Time to stop all pretences and charade – Is the Najib government admitting “MO1” is Najib or not?

The time has come for the Najib government to act with dignity, decorum and honour and end all pretences and charade over the US Department of Justice (DOJ)  lawsuit to forfeit US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland from over US$3 billion of multi-billion dollar international kleptocratic conspiracy of embezzlement and money-laundering of 1MDB funds.

In its latest propaganda campaign to go into the offensive to counter the long-standing blaze of adverse international publicity over the 1MDB scandal, the government propaganda arm, the Special Affairs Department (JASA) of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, has launched an initiative to reach out to university students both at home and internationally.

This surreptitious  JASA campaign went to Australia last week to influence Malaysian students in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, but this  was discovered by the Australian media, although Australian reporters were barred from the “private” 1MDB briefings organized by JASA which featured 1MDB chief executive Arul Kanda.

The Australian Business Review, in its report “Malaysia’s 1MDB in university hard sell” on Nov. 15, 2016, said Kanda when confronted by the media  at the University of NSW  refused to answer questions about  “the alleged corruption, including the funnelling of hundreds of millions of dollars into the personal bank account of Mr Razak” and “was quickly ushered into a waiting car”.

The Australian Business Review, which said that a glossy 20-page booklet entitled “DoJ’s summons is questionable” was distributed at the JASA briefings, reported:

“The unsigned pamphlet also attempts to cast doubt that Mr Najib is the person referred to in DoJ court filings as ‘Malaysian Official 1’ and in the Malaysian media as ‘MO1’, and who is identified as the beneficiary of much of the brazen theft from 1MDB via an account at AmBank.

“’DoJ did not name MO1 because the complaint that was made did not contain information and evidence to link MO1 with any assets and criminal wrongdoing such as was mentioned in the report,’ it claims.

“But Malaysia’s Housing Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan in an interview with the BBC in September admitted Mr Najib was ‘MO1’.”

I call on the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Mohd Salleh Mohd  Keruak to make public the JASA bookletentitled “DoJ’s summons is questionable” or is it a tendentious, scurrilous and disreputable publication which cannot stand public scrutiny and can only bring further shame and humiliation to the Najib government?

One of the greatest mysteries of the long-running 1MDB scandal is the admission by the Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan during a BBC interview on  September 1, 2016 that the “Malaysian Official 1” (MO1) mentioned 36 times in the US DOJ’s largest kleptocratic lawsuit to forfeit over US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland was none other than Najib himself!

Was Abdul Rahman authorized by Najib to make such an admission or was it an egregrious  faux pas or extraordinary slip-of-tongue, caused either by Abdul Rahman’s sheer naivety or terrible ego in wanting to show that he is privy to a lot of state secrets?

I would think it is the latter rather than the former, for otherwise,  there is no reason why Najib should not follow up logically by owning up publicly that “MO1” is meant to refer to him only!

I have been pondering as what could be  the rationale  behind the unprecedented and atrocious ruling by the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia banning all question, debate and discussion in Parliament about the US DOJ lawsuit on the forfeiture of US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets on the ridiculous and perverted ground of “sub dice” – a ruling which Pandikar will live to regret, as it is likely to be the single greatest cause to undermine his memory and good name as Parliament Speaker.

The only event I could only think of is Abdul Rahman’s egregrious faux pax in admitting to the BBC that “MO1” is none other than Najib.

I do not think Najib Razak is so frail, fragile or brittle  that he needs protection from a perverted sub judice ruling in Parliament, but undoubtedly, Abdul Rahman had created a most delicate and difficult problem for Najib with his unauthorized admission in a BBC interview that the “MO1 was none other than Najib himself!

Was Najib or any other Minister to endorse Abdul Rahman’s admission and admit in Parliament that the “MO1” in the largest US DOJ kleptocratic suit is none other than Najib, or is Parliament to be told that Abdul Rahman, the “powerful” Minister in charge of Economic Planning Unit, was wrong,  misguided and had committed an unpardonable faux pax – and who would have been charged under the Official Secrets Act if he is not a loyal hulubalang to the Prime Minister?

 It has not escaped notice that no other Minister had endorsed Abdul Rahman’s “bravado” admission that “MO1” is none other than Najib, all including Najib who are  prepared to face the taunt  of being an  “idiot” – as  Abdul Rahman had said that only an idiot did not know that “MO1” is Najib!

The Speaker’s perverted sub judice ruling banning all question, debate and discussion on the kleptocratic DOJ suit with its reference to MOI was apparently the only way to save the situation caused by Abdul Rahman’s bravado admission with the  BBC interview –  banning the embarrassing  issue from being raised in Parliament by banning all reference to the DOJ suit altogether.

But this manoeuvre  at the expense of parliamentary freedom of speech is a very costly price to pay for Abdul Rahman’s folly in the BBC interview.

This is  probably why Abdul Rahman has made the ridiculous statement that MPs could discuss matters related to the US DOJ lawsuit on 1MDB anywhere outside Parliament although they are banned by the Speaker from touching on the matter inside Parliament!

