuntukkan untuk Bumiputera, nilai yang masih dalam pegangan dan bagaimana boleh membantu rakyat Bumiputera biasa?

PERTANYAAN DEWAN RAKYAT

TUAN LIM KIT SIANG minta PERDANA MENTERI menyatakan berapakah jumlah nilai ekuiti yang diperuntukkan untuk Bumiputera setakat hari ini, nilai yang masih tinggal dalam tangan Bumiputera, dan bagaimana program sedemikian boleh membantu rakyat Bumiputera biasa.

JAWAPAN: YB SENATOR DATO’ SRI ABDUL WAHID OMAR. MENTERI DI JABATAN PERDANA MENTERI

Tuan Yang di-Pertua,

Untuk makluman Ahli Yang Berhormat, Kerajaan telah menggunakan beberapa pendekatan untuk meningkatkan pemilikan ekuiti Bumiputera. Antara lain, termasuk peruntukan saham khas kepada Bumiputera bagi syarikat yang akan disenaraikan di Bursa Malaysia, lanya dilaksanakan oleh Kementerian Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri (MITI). Ringkasan penyertaan Bumiputera dalam pasaran saham melalui peruntukan saham khas ini adalah seperti dalam jadual di bawah:

TAHUN

JUMLAH TAWARAN SAHAM KHAS (UNIT)

NILAI (RM)

TAWARAN KESELURUHAN IPO (UNIT)

PERATUSAN TAWARAN SAHAM KHAS BUMIPUTERA (%)

2013*

1,204,717,700

2,324,592,915

17,146,814,329

7.0

2012

1,552,878,400

5,127,533,410

7,537,722,900

20.6

2011

826,612,300

1,913,479,398

5,640,376,813

14.7

2010

1,505,157,900

5,918,993,850

7,892,390,280

19.1

*sehingga September 2013

Di samping itu, terdapat juga Skim Amanah Saham yang dilaksanakan oleh Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) yang telah berjaya meningkatkan pegangan ekuiti Bumiputera dalam pasaran modal. Sehingga 31 Disember 2012, pegangan pelaburan Bumiputera di bawah Skim Amanah Bumiputera bernilai RM110.3 bilion. PNB turut menawarkan unit pelaburan kepada rakyat Malaysia melalui beberapa skim seperti Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW2020), Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) dan Iain-lain.

Sepertimana Ahli Yang Berhormat sedia maklum, pasaran modal adalah dinamik dan sentiasa berubah-ubah. Ianya turut dipengaruhi oleh pelbagai faktor, antara lain, premium harga saham yang dimiliki, prestasi pelaburan syarikat, kadar pulangan dividen dan spekulasi pasaran. Justeru, jumlah pegangan dan nilai ekuiti yang terus dimiliki Bumiputera adalah sentiasa berubah mengikut keadaan pasaran semasa.

Sehubungan itu, dari segi pemilikan ekuiti Bumiputera dalam sektor korporat, sehingga tahun 2011, ianya telah mencapai 23.5%. Dari segi nilai tara, pemilikan ekuiti Bumiputera menunjukkan peningkatan yang ketara, iaitu daripada RM20.8 bilion pada tahun 1990 kepada RM211.5 bilion pada tahun 2011.

Walau bagaimanapun, Kerajaan akan terus berusaha untuk meningkat dan mengekalkan pemilikan ekuiti dan penguasaan berkesan Bumiputera supaya sasaran sekurang-kurangnya 30% pemilikan ekuiti Bumiputera dapat dicapai menjelang tahun 2020.

Melalui pemilikan dan penguasaan berkesan ekuiti korporat, Bumiputera mempunyai kuasa menentukan hala tuju korporat dan memberi impak positif kepada kedudukan ekonomi Bumiputera. Ini dicapai melalui kesan spill-over dan trickle-down seperti menawarkan lebih banyak peluang pekerjaan, terutamanya pekerjaan di peringkat pengurusan tertinggi kepada tenaga kerja Bumiputera. Selain itu, perkongsian pintar sesama Bumiputera dapat dilaksanakan bagi memantapkan operasi dan seterusnya menguasai sepanjang rantaian nilai ekonomi, terutama bagi sektor yang berdaya maju dan berpotensi. Masyarakat Bumiputera yang melabur juga mendapat peluang secara langsung dan tidak langsung melalui pulangan dividen daripada pegangan saham yang dimiliki.

Sekian, terima kasih.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 October 2013, 1:35 pm and is filed under
Economics
,
Parliament
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Call on UMNO to end its  campaign of lies and falsehoods in Sg Limau by-election

At the Pakatan Rakyat media conference in Sungai Limau Dalam close to midnight  on Monday after the announcement of Mohd Azam Samat as the PAS and Pakatan Rakyat candidate for the Sungai Limau by-election,  I urged all contending parties and candidates to make the by-election a model of clean, honest and decent politics by ensuring that there is no campaign of lies and falsehoods, character-assassination or the corruption of money politics.

I must express my great disappointment and disapproval that my call for clean, honest and decent by-election campaign in Sungai Limau had been violated on the very first day of the by-election campaign yesterday.

As reported today by Malaysiakini reporter Susan Loone in
“UMNO bids to undermine PAS’ Islamic credentials”
, in small, targeted ceramah groups last night, UMNO and Barisan Nasional  campaigners sought to win the hearts of the 93 per cent Malay Muslim voters in Sg Limau by invoking the dastardly lie that the DAP plans to form a Christian State in Malaysia.