With the JASA propaganda campaign among Malaysian university students, especially those abroad, denying “MO1” is Prime Minister Najib, the time has come for the end of all the pretences and charade and for the  Najib government to declare loud and clear as to whether  “MO1” is Najib or not!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 November 2016, 7:53 am and is filed under
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Is IGP’s preposterous statement a signal to the Red Shirts that the police will not uphold the law and ignore Section 18 of Peaceful Assembly Act, allowing the Red Shirts to go on a rampage tomorrow?

All decent and law-abiding Malaysians are shocked by the statement by the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, who asked the preposterous question why those who do not abide by the law are requesting for police protection, asserting that “Those who want to ask for protection should obey the law first”.

Is the IGP’s response to former Bersih chairperson Datuk Ambiga Sreenivasan who had said that there are existing legal provisions that can be applied to prevent the Bersih rally and the Red Shirts counter-rally to occur simultaneously a signal, a blank cheque or even an invitation to the Red Shirts that they could do their worst as the police will not uphold the law and will ignore Section 18 of the Peaceful Assembly Act, allowing the Red Shirts to go on a rampage tomorrow?

Using Khalid’s logic, what should be the Inspector-General of Police’s role in a country which is regarded world-wide as a ”global kleptocracy”?

Is it to tell the Prime Minister and the  government that they cannot expect the police to protect them and uphold the law until and unless they purge and cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of such an epithet, as  the Police and IGP do not want to be known worldwide as Police and IGP of a “global kleptocracy”?

Yesterday, the Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Nur Jazlan advised  the Red Shirts leader, Sungai Besar UMNO chief Jamal Md Yunos  to stop taunting the police, especially Jamal’s boast that he would reward any of his supporters who are arrested tomorrow?

Would Khalid have kept his conspicuous silence if such a public boast had emanated from Bersih 5 organisers or NGOs?

Undoubtedly, Khalid would have tweeted no end if any of the Bersih 5 organisers or NGOs had taunted the police in this fashion?

DAP Seputeh MP Teresa Kok’s revelation yesterday about the letter of Malacca Umno liaison committee (Badan Perhubungan Umno Negeri Melaka) to its division leaders on a Red Shirts mobilisation meeting, confirmed subsequently by the UMNO Secretary-General,  Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor,  has caught UMNO red-handed in the act – although Adnan tried to make amends by  going through the motion of asking for the letter’s retraction.

Is Khalid afraid of Jamal because the finger-prints and thumb-prints are everywhere  that  UMNO is behind the Red Shirts, so  that only Nur Jazlan and not  Khalid could caution Jamal to stop taunting the police?

Khalid should  know of the doctrine of separation of powers and that as IGP, he  does not have the last word on what is the law of the land, in particular  whether Bersih 5 is lawful and constitutional or not.

Khalid may have to take into account the Prime Minister and the Cabinet’s opposition to the peaceful and non-violent Bersih 5 rally, as the Barisan Nasional would have been thrown out of Putrajaya if the democratic system had been  fair, just and democratic,  but as IGP,  he should be mindful of the right to peaceful assembly which is guaranteed in Article 10 of the Constitution.

He should take serious consideration of the call yesterday by the Human Rights Commission Chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail to the police to ensure that all Malaysians are able to articulate their positions and opinions responsibly, which is the hallmark of political maturity and of a country guided by the rule of law.

He should also take note of Razali’s earlier statement that counter-demonstrations cannot claim protection under the right to peaceful assembly if these are to “intimidate” others from assembling.

Suhakam’s stand is clear and unequivocal that  as public assemblies are by nature held in public spaces, the authorities are obliged to facilitate this.

Razali said: “As such, public assemblies should be regarded as a rightful use of public use.  Suhakam firmly believes that there is a positive obligation on the part of the authorities to facilitate peaceful assemblies and this obligation also extends to local authorities.”

The world is watching as to how the Malaysian authorities are handling a legitimate expression of the Constitutional and democratic rights of Malaysians in the Bersih 5 rally.

Let November 19 not be a date of infamy and ignominy for Malaysia and  Malaysians but a turning point for democracy in Malaysia  to save the nation from the fate of a failed and kleptocratic state.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 18 November 2016, 8:17 am and is filed under
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Khalid should stop  acting as if  he is mere apologist for UMNO’s Red Shirts which will undermine police honour and morale as overewhelming  majority of policemen and policewomen  are professional and non-partisan who want to be guardians of the Constitution, law and order in the country and not play political games

The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, should stop acting as if he is mere apologist for UMNO’s Red Shirts which will undermine police honour and morale as the overwhelming majority of policemen and policewomen are professional and non-partisan who want to be the guardians of the Constitution, law and order of the country and do not want to  play any political games.

The judgment by the High Court judge Justice Nathan Balan yesterday that the police are legally-bound to ensure the Red Shirts movement holds its counter-rally at a different location to prevent clashes with Bersih 2.0 supporters tomorrow should remind Khalid of his sworn and supreme  duties to serve the country and not any single individual and to uphold the Constitution, law and order in the country.

In his ruling rejecting an application for an injunction to prevent Bersih 5 and a counter-rally from taking place in the capital city, Justice Nanthan  said Section 18 of the Peaceful Assembly Act stated that the police must redirect any counter-rallies if they knew that clashes were imminent.

He said: “Section 18 of the PAA acts as a safety valve to diffuse any potential conflict therefore it is the duty of the police to prevent a clash or conflict should there is a possibility that it would eventuate.”

It is most shocking that in the past few weeks, the highest authorities in the land, including the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Home Minister, and the Inspector-General of Police seem to be totally ignorant of the existence of Section 18 of the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) 2012 which was enacted to deal with the situation created by  Red Shirts want to have a counter-rally in response to Bersih 5 rally.

Let all Malaysians be aware of Section 18 of the PAA on “Counter Assembly”  which reads:

“18. If the Officer in Charge of a Police District receives a notification of a counter assembly and it is evident that the organization of the counter assembly will cause conflict between the participants of the assemblies, the Officer in Charge of the Police District shall give an alternative for the counter assembly to be organized at another time, date or place.”

The Red Shirts are fully entitled to hold a peaceful and non-violent counter-demonstration in support of Najib’s undemocratic and kleptocratic rule, but they are not entitled to threaten “bloodshed” or provoke breaches of the peace and acts of violence.

Has IGP Khalid for instance ensured that the OCPD of the Dang Wangi Police District given  the Red Shirts an “alternative” for the counter assembly at another time, date or place and if not, why not?

In his judgement yesterday, Justice Nanthan said the application, filed by three city Malay trader groups, failed, among others, to provide a credible explanation as to why the suit was only filed at the eleventh hour when Bersih 2.0 had already made it known that the Bersih 5 rally was to be held within the Dataran Merdeka vicinity since September this year.

He also agreed with the argument presented by Bersih 2.0’s lead counsel Gurdial Singh that no private citizen or groups should use the court to prevent any organisations from exercising their constitutional right to assemble.

The High Court judge cited Section 18 of the PAA to point out that only the authorities have the power to impose restrictions, as stated by the provision that requires the police to direct any organisation holding a counter-rally to relocate to prevent a confrontation.

In this connection, both the Prime Minister and the IGP  owe Malaysians an explanation as to why they are  equating Red Shirts with Bersih 5, as I fully agree with Bar Council representative, Syahredzan Johan who told a Proham  forum yesterday titled
“Build Up to Bersih 5: Enabling Environment or Disempowering for Citizens Action”
 of the danger of portraying the anti-Bersih Red Shirts’ actions as a response to the Bersih 5 rally.

Syahredzan said:

 “Because what that means is we are either legitimising violent protests or protests in order to stop other people from protesting, or we are slowly de-legitimising actual peaceful assemblies, expressions of political belief. So this is the danger.”

Syahredzan said that the nature of a democracy meant that competing interests should be heard and that even the Red Shirts should be allowed to have a rally if it is done peacefully.

“But I think through their conduct, what we have seen over the past one month, I think we can certainly suspect their intentions is not really to have a rally, but to disrupt.

“This is where what I said earlier, if you put them on the same pedestal or same platform, [as] equal on opposing sides, I think that’s not quite correct. Because one is trying to have a peaceful assembly, the other one is actively trying to disrupt and stop a peaceful assembly through threats and sometimes through violence.”

In  their statements, both Najib and Khalid have sought to equate Red Shirts with Bersih 5 as if to legitimize any Red Shirts violence and mayhem.

Is this the intention of IGP and the Prime Minister?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 18 November 2016, 2:16 pm and is filed under
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Malaysian editors charged with ‘intent to annoy’ after reporting on 1MDB

Oliver Holmes South-east Asia correspondent

Guardian

Friday 18 November 2016

Amnesty says hauling of Malaysiakini journalists before specially convened ‘cyber court’ is the latest move to stifle non-government media

The co-founders of an independent news website that has reported extensively on a corruption scandal involving Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, have been charged with offences including “intent to annoy”.

Facing up to one year in jail, the editors appeared before a recently set up “special cyber court” in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. Human Rights Watch said the use of the court was part of a strategy aimed at “shutting down the vibrant and diverse online news environment.”

The charges relate to a video posted on the Malaysiakini website of sacked ruling party member Khairuddin Abu Hassan criticising the attorney general at a press conference for being close with cabinet ministers, which he argued would undermine his independence to investigate government corruption.

The Najib scandal emerged in July 2015 when media reports said investigators had found that hundreds of millions of dollars from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund was transferred into the prime minister’s bank accounts.

But attorney general Mohamed Apandi Ali closed all domestic investigations in January, clearing Najib and saying $681m transferred into his personal bank account was a gift from the royal family in Saudi Arabia.