As I said at the earlier ceramah  in Sungai Limau Dalam on Monday night, DAP fully and unreservedly supports the fundamental features of the Malaysian Constitution, in particular the provisions on Malay as the official language and the guaranteed position of the other languages, Islam as the official religion in the Federation and the freedom of religion for non-Muslims as well as the  system of Malay Rulers and constitutional monarchy in the country.

These fundamental features of the Malaysian Constitution, together with the objectives of promoting and  achieving democracy, good governance, economic justice, educational excellence and integrity in public life by eradicating corruption, greed, cronyism and abuses of power, are the common policy objectives of the Pakatan Rakyat parties of PAS, PKR and PAS.

It is expected that the contesting political parties and candidates will do their utmost to try to win the Sungai Limau by-election, but a line must be drawn to ensure that such a victory must be not be based on a campaign of lies, falsehoods, character-assassination and the corruption of money politics.

Are UMNO and BN prepared to renounce lies and falsehoods such as the lie that the DAP plans to form a Christian State in Malaysia in the Sg Limau by-election?

I call on  UMNO and BN to end their  campaign of lies and falsehoods in Sg Limau by-election as this  is not only a great disservice to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia policy but a grave threat to multi-racial and multi-religious harmony undermining Malaysia’s competitiveness.

Artikel ini juga boleh didapati dalam Bahasa Malaysia di:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/10/28/umno-diseru-untuk-berhenti-menyebarkan-pembohongan-dalam-pilihanraya-kecil-sg-limau-kerana-ia-menjejaskan-dasar-1malaysia-najib-mengancam-keharmonian-hubungan-antara-kaum-dan-menjejaskan-daya-saing-m/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 October 2013, 3:26 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Elections
,
Pakatan Rakyat
,
PAS
,
Religion
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Police Reputation Going Down the Toilet?

By Kee Thuan Chye

Yahoo! News

24.10.2013

Hahahaha! So the story now is that some policemen lost their guns while they were taking a pee, izzit? And this was revealed in Parliament by the guy who has just been elected Umno vice-president!

Did the guns drop into the toilet bowl and got flushed down?

Well, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not provide the gory details when he was giving his written answer in Parliament to a question raised by Opposition MP Tian Chua about the Auditor-General’s having reported that the police lost 44 loaded firearms between 2010 and 2012.

However, Zahid did also reveal that some guns were lost when cops got mugged. Woh! Cops getting mugged? Imagine that! If cops can get mugged, what hope is there for ordinary people?

Cops are crime-busters. They are supposed to apprehend muggers. How do they get mugged instead? Are they not fit to be cops? How did they get hired in the first place? Is that why crime is on the rise?

No wonder only last week, the New York Times ran a report highlighting the “soaring crime rate that has blighted Kuala Lumpur, previously considered one of Asia’s safest cities, and other urban areas across Peninsular Malaysia”.

It said that the United States Embassy in KL was prompted to send this warning to American citizens in the city: “Remember to carry your backpack or purse on the shoulder AWAY from the road to prevent having it snatched by motorbikers.”

It quoted a Malaysian criminologist saying, “There are a lot of people not reporting crimes, because they feel there’s nothing the police can do.”

OMG! We are becoming known throughout the world for the wrong reasons. Where do the police hide their faces?

Come to think of it, how did they feel when their own chief, Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar, responded to the Auditor-General’s report three weeks ago by saying that the lost guns could have fallen into the sea? Did they squirm with embarrassment or did they applaud the IGP for providing comic relief?

Strangely, though, in his written reply to Tian Chua, Zahid did not give falling into the sea as one of the ways the police lost their guns. Why is that? Is the home minister not communicating with the IGP although the police force comes under his ministry? They can’t get their stories straight?

And yet they both seem to be outdoing each other in sounding laughably ridiculous!

Is it not enough that Malaysia has become an international laughing stock because of the Court of Appeal’s verdict against the Catholic weekly The Herald using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God? Is it not enough that Malaysia lost dignity and honour over its refusal to even allow Chin Peng’s ashes to be brought home from Thailand?

Must we add to our notoriety by earlier saying that the guns of our policemen fell into the sea, and now that they got lost while the policemen were in the toilet?

By the way, what does it take to qualify as a minister or an IGP these days? The ability to talk stupid?

Actually, Zahid gave five reasons for the loss of the guns. The other three were that they were:

* mislaid in the office,

* stolen from a vehicle, and

* dropped in the course of duty.

However you look at it, you cannot but conclude that they all smack of negligence.

How could something as important as a gun – a weapon of destruction – get mislaid in the office? How big could the office be that a search for the missing item would not be able to locate it? Why, in the first place, was the officer so careless as to leave the weapon lying around that it might somehow sprout legs and crawl away?

And how could a gun be stolen from a vehicle? Why did the officer responsible for it leave it there? Did he also leave a note on the dashboard saying, “Gun on board, car safe”? Shouldn’t he be carrying the weapon with him all the time? Is he not provided with a holster to tuck the gun in?

As for dropping a gun in the course of duty, it might happen if the officer was involved in a chase after a suspect on foot or engaged in fisticuffs with one – and credibility could indeed be given to this reason. Yes, we could cut the officer some slack. Nonetheless, it is still incumbent on him to check that the gun is intact in his holster after the chase or fight is over. If not, he is being irresponsible or careless.