Malaysiakini’s editor-in-chief, Steven Gan, and co-founder, Premesh Chandran, have faced repeated harassment from Najib’s supporters, including when hundreds of protesters tried to forcibly shut down their offices earlier in November.

Gan told his staff this week that he would challenge the charges and “prove in court that by covering the press conference, we did not commit any crime but were merely doing our job as journalists”.

He added: “We have been investigated many times over the past years but this is the first time we are being charged.”

The charges relate to a 1998 law, written before Malaysiakini was founded, that sought to address complaints relating to “offensive content in the Internet”.

It bans “content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person”.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the charges against Malaysiakini were “a serious violation of the freedom of press and show the increasingly dictatorial side of [Najib] and his government.

“By using rights-abusing laws, ludicrous arguments and special cyber courts, Malaysia appears to be aiming at shutting down the vibrant and diverse online news environment that has grown up because of the government’s control and censorship of the mainline print and TV media,” he said.

On 6 November officers from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission raided the portal’s office and seized two computers.

Malaysia’s biggest civil society group, Bersih, has organised a rally in Kuala Lumpur that will again call for Najib to step down. Pro-Najib groups also have plans to demonstrate that day, leading to concerns about potential clashes.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 18 November 2016, 3:23 pm and is filed under
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Bersih and its followers and detractors

Mariam Mokhtar | November 19, 2016

Free Malaysia Today

The people who say it’s not the time to rally must tell us when the right time is.

You would have to be living on another planet to be unaware of Malaysia’s worst financial scandal and political crisis in recent memory. In her series of exposes on 1MDB, Clare Rewcastle-Brown has alleged that our leaders are ill-equipped to deal with large scale corruption. Many certainly agree that the 1MDB affair is about fraud on a massive scale.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that our so-called democratic system and institutions cannot stop Malaysia’s slide to becoming an international pariah. The right to dissent has been taken away from us. We are threatened with the Sedition Act and a slew of other draconian laws. The avenues for discourse have been reduced to so few that a complete overhaul of our institutions has become necessary if Malaysia is to retain any respect from the democratic world.

That’s why it’s important to support Bersih.

Bersih has often been denied permits for its peaceful rallies. When plans were being made for Bersih 3, the authorities claimed that communist elements were going to topple the government. That was quickly exposed as a lie. Against Bersih 4, the race card was used to isolate the Malays from other Malaysians, with the claim that the Malays were not interested in reforms. That tactic failed too.

In anticipation of Bersih 5, sermons in government controlled mosques all over the country alleged that going on marches against the government was anti-Islamic and would expose the country to foreign intervention.

This tactic of using religion to scare the Malays from participating is also likely to fail, and the authorities probably know it.

Some people have claimed that the best way to make institutional reforms is to cast your vote at election time. Have these people not heard that electoral fraud has not been redressed? The electorate has no confidence in the fairness or legality of elections in Malaysia.

In many places around the world, people have pledged to be in solidarity with Malaysians taking part in the Bersih 5 rally. At these overseas locations, people will march without any problems. They will not be arrested, be photographed or beaten up.

In Kuala Lumpur, the authorities do not want Bersih participants to march to or gather at Dataran Merdeka. The reason is simple. It’s where Tunku Abdul Rahman, our first prime minister, raised the Malaysian flag and the Union Jack was lowered. It was the place where the colonial power, Britain, returned the country to its people. It will be a psychological boost for the rakyat if Bersih gathers at such a symbolic location, and that’s why the authorities don’t want it to happen.

The people who say that now is not the right time to march have the burden of telling us when the right time will be.

Students have been warned of disciplinary action if they take part in the rally. Civil servants have been threatened with dismissal or pay cuts. Journalists have been harassed. So, isn’t this as good a time as any to protest?

The rally-goers are not flippant people who have nothing better to do on a Saturday morning. They are sacrificing their time, effort, and possibly their freedom so that their children may have a brighter future.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 7:00 am and is filed under
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Mahathir decries ‘thieves’ running Malaysia

AP

Bangkok Post

19 Nov 2016

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad called for a sustained push to topple scandal-plagued Prime Minister Najib Razak as thousands rallied on Saturday to demand the premier’s resignation over the 1MDB corruption saga.

Malaysians clad in the yellow of the reformist Bersih campaign flooded Kuala Lumpur for the second time in 15 months to vent their anger over allegations that billions of dollars were looted from state investment fund 1MDB, Najib’s brainchild.

Speaking to a crowd of at least 20,000 in the shadow of the Petronas Towers, Mahathir, 91, accused Najib of stealing public money and said Malaysia was “controlled by thieves”.

“Time has come for us to topple this cruel regime. Najib is no longer suitable to be the prime minister. He is abusing the law,” Mahathir said.

Malaysia has been gripped since last year by the 1MDB scandal, which has sparked investigations in several countries. Najib, 63, and 1MDB deny wrongdoing.