To be sure, Zahid again did not provide the gory details for these reasons, so we may just have to wait for him to be probed for them. And who knows? He might outdo himself with the answers.

On the whole, however, this business of the police losing guns is shocking and shameful. It compounds the public perception of their incompetence at battling crime. The criminologist’s observation reverberates with painful truth: “There are a lot of people not reporting crimes, because they feel there’s nothing the police can do.”

How will the police bring back their pride? Would it require a complete overhaul of the police force?

How will they save their reputation from going down the toilet?

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the new book The Elections Bullshit, now available in bookstores.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 October 2013, 2:33 am and is filed under
Auditor-General Report
,
Kee Thuan Chye
,
Police
,
Zahid
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


‘Allah’ decision a blot on our legal landscape (Part 1)

by Tommy Thomas

Malaysiakini

Oct 23, 2013

COMMENT
 The sustained public attack on last week’s decision of the Court of Appeal in prohibiting the Catholic Church from using the word ‘Allah’ in its internal publication, The Herald, is absolutely unprecedented, even in a nation used to bad court decisions.

From a constitutional perspective, the judgments of the three judges on the bench are poorly reasoned, the law misread and conclusions reached which will baffle any right-thinking student anywhere in the common law.

The decision is not just wrong, it is horribly wrong, and represents a terrible blot on our legal landscape, unless overturned quickly by the apex court, the Federal Court. Regrettably, what follows may seem unduly legalistic, but it cannot be avoided in a critique of a court decision.

 By their very nature, judicial review proceedings are determined in the first instance by a single judge of the High Court who does not hear witnesses. Instead, the application is disposed of with affidavits and exhibits, supplemented by the submissions from lawyers on both sides.

In the High Court, the government baldly denied about 20 facts that the Catholic Church referred to in its affidavits. In such circumstances, the judge accepted, as she was duty bound in our adversarial system, the evidence produced by the church.

Relevant facts

 In effect, the High Court made findings of fact, as it was entitled to do. Some of these facts are worth recalling:

•The word ‘Allah’ is the correct Bahasa Malaysia word for ‘God’ and in the Bahasa Malaysia translation of the Bible, ‘God’ is translated as ‘Allah’ and ‘Lord’ is translated as ‘Tuhan’;

•For 15 centuries, Christians and Muslims in Arabic-speaking countries have been using the word ‘Allah’ in reference to the One God. The Catholic Church in Malaysia and Indonesia and the great majority of other Christian denominations hold that ‘Allah’ is the legitimate word for ‘God’ in Bahasa Malaysia;

•The Malay-Latin dictionary published in 1631 had translated ‘Deus’ (the Latin word for God) as ‘Alla’ as the Malay translation;

•The Christian usage of the word ‘Allah’ predates Islam, being the name of God in the old Arabic Bible as well as in the modern Arabic Bible used by Christians in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and other places in Asia, Africa, etc;

•In Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia, the word ‘Allah’ has been used continuously in the printed edition of the Matthew’s Gospel in Malay since 1629, in the first complete Malay Bible from 1733 and in the second complete Malay Bible since 1879;

•Munshi Abdullah, considered the father of modern Malay literature, had translated the Gospels into Malay in 1852, and he translated the word ‘God’ as ‘Allah’;

•The Bahasa Malaysia-speaking Christian natives of Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah had always and have continuously and consistently used the word ‘Allah’ for generations and the said word ‘Allah’ is used in the Bahasa Indonesian translations of the Bible used throughout Malaysia;

•At least for the last three decades, the Bahasa Malaysia congregations of the Catholic Church have been freely using the Al-Kitab, the Bahasa Indonesia translation of the Holy Bible, wherein the word ‘Allah’ appears; and

•In any event, the word ‘Allah’ has been used by Christians in all countries where the Arabic language is used as well as in Indonesian/Malay language without any problems and/or breach of public order and/or sensitivity to persons professing the religion of Islam in these countries.

The above matters provide the factual background to this dispute. No case can ever be decided in a vacuum, isolated from the facts. Unbelievably, none of the three Court of Appeal judgments gave any weight to the findings of fact made by the High Court, which is a gross error.

Nordin Salleh forgotten

 It is incredible that none of the judgments even mentioned, let alone considered, the impact of the most important constitutional case ever decided by our courts, which had a direct bearing on the dispute.

The Supreme Court decided in the Nordin Salleh case that in testing the validity of any state action impinging any of the fundamental liberties enshrined in Part II of the federal constitution, the court’s duty is to look at the effect, result or consequence of state action.

If such effect is to render the exercise of such fundamental liberty “illusory or meaningless”, it is unconstitutional. If the ratio of Nordin Salleh, which incidentally is binding on the Court of Appeal, had been applied in The Herald case, the decision would have been different because the effect of the state prohibiting Christians from using the word ‘Allah’ in their worship is to render their right to practise their religion under Article 11(1) and (3) illusory or meaningless.

It is as plain and simple as that. The appeal ought to have been dismissed for that obvious reason alone.

 It was misconceived for the Court of Appeal to have focused its attention on Article 3(1) rather than Article 11(1) and (3). Article 3(1) provides for the role of religion in the new nation of Malaya (subsequently Malaysia). Islam is the religion of the federation, but other religions may be practised in peace and harmony.

The founding fathers intended the new nation to be one for believers, where God has a prominent place. They did not wish their country to be atheist or agnostic. Other countries have similar belief systems stated in their constitutions.

For example, the Preamble to the Constitution Act, 1982 of Canada declares: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognise the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

 But Article 3(1) of the Malaysian constitution does not confer a supremacy status on Islam when compared with other religions. The draftsmen of the constitution were aware of the hierarchy of laws and rights: hence, the very next article provides for the supremacy of the constitution over all other laws in the land, as is seen in Article 4(1).

No similar words are used in Article 3(1). Further, it was not intended to establish a theocracy in the new nation, which is to remain at all times a secular state.

More significantly, the right to practise a religion of one’s choice is found in Part II, and, in particular, Article 11, which I now turn to. But the fundamental freedoms of personal liberty [Article 5(1)], equality [Article 8(1)], anti-discrimination [Article 8(2)] and freedom of speech, assembly and association [Article 10(1) and (3)] are also relevant, and indeed far more relevant than Article 3.

Fundamental liberties

Freedom of religion is a fundamental right under the federal constitution. Article 11(1) gives constitutional protection to an individual’s right to profess, practise and propagate his religion, and Article 11(3) recognises collective worship by providing that “every religious group has the right to manage its own religious affairs”.

A plain and ordinary reading of the language employed in Part II of our constitution will indicate that the founding fathers drew a distinction between the measure of protection that each of the specific, listed fundamental liberties would enjoy.

Thus, our fundamental liberties are not treated equally in the constitution. Hence, there is an in-built hierarchy of rights, and, freedom of religion is given core or central protection. A simple reading of the text of each Article in Part II, containing Articles 5 to 13, suggests that some liberties are more fundamental than others.

The fundamental liberties can therefore be placed in two distinct categories: those that are absolute; and those that are limited.

 By the choice of the language in Articles 11 and 12, which was deliberate, the right of worship is undeniably absolute. Within the rubric of religious rights are found:

•The freedom to profess and practise a religion;

•The freedom from special, but not general, taxation to support a religion other than one’s own;

•The freedom of a religious group to manage its own religious affairs and to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes; and

•The right not to receive instruction in or to take part in any ceremony or act or worship of a religion other than one’s own.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 7:22 pm and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Helping Kim Jong Un: HELP’s Bad Mistake

Koon Yew Yin

25.10.2013

Friends and some other people in my social circle know of my deep interest in education. For those who do not know me, let me say that education has helped me to be who I am and where I am. Recognizing the value of education I have tried to fulfil my social responsibility and repay my debt to society by making educational work the main focus of my charitable contribution to those less fortunate.

Since I began my educational philanthropic mission, I have received and read close to a thousand applications for financial assistance. At the beginning, I found that most of the applicants had fairly good SPM results and were able to express themselves reasonably well in English. But besides lacking the funds, they had difficulty in gaining admittance to universities which had stringent entry standards.

However, as time has gone by, I have been shocked by the low educational standard of the applicants and especially their poor command of the English language. I have been also shocked by the ease with which these students have been accepted by the various universities they have applied to.  During my time and even until ten years ago, they would not even have been considered for fifth or sixth form entry so low was their standards.

For example I received this application about 2 weeks ago:

 Hi…let me introduce myself first…my name is X Y Z…hmm…i live in kampar…im 18 year old…chinese guy…boy…now i meeting finance problem to my further study….i hope Mr yew…can lead a hand to me…i will very thanks to you…hope i can solve the finance problem quickly caught my study…THANK A LOT…

Putting money where one’s mouth is has always been my credo and helping poor young students enter into universities even if they are not particularly well qualified is personally satisfying especially when the recipient makes good and continues my mission as promised.

However soothing for my ego, I know that the charity I provide is only a small drop in the ocean of need. Ultimately it is what is happening at the level of the larger system which is the main driver of change and brings about progress or regression.

Hence I have been very concerned about developments in our national educational system and on the need to influence policy change for the better through questioning or criticizing what is wrong – whether in the public or private sector.

In the last few days, the big buzz in education in the internet media has been the award of an honorary doctorate by HELP University, one of the major private universities in the country. The news of this award has raised a firestorm of criticism from many readers in the internet – and quite rightly so. But it is necessary to look beyond the obvious concerns and to use it to understand what is happening in our educational system and why developments such as this are taking place.

The Major Flaw in Private Higher Education in Malaysia

My main concern with private higher education in Malaysia is that it seems to place profit making above all other considerations. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make profits. Obviously, people who invest in private education are not in it for charity. But there must be honour and integrity in making money.  From what I have seen from the quality of students taken in by the private sector universities as well as from the graduates churned out, most of our private universities do not care about the low standard of the students they take in and the final product that they churn out.  All they are concerned with is to maximize their student intake, rake in fat profits by charging the highest fees possible, and push the graduates out quickly so that another fee paying intake replaces the ones who are leaving.

A key part of the strategy on profit maximization is to generate public interest in the university which can then boost student enrolment.   This is also done by lowering the standards of entry and accepting less qualified and poorer quality students as I have found out in the last few years.

Trumpeting the achievements of the university and drawing attention on how it is able to provide value to the prospective student is another method. Unfortunately, the great majority –if not all – of our universities suffer from low academic quality and have few if any academic achievements to boast about.  In the chase for students and profits but confronted by their low standard of their students and staff, private universities in Malaysia then have to look to other ways to publicise themselves and to catch the public eye.