But the US Justice Department — which has filed lawsuits to seize assets it says were purchased with stolen 1MDB money — says the fund was pillaged in an audacious campaign of fraud and theft that involved an unnamed “Malaysian Official 1”.

A Malaysian cabinet official has since admitted that individual was Najib.

Najib last year abruptly shut down Malaysian investigations, fired the attorney general and purged ruling-party critics.

Few expect him to be toppled anytime soon.

Najib on Friday condemned Bersih as an opposition plot “to unseat a democratically elected government”.

Tensions in the Muslim-majority country rose in the rally’s run-up due to threats by the “Red Shirts”, ethnic-Malay rightists who support Najib, to disrupt the demonstration, but no clashes were reported.

Police on Friday arrested Bersih leader Maria Chin Abdullah and several other figures in an apparent bid to undercut Saturday’s protest.

Amnesty International called the arrests “the latest in a series of crude and heavy-handed attempts” to silence dissent.

Defying the government pressure, rivers of yellow-wearing demonstrators flowed downtown, blowing vuvuzelas, brandishing caricatures of Najib and other 1MDB figures, and chanting “Catch the Thief-in-Chief!”

“We want a clean government. We want fair elections,” said Derek Wong, a 38-year-old real estate agent.

“We hope to see Najib removed and charged in court.”

Bersih, which means “clean” in Malay, is an alliance of scores of NGOs and civil-society groups that staged several protests over the years for electoral reform, but has now shifted focus to 1MDB.

In August 2015, it drew even larger crowds for two days of peaceful demonstrations over 1MDB.

1MDB has fuelled gloom among progressives and reform advocates who had already accused Najib of reneging on earlier promises to eliminate graft and end the 59-year-old ruling coalition’s repressive tendencies.

Critics say Najib is lurching toward autocracy and trampling rule of law to stifle the scandal as elections loom within 18 months.

Mahathir’s participation in Bersih’s 1MDB demonstrations — he also showed up last year — underlines how the scandal has upended Malaysian politics.

Mahathir ruled with a firm grip during his own term from 1981 to 2003, championing the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

But he has quit UMNO in disgust over 1MDB and formed a new opposition party.

On Saturday he sanctioned further protests against Najib, despite dealing harshly with demonstrators while he was in power.

“We should not be afraid to show our opposition to the government,” Mahathir, wearing a yellow Bersih shirt, told the crowd.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 6:48 am and is filed under
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Malaysia Braces for More Anti-Government Protests

Nash Jenkins

TIME

Nov. 18, 2016

As public opposition to his leadership has escalated, Najib Razak’s government has become more authoritarian

It’s difficult to say just how many Malaysians flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur during the last weekend of August 2015 — by some estimates, 200,000, most of them dressed in the shade of canary yellow that has become the de facto hue of the global pro-democracy movement. They were there to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who had allegedly embezzled nearly $700 million in cash from a suffering state-development fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. (Najib has consistently denied the allegations.)

The protest, organized by a confederation of pro-democracy and anticorruption activists known as Bersih (which in Malay means clean), was one of Malaysia’s largest public gatherings in recent memory, and certainly the most spirited. “Malaysia is literally the perfect country … and it’s been completely spoiled by corruption and money politics,” one protester said at the time. “We’re finally tired of it.”

That was 15 months ago. This weekend, Bersih will reconvene, in Kuala Lumpur and in Malaysian communities around the world. But if the demonstration in 2015 was an exemplification of the democratic spirit — defiant, outspoken, responsibly optimistic — this weekend’s protests will likely demonstrate the frustration of that spirit when its ambitions are deferred.

Najib is still in power, and is in fact more powerful than ever: as public opposition to his leadership has escalated, his government has cracked down on Malaysia’s civil society, jailing his critics and blocking access to websites that publish controversial information.

Many Malaysians who participated enthusiastically last year will simply stay home: some say they are pessimistic about the prospect of changing a system they see as irrevocably corrupt; others worry about the consequences of publicly airing their political grievances in an increasingly autocratic society. Several individuals who were once eager to discuss the movement have anxiously asked not to be quoted.

“There is a bit of lethargy, and people do give up quite easily,” says Maria Chin Abdullah, the 60-year-old activist who serves as Bersih’s chairperson. Earlier this week, the World Organization for Torture made note of the number of death threats she has received in the weeks leading up to the protests. “But we’ve achieved quite a lot — electoral awareness, bringing people together — and we have to fight it out.”

On Friday night, local media reported that Chin Abdullah was arrested and charged with engaging in “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy.”

It was not supposed to be this way. Malaysia’s emergence on the global economic and industrial stage in the past decades of the 20th century was one of the great Asian miracles, and the democratization of its politics and society was supposed to be the logical next step.

Specifically, Najib was supposed to be the one to lead that change. When he took office in 2009, he spoke in lofty terms about things like multiculturalism: a breath of fresh air in Malaysia, where society is fragmented along its ethnic Malay, Indian, and Chinese populations. He promised economic betterment after years of a lull in growth.

But the story of democracy in 21st-century Asia has been a story of broken promises — look at Thailand, or Hong Kong — and under Najib, Malaysia has become yet another example of this.

His party, the increasingly right-wing United Malays National Front (UMNO), has pushed for reinforcements of policies that offer education and employment benefits for the bumiputra, as the Malay majority is called, at the expense of the Chinese and Indian communities — reverse affirmative action, as it were.

Najib pledged to reverse Malaysia’s draconian security laws and has done precisely the opposite, imposing regulations that allow his government to effectively suspend constitutional civil liberties.

“There is no question whatsoever that Najib’s government has become more dictatorial and repressive,” Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, tells TIME. “It’s incredible how far and how fast the human-rights situation in Malaysia has deteriorated.” (Najib, meanwhile, has advised the West to “stop lecturing countries they once exploited.”)

Popular disenchantment escalated into outrage in early July 2015, when the Wall Street Journal and the London-based investigative website Sarawak Report reported that Najib’s personal bank accounts held $700 million in dubious cash — cash, it was believed, that had been transferred from the fund known as 1MDB, a pet project of Najib’s launched in 2009 ostensibly in the interest of economic stimulation. A later report from the Journal later put the sum of the loot at upwards of $1 billion.

It is quantitatively one of the biggest corruption scandals in modern history. In their reporting, the Journal and Sarawak Report have outlined a money trail that spans the globe and implicates a host of parties from Hong Kong to Switzerland to Manhattan to Hollywood.

The money is believed to have been used to bankroll Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, which Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz co-produced. In July, U.S. federal prosecutors announced that they had filed a civil lawsuit to seize assets funded by the money linked to 1MDB in the “largest single action” ever under the Department of Justice’s antikleptocracy initiative.

Najib has ardently denied all allegations of malfeasance — none of which have cracked his armor anyway.

Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition to which Najib’s party UMNO belongs, has succeeded in regional elections, despite the public unrest. Najib has manipulated the popular discourse by utterly cracking down on the online media, blocking access to Sarawak Report and the popular publishing platform Medium.

The Malaysian Insider, a popular antigovernment news blog, was shuttered in March; on Friday, editors from Malaysiakini, another influential blog that has intensively covered the 1MDB affair, were in court, charged with “intent to annoy.” The Guardian reports that they face up to a year in prison, where they will join Rafizi Ramli, an opposition parliamentarian sentenced on Monday to 18 months for disclosing confidential information regarding 1MDB.

“Najib’s latest crackdown on the freedom of the press is all about trying to eliminate views that challenge progovernment narratives in the government-controlled print media, TV, and radio,” Robertson of Human Rights Watch says. “Evidently, the government’s idea is: if we can’t stop opposition party members and civil society activists from saying things they don’t like, we can make it harder for people to hear them.”

This, the organizers of Saturday’s protest say, is why popular demonstration is now all the more imperative, despite threats from pro-government groups to disrupt the gathering with violence. Bersih’s organizers have spent the past seven weeks traveling to hundreds of locales across Malaysia, encouraging citizens who might otherwise be apathetic to join the fray.

“At the end of the day, it’s the people’s power that will create change,” Chin Abdullah says. “We’re not here to fight the government — this is not about a war. This is exerting our fundamental right to speak out.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 12:23 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia intensifies crackdown on anti-corruption protesters

Jeevan Vasagar

Financial Times

NOVEMBER 19, 2016

Thousands take to the streets after leader is arrested under anti-terror law

Malaysian authorities have intensified their crackdown on anti-corruption protesters, detaining the leader of a campaign group under antiterrorism legislation as thousands of demonstrators gathered on the streets of the capital demanding the resignation of prime minister.

Protesters in yellow T-shirts flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, waving Malaysian flags and caricatures of Najib Razak, who has been buffeted by allegations of corruption relating to state investment fund 1MDB.

Ahead of the protest, Maria China Abdullah, who chairs the Bersih reform movement, was arrested. Fellow campaigners said on Saturday that she had been held under antiterrorism legislation which allows 28 days detention without trial.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, a lawyer and Bersih activist, tweeted: “I am so very shocked to hear they are holding Maria under Sosma. What an utter abuse of power.”

Campaigners said that Hishamuddin Rais, a Malaysian film director and political activist, had also been arrested.

Malaysia’s deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told local media that police expected to arrest other leaders of the campaign group. A police spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Bersih movement began as a campaign for electoral reform, but has been energised by allegations that billions of dollars were siphoned off from the 1MDB fund.

Mr Najib has been battling allegations that $681m in proceeds from a 1MDB bond offering was paid into his personal bank account. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Malaysia’s attorney-general has ruled that the transfers were a donation.

The mood among the crowd was cheerful, with many holding homemade signs caricaturing Mr Najib as a demon or clown. One demonstrator waved a giant cheque for 2.6bn ringgit — the amount of the funds transferred to the prime minister’s account.