Who is Kim Jong Un?

This to me is the reason why HELP has bestowed what is for most universities their most prestigious academic award to a dictator and tyrant who presides over one of the most totalitarian and repressive regimes in our region.  It is doubly scandalous that the honorary degree is in economics, a subject which the North Korean government has failed its people so miserably that many of its children are victims of hunger and malnutrition. HELP’s award does not appear to be one to “build a bridge to help people“- it is simply to help itself.

Of course, HELP is not alone when it comes to the poor choice of recipients for honorary degrees to confer. If you look at similar awards made by other private and public universities in Malaysia, one can see that they are all scrapping the bottom of the barrel in their selection of leaders and so-called luminaries.

HELP’s choice is so breathtakingly bad and wrong that I hope it begins a debate on how we can wean our private universities away from their fixation with short term gain and profit maximization leading to goofy decisions such as this.

My advice:

I note that HELP is listed on the main board of the KLSCE.  My advice to HELP’s management is to grow your university through the slow but sure method of academic excellence and nothing else.  Invest in enhancing the quality of your staff and students and the market will take care of itself.  The best long term business strategy is to maintain a high standard of academic achievement so that their graduates can easily find work and their performance will be the best advertisement.

Rely on what has been denounced as stunts such as this and your credibility – and that of your staff and students – will be badly compromised.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 11:14 pm and is filed under
Education
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


No goodies, but gov’t splurges will continue

by Tony Pua

MP for PJ Utara

Malaysiakini

Oct 25, 2013

MP SPEAKS
 Stripping the 2014 Budget of its cosmetic makeup, taking away the glossy distractions and analysing the bare bones will provide an extremely clear indication that nothing much will change in Najib Abdul Razak’s second term as prime minister and finance minister .

The Economic Report 2013/14 gave the good news that the expected revenue collection for the current year 2013 is RM224.1 billion, or RM14.4 billion higher than the original budget projection of RM208.7 billion.

By right, the RM14.4 billion increase in revenue should have resulted in a lowered projected budget deficit of four percent to a market-euphoric 2.6 percent. The budget deficit for 2013 should have shrunk from RM39.9 billion to only RM25.6 billion.

However, it didn’t. Despite collecting the significantly higher-than-expected revenue, the deficit for 2013 remained at RM39.3 billion. It means that almost every single sen of extra revenue collected by the government is immediately expended, instead of contributing towards reducing our debt.

What is interesting when you comb through the expenditure figures is that despite the increase in revenue, the actual development expenditure of the government was RM2.7 billion lower than the budgeted RM47.8 billion.

The development expenditure has the larger economic multiplier effect because it represents investments by the government for future higher returns. Development expenditure includes building schools, hospitals and other public infrastructures.

The lower-than-budgeted development expenditure, the higher than expected government revenue means that the government’s operating expenditure exceeded the budget massively. The government overspent in operating expenditure by RM14.3 billion more the original budget of RM201.9 billion.

A forlorn picture…

The above paints a forlorn picture for the government’s public finances because the BN administration has consistently and significantly overspent the budget annually for the past 15 years. It is completely impotent in enforcing financial discipline in government expenditure.

A review of the 2014 Budget will show that it is primed for the same inevitable outcome as those of the past. Najib is asking Parliament to increase the operating expenditure further to RM217.7 billion, despite a massive RM7.3 billion cut in the subsidies budget from RM46.7 billion in 2013 to RM39.4 billion in 2014.

Effectively, that means whatever that is saved from the subsidies reduction goes entirely towards other government operating expenditure.

The biggest beneficiary is the government’s expenditure on “Supplies and Services”, which will enjoy a RM2 billion increase in allocation to RM36.6 billion for 2014.

It is shocking that the government needs to further increase the budget for “Supplies and Services”, especially since the budget for it in 2010 was only RM23.8 billion. That is a 53.8 percent increase in spending for “Supplies and Services” in just four years.

Why is the government asking ordinary Malaysians to tighten their belts and suffer higher prices, but the government itself chooses to continue with its big spending ways with “Supplies and Services”?

The subsidy cuts aren’t going toward reducing our debts or deficits. Instead, it is just providing more funds for the government to go shopping. It should be noted that the annual scandals uncovered by the auditor-general on purchases of ordinary products at outrageous prices are all part of this “Supplies and Services” budget.

One can easily tell that this government has its priorities all wrong in increasing operating expenditure and at the same time reducing development expenditure. From a RM47.8 billion budget in 2013, Najib is proposing a steep cut to only RM44.5 billion in 2014.

This means that the 2014 Budget has the lowest proportion of development expenditure in Malaysian history, of only 17 percent. In 2003, more than 30 percent of the national budget was allocated to development expenditure.

The 2014 Budget paints an obvious picture of a government failing to reform despite a “brave” goods and services tax (GST) proposal. Without any attempt to instil financial spending discipline in the government, as exposed above, it does not matter how much additional revenue, budgeted or otherwise, the government is going to receive.

The money will be spent, not saved or invested. Worse still, the tax ringgit will be spent on the wrong priorities.

Hence, given the above context, the proposed and much-hyped GST isn’t a policy of reform. Instead, it is a measure of desperation to continue filling the coffers of the government so as to reduce the need for the BN adminsitration to cut down on its excesses.