One of the demonstrators, Muhammad, an insurance salesman from Malacca, said: “We demand good governance and clean elections. The government is misusing Malaysian resources. 1MDB — that’s the biggest scandal right now.”

In recent weeks, there have been violent confrontations between the Bersih campaigners — who dress in yellow — and pro-government activists known as “red shirts”. There were fears of violence ahead of Saturday’s rally but no clashes were reported by early Saturday evening.

Jamal Yunos, leader of the red shirts, was arrested ahead of the rally. Red shirt activists also turned out in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, but in far smaller numbers, dispersing earlier in the day.

Mr Najib, who is in Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, accused the protest movement of being a “tool of the opposition.”

Azalina Othman Said, a minister in the prime minister’s department, said: “The opposition leaders behind Bersih are a motley crew of former enemies driven by self-interest, not the greater good of society.”

Since the allegations of misappropriation first emerged last year, the Malaysian government has moved to stifle dissent. Mr Najib sacked a critical deputy prime minister while Malaysian authorities have blocked independent news websites and on Friday charged a journalist over reporting of the 1MDB scandal.

Among the protesters on Saturday was Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s long-serving former prime minister. Mr Mahathir, who was dressed in a yellow Bersih T-shirt, said: “This is a government of thieves who are using the police to stop people who are merely trying to have a peaceful rally.”

While Mr Mahathir has emerged as a fierce critic of his successor, his own period of government was notable for patronage and cronyism.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 11:39 am and is filed under
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Malaysia Protesters Gather Despite Arrests, Rally Ban

By YANTOULTRA NGUI and  CELINE FERNANDEZ

Wall Street Journal

November 19, 2016

Najib Razak’s government has clamped down on opposition after questions emerged over the management of a state investment fund

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to demand the resignation of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, the day after police banned the protest and arrested two of the activists who planned it.

The arrests came hours after police and regulatory officials on Friday raided the office of the activist group known formally as the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, but better known as Bersih, the Malay word for clean.

According to the pair’s lawyer, Bersih Chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah was detained as part of a police investigation into whether she should be charged for the crime of attempting to undermine Malaysia’s parliamentary democracy. The lawyer said police arrested Mandeep Singh, who is secretary of Bersih’s secretariat, as part of an investigation into whether he should be charged with rioting.

Police later confirmed the arrests and subsequent detention of at least eight other Bersih activists. Law enforcers also told the Bersih group’s lawyers that Ms. Chin was detained under the country’s security laws while the investigation into her activities continued. Three organizers of a counter-demonstration by a pro-government group known as the Red Shirts were also arrested, according to the Red Shirt group. Police on Friday banned both rallies.

Security forces blocked major roads in downtown Kuala Lumpur, but didn’t prevent protesters from traveling to the area by train or other means. Later, the Bersih protesters intend to march on Dataran Merdeka, or Independence Square, which also has been barricaded by police. Previous Bersih protests have drawn up to 50,000 participants, according to police estimates.

Before the protest dispersed in the late afternoon, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, now 91, joined the rally and addressed the crowd from the back of a pickup truck. The protest, he said, showed that “the people of Malaysia are willing to express their feelings and hatred toward this government.”

Mr. Najib’s government has clamped down on opposition lawmakers, media organizations and civil society groups over the past year and a half after as questions emerged over the management of a state investment fund he founded in 2009.

Investigations are taking place in at least five countries linked to alleged multibillion-dollar fraud surrounding the fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB. Swiss investigators say they believe that as much as $4 billion was misappropriated. The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil case to seize 1MDB-linked assets. The first conviction of a person linked to the fund happened last week in Singapore.

Both 1MDB and Mr. Najib have denied any wrongdoing and pledged cooperation with any lawful investigation. The Malaysian attorney general has said the prime minister acted legally. Malaysian government officials couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

A Malaysian court convicted an opposition lawmaker on Monday and sentenced him to 18 months in prison for breaking the country’s secrecy law by possessing a page from a classified report on 1MDB and releasing its contents to the media. The politician, Rafizi Ramli, denied the allegations and is appealing the conviction.

“We have not been allowed to speak up freely in Malaysia. Although the laws allow that, the laws are being used against us,” Ms. Chin told The Wall Street Journal in an interview shortly before her arrest. “If you want to speak up, there is a price to pay.”

The editor in chief of Malaysian online news portal Malaysiakini, meanwhile, was charged earlier Friday under the Communications and Multimedia Act for uploading offensive videos with the intent of annoying others. The videos posted in July featured a news conference by a dissident from Malaysia’s ruling party calling on the country’s attorney general to resign for clearing Mr. Najib of any wrongdoing relating to 1MDB.

“We are being charged for covering a press conference,” the editor, Steven Gan, said.

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Malaysian protesters march against Prime Minister Najib

By Rozanna Latiff and Praveen Menon | KUALA LUMPUR

Reuters

November 19, 2016

Tens of thousands of protesters, undeterred by the arrests of opposition leaders, marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Najib Razak step down.