Using the Petronas earnings, the government has created and cultivated a bloated bureaucratic monster that has grown so big over the past decade, Najibnomics takes the easy way out by cutting subsidies and raising taxes to satisfy its out-of-control operating expenditure.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 10:48 pm and is filed under
Budget Debate
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The constitution is supreme, not religion (Part 2)

by Tommy Thomas

Malaysiakini

Oct 24, 2013

COMMENT
 A simple way to illustrate the point that the measure of protection given in the federal constitution may be absolute or limited is to compare the language employed in Articles 10 and 11.

Article 10 protects freedom of speech, assembly and association. But Parliament may, by law, restrict the rights under Article 10, whereas Parliament cannot enact any law to restrict or curtail the freedom of religion under Article 11(1) and (3).

 This difference in text between Articles 10 and 11 means that persons who belong to, say, a chess club or a sports association, would come within the purview of Article 10, while members of a religious group would come within the scope of Article 11.

Because Article 11 is drafted in much broader terms than Article 10, members of religious groups enjoy a far greater measure of constitutional protection than members of a chess club or a sports association.

Conversely, state action can control, direct and regulate a chess club and a sports association much more than it can over a religious group. Additionally, only citizens enjoy Article 10 rights, whereas no such limitation occurs under Article 11.

 In stating this position, Article 11(5) is not to be overlooked. But Article 11(5) does not permit Parliament to enact laws to restrict freedom. It merely provides that in the enjoyment of religious freedom, whether individually under Article 11(1) or collectively under 11(3), a person or a religious group should not carry out any act which could contravene any general law relating to “public order, public health or morality”.

Hence, for instance, those who participate in a religious procession like the annual Thaipusam pilgrimage to Batu Caves should not insult other religions. If they do, then the state can take restrictive measures on grounds of public order. But the onus is on the state to show that public order is affected.

However, Article 11(5) cannot be engaged if a worshipping community prays in a church or temple, or if a family prays in their house. Both are private places.

 The overall effect is that Article 11(1) confers a personal freedom to be enjoyed by every person resident in Malaysia, regardless of his citizenship, nationality or domicile. So long as he is physically present in the country he can enjoy it. It is his right to choose whichever religion he wishes, and he can profess, practise and propagate it.

The government cannot interfere

 Neither the government nor any other authority can dictate to any person his right to choose a religion, relinquish a religious belief (with limitations for Muslims), change religion and not to be religious (whether as atheist, agnostic or otherwise). This right is absolute, entrenched and inalienable.

 Its absolute nature can be tested in three other ways. First, Article 149 of the federal constitution provides that if an Act of Parliament expressly recites that action has been taken or threatened by a substantial body of persons against the nation, then that Act of Parliament may enact laws that would be inconsistent with Articles 5, 9, 10, or 13. However, such law cannot impinge upon freedom of religion under Article 11.

 Secondly, if a State of Emergency is declared by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong pursuant to Article 150, and emergency laws are enacted thereafter, such laws cannot relate to religion although it can curtail other fundamental liberties [see Article 150(6A)].

Thirdly, our courts have recognised the great importance of religion as a fundamental liberty. Since the enactment of the Internal Security Act, 1960 (ISA), nearly 10,000 persons have been detained by way of preventive detention under the ISA and other similar legislation. The very few successful legal challenges that resulted in the release of the detainees were because of procedural reasons.

One of the very successful challenges on substantive grounds (that is, on the merits of the detention) was the landmark case of Minister of Home Affairs vs Jamaluddin Othman, where Jamaluddin was detained during Operation Lalang in October 1987 for propagating Christianity to Muslims.

 The High Court ordered Jamaluddin’s release and this judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court on appeal. Both courts held that a person cannot be detained under the ISA for his religious conviction and for propagating his religion (Christianity, in that case) to Muslims.

Accordingly, the position under the constitution is that Catholics are allowed to read any translation of their Holy Bible as part of their right to profess and practise their religion and under their right to manage their own religious affairs. These are absolute rights. Neither the state or any authority or any person can interfere with them. Followers of all religions enjoy equal rights with respect to their Holy Books.

 The divinity, sacredness and purity of Holy Books of all religions should be respected by all, and protected by all nations across the globe, unless one is a monster like Hitler or Pol Pot. What that means in practical terms is that no state agency can re-write a single word in these Holy Books or demand that they be re-written.

 None of these arguments on the centrality of freedom of worship were alluded to in the three Court of Appeal judgments against The Herald.

Effect of the Allah judgment

 Although the publication that was before the court was Catholic weekly The Herald, the ruling affects all books and publications. That is the ratio decidendi  or the fundamental findings in a decision that must be followed by all courts in similar circumstances in subsequent cases.

 In other words, it is not possible to draw a distinction on facts and law between the use of the word ‘Allah’ in one publication (The Herald) and another publication (the Bible). The principle of stare decisis – the doctrine that subsequent inferior courts are bound to follow the fundamental findings of previous cases decided in similar circumstances – does not work that way.

Thus, it affects the Bible that is popularly used in East Malaysia by communities that wish to read it in the Malay language. Such a Bible cannot continue to use the word ‘Allah’ to describe God. When the case is put that way, the stark gravity of the appellate court’s decision becomes clear: it amounts to censorship of a Holy Book. That is not the business of any secular court in any nation in this world.

 It is ironic that as Sabah and Sarawak celebrate 50 years in Malaysia, they are told by a court sitting in Putrajaya that their subjects cannot read their Holy Book in the translation of their choice. Malaysia was formed in 1963 over substantial opposition, internally in East Malaysia, which resulted in the formation of the Cobbold Commission to ascertain the wishes of the people there, and externally by Indonesia and Philippines, which resulted in intervention by the United Nations.

One of the key demands of Sarawak and North Borneo (as Sabah was then known) was a guarantee that British imperialism will not be replaced with Malayan imperialism, and that an exchange of colonial rule from London to Kuala Lumpur will not take place.

Can one imagine the horror that would have been exclaimed in the deliberations between 1961 and 1963 (which incidentally also involved the British and Singapore), prior to Malaysia’s establishment, if anyone had remarked that within 50 years, East Malaysians would not be able to read their Malay Bible containing the word ‘Allah’?

 Instead of dealing with the facts that were before the court, one of the judges, Justice Zawawi Salleh, conducted extensive research on the Internet. None of the parties had provided these materials to the Court of Appeal (as I was informed by the lead counsel for the Church who argued the appeal before this court).

Thus, this judge carried out research on his own. In breach of the principles of natural justice, he did not invite lawyers representing all the parties to comment on the materials he discovered in the Internet. This is another fundamental error on his part. One can therefore expect the Federal Court to completely disregard such “judge-found” evidence.

Enforcement of court order

 No court makes an order in vain: there must be practical utility to it. Hence, whether an Order of Court can be practically enforced is relevant. Insofar as The Herald is concerned, if the Catholic Church uses the term ‘Allah’, it runs the peril of losing its licence. But what about the Bible in Malay containing the word ‘Allah’?

The state can enforce the decision of the Court of Appeal by one of two ways:

 (i) Confiscate the Bible in Malay by removing them from churches and homes, and thereafter burning or destroying them; or

 (ii) Visit the churches and homes for the purposes of deleting the word ‘Allah’ in all the places it appears in the Bible or tearing the relevant pages from the Bible and thereafter returning them to their owners.

christians praying church attacksAgain, the gravity of the decision becomes clear when one considers how the state is going to enforce it. It is immediately foreseeable that the churches and the households will resist anyone from the state touching their Holy Book, let alone harming it.

Would the state then use reasonable force when confronted with resistance? What constitutes “reasonable force” in such circumstances? The national interest requires the delicate use of tact and sensibility when dealing with the rights of minorities, especially religious rights. The tyranny of the majority should not result in bloodshed and violence.

One is not scare-mongering: this is just the inevitable consequence of the decisions. Did the attorney-general advise the government of these consequences? Otherwise, the court decision would merely be a Pyrrhic victory, achieved at the high cost of damaging ethnic relations in a plural society. Is this responsible political governance?

 In the Braddell Memorial Lecture that was delivered at the National University of Singapore in 1982, former Lord President and one of our greatest judges, Mohamed Suffian Hashim, described his fellow judges as follows:

 “In a multi-racial and multi-religious society like yours and mine, while we judges cannot help being Malay or Chinese or Indian; or being Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever, we strive not to be too identified with any particular race or religion – so that nobody reading our judgment with our names deleted could, with confidence, identify our race or religion, and so that the various communities, especially minority communities, are assured that we will not allow their rights to be trampled underfoot.”

 Suffian, who became a vocal critic of our judiciary after Salleh Abas was sacked as Lord President in 1988, would have wholeheartedly agreed that his comment does not apply to this case, with the overwhelming public perception being that the religion of the three judges in The Herald case was a factor in their decisions.

 A fundamental principle of our law is that justice must not only be done, it must also manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. In an appeal where the central issue is a clash between Islam and Christianity, the judges ought to have been Hindus, Buddhists, atheists or agnostics.

 Alternatively, there should have been a delicate balance between judges of the Muslim, Christian and other faiths. Hopefully, such a combination will form the panel for the Federal Court when The Herald appeal is heard.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 7:31 pm and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The DAP Malay and Islam

Sakmongkol AK47

Friday, 25 October 2013

I said these things:

I agree to Islamic laws as long as they do not contradict our present constitution. 2) I agree to the bigger agenda of Islamic law of establishing a state founded on the principle of the rule of law. 3. I will not object if the laws do not tyrannize others not of Muslim faith.

How are these objectionable? These are the things I said in response to questions asked by a reporter.

To Muslim conservatives, if these views cannot be pigeonholed into specific categories, it is because of my own shortcomings. To secular politicians if they appear alarmingly Islamist, the fright is unnecessary.

Let me offer a more sophisticated explanation.

There seem to be misplaced furore and confusion over statements attributed to me on the implementation of Islamic laws. As I see statements going around especially from people remote from what actually transpired and the absurd and the manic responses arising thereafter, I am now convinced that in general, there is a morbid and irrational fear about anything said in relation to Islam and Islamic laws. Perhaps this morbidity and irrationality and regrettably manic disposition stem from years of self-induced personal bigotry. But perhaps also because Muslims have themselves to blame for so much negativity about them. But that is another subject matter.

Nasararudin Tantawi the MP for Termerloh, as I understood it, said in Parliament that the government should try Islamic laws in relation to punishment given to hard-core prisoners. He was saying because the current laws of the country are inadequate in dealing with criminals because criminals don’t repent, then Islamic laws should be given a chance to be applied.

I can’t remember anyone rising in that parliamentary session in response to what he said and I took the silence to mean, everyone accepted what Tantawi said to be a matter of his own opinion.  Whether they agree with what he said, how do I know what is in their hearts? We msut understand that Tantawi will take every opportunity available to advance his cause.

A reporter asked my thoughts about Islamic laws in general not necessarily confined to what Tantawi said. I do not read Chinese newspapers but was told that some MCA apparatchiks went berserk and attacked statements that were attributed to me. No problem-that is what attack dogs are trained in.

I am not a DEP CEC member and was also told that a member of the CEC went out criticising me and asking for disciplinary action to be taken against me. I was alerted by a colleague to response to what was written in a news portal because it has been construed as adopting a position different from DAP. I replied I need not because to do so would dignify what was misunderstood. I can’t apologize for the level comprehension of others can I?

I told my colleague that when I answered the questions from the reporter, the response I gave was circumspect and guarded. Meaning to say, to my DAP colleagues, I am aware of the DAP stand on Islamic laws. So there is no need for my colleagues who were far too remote and didn’t know what were said, other than reading what were written by others to blow their heads off. Let me remind whoever with that kind of kneejerk response that I am not at all fearful at such morbidity.

What was said then? As a Muslim in whatever party, it’s natural for me to say I support Islamic laws. How can I a Muslim say otherwise? In relation to what Tantawi said, I responded by saying that as long as Islamic laws here in Malaysia don’t subvert our constitution I am all for it. I wasn’t referring to a specific aspect of Islamic law. Secondly, I support Islamic laws because they lead to an agenda shareable by other temporal views which are- that our overall objective is to establish a government founded on the principle of the rule of law. DAP does not oppose this objective do they? And I did say in the actual implementation of Islamic laws here in Malaysia, as long as they don’t tyrannize others, I support them.

Now, because of all that has transpired, let me extend further my own thoughts on Islamic laws here in Malaysia. Personally I think Islamic laws in Malaysia are not implementable because we don’t have an Islamic constitution. End of story.

 Unless we live in a country with an Islamic constitution then we can implement Islamic laws to our hearts content. I will certainly not stop PAS politicians to speak of Islamic laws or display resolute zeal to implement them, because I know fully well that in order to apply the Islamic laws, we first need an overriding Islamic constitution.  Whether the PAS people agree or not to my opinion, is another matter.

I don’t see that happening in Malaysia because even UMNO will not dare adopt an Islamic constitution. Everyone even Dr Mahathir can say Malaysia is an Islamic state but to me as long as you don’t have an Islamic constitution, you can claim whatever you want. Our constitution is secular and the laws universally applicable in our country are the civil laws. So why quarrel till you are blue in the face with our friends who wholly hold on to a beliefs system which is  an article of faith for them but which we are fully aware cannot be implemented?

As a Muslim here in Malaysia, Islamic laws function as personal moral injunctions only. Now that may be a cruel observation, but it’s the reality.

Just study at what has happened- the punishments that were meted out to people who drink intoxicating drinks but later pardoned and excused by the custodians of Islam, on those who participate in beauty pageants and numerous other infringements of Islamic laws- these punishments are meted out as long as they are allowed to by our overriding secular constitution. On bigger wrongs, do we see Islamic laws being implemented? Do we see hands being chopped off and heads severed?

So as a Muslim, even before joining DAP, I wasn’t at all disturbed with Karpal Singh’s stand on Islamic law when he said they can’t be implemented. I agree with the stand simply because we don’t have an Islamic constitution. How do you implement laws that are not in the constitution? That’s something for Islamists to ponder on too.

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 11:46 am and is filed under
DAP
,
Islam
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Uthayakumar was in solitary confinement, not in a “dark room”, says Prison Department

The Malaysian Insider

October 25, 2013

The Prisons Department has denied placing Hindraf leader P Uthayakumar in a “dark room” during his solitary confinement at Kajang Prison.

In a letter sent to the home minister and prime minister, the department said that there were “no dark rooms” in any prison in Malaysia.

The letter, read out by Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar in Parliament yesterday, also said that Uthayakumar had been placed in solitary confinement for a total of 13 days on two separate occasions as he had “refused to take instructions”.

Uthayakumar was a rebellious prisoner who caused “tense situations” with the prison staff, the letter said. But the department denied that he was treated harshly or that they had abused him.

It was also revealed that the solitary confinement room has a mattress, blanket and toiletries just like other cells and Uthayakumar was given the same food as other prisoners. He is being served bread and vegetables instead of rice as he is diabetic.

Uthayakumar, 49, began serving a 30-month jail sentence at the Kajang Prison on June 5 after being found guilty of sedition.

His lawyer filed a petition of appeal, sourced from the notes of evidence and submissions during trial in the Sessions Court, to the Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday as the written grounds from the Sessions judge has not been prepared yet.

In an open letter to the prime minister earlier, Uthayakumar claimed that he was being tortured and treated badly, and made to sleep on the floor.

Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo read his letter during the debate in the Dewan Rakyat sitting.

The Prisons Department denied Uthayakumar’s accusations, saying that the prisoner was visited by his clerk and lawyer M Manoharan on October 13 while in solitary confinement. – October 25, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 October 2013, 11:22 am and is filed under
Human Rights
,
Parliament
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.