Protesters clad in yellow shirts marched through the heart of Kuala Lumpur bringing traffic to a standstill in several tourist spots, wrapping up peacefully in front of the iconic Petronas Twin Towers after an initial plan to assemble at Independence Square was thwarted by police.

Najib has faced criticism since the Wall Street Journal reported last year that around $700 million from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was diverted into the personal bank account of the prime minister.

Najib ran into further trouble when lawsuits filed by the U.S. Justice Department in July said over $3.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB, which was founded by Najib, and that some of those funds flowed into the accounts of “Malaysian Official 1”, whom U.S. and Malaysian officials have identified as Najib.

The demonstration is unlikely to shake the prime minister, who has denied wrongdoing and weathered the crisis, consolidating power by cracking down on dissenters.

Eleven activists and opposition leaders were arrested on Friday and at least two more were detained at the rally. The deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said there could be more arrests in the coming days.

Maria Chin Abdullah, the chair of pro-democracy group Bersih that organized the rally, was detained under Malaysia’s Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, or Sosma, her lawyers said. The law was introduced in 2012 to protect the country from security and extremist threats.

Laurent Meillan, acting regional representative of the United Nations Human Rights Office in South-East Asia, said the use of Sosma was very concerning.

“Security legislation should not be used against peaceful demonstrators. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Maria Chin Abdullah and other activists,” Meillan said.

Another Bersih leader, Hishamuddin Rais, and artist Fahmi Reza were also arrested.

“We are not here to bring down the country. We love this country! We are not here to tear down the government, we’re here to strengthen it,” Bersih deputy chair Shahrul Aman Shaari told the crowds gathered at the National Mosque.

Najib has taken steps which critics say aim to limit discussion of the scandal, such as sacking a deputy prime minister, replacing the attorney-general, suspending newspapers and blocking websites.

Najib retains significant support within UMNO and from the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

‘ARREST US ALL’

Turnout was lower than a similar rally last year, with police saying that about 15,500 Bersih supporters took part, while news portal Malaysiakini estimated around 40,000. As many as 200,000 people showed up last year at one point.

Police had said the rally is illegal and that they would not hesitate to use tear gas or water cannon if things got out of hand. State news agency Bernama said about 7,000 policemen would be on duty near the protest areas.

Still, spirits were high among those that gathered, with drums heard along with speeches, songs and chants by participants calling for a clean Malaysia and people power.

Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, Najib’s fiercest critic, joined protesters in front of the Twin Towers.

“Let him come and arrest us all. We will stand up for our leaders including Maria Chin who has been arrested for the wrong reasons,” said 91-year-old Mahathir.

Muhyiddin Yassin – the former deputy premier who was sacked and now leads a new party chaired by Mahathir – was also present, leading the crowds in chants of “Step down Najib!”

“Our country is being governed by clowns and crooks. So I’m here to protest against our prime minister,” said the artist Reza before being arrested.

Azalina Othman Said, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, on Saturday said it was unlawful for any party to try to unseat an elected government via street protests.

Fears of clashes between Bersih and a pro-Najib group called Red Shirts mounted earlier this week after the latter threatened to target Bersih supporters, though no major clashes were reported on Saturday.

The pro-Najib group also rallied on Saturday and police estimated that about 2,500 supporters of Najib turned up.

Jamal Yunos, an UMNO member and leader of the Red Shirts, was arrested on Friday. He had warned of a repeat of racial riots in 1969 that killed hundreds in clashes between Malays and ethnic Chinese.

Ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities formed the bulk of the Bersih rally, similar to last year.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 12:32 pm and is filed under
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Malaysians Rally at Anti-Najib Protest as He Vows to Stay On

Pooi Koon Chong and  En Han Choong

Bloomberg

November 19, 2016

More ethnic Malays at 2016’s rally, Chinese still dominate

Thousands of Malaysians gathered in the country’s capital demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak as his critics sought to maintain pressure on the premier over a funding scandal.

Protesters in yellow shirts marched through downtown Kuala Lumpur amid heavy police presence as pro-government supporters threatened to disrupt the activities. Police said both sides didn’t have permissions to gather and closed roads ahead of the fourth major rally by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, or Bersih, since Najib came to power in 2009.

Bersih estimated 50,000 people attended the rally, including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has been a leading critic of Najib in the past year. The police, which deployed 7,000 officers to maintain public order and prevent clashes, didn’t immediately provide a figure on the crowd size. Bersih’s protest in 2015 drew an estimated 300,000 people.

Najib has already weathered more than a year of scandals over multi-million dollar political donations and alleged embezzlement at a state investment company, and strengthened his grip on power by silencing detractors. He has denied wrongdoing and said he wouldn’t step down, while the attorney general cleared him of graft earlier this year.

“It’s time to topple this government,” Mahathir told protesters who gathered at an intersection beside the world’s tallest twin towers after police blocked access elsewhere. “Najib doesn’t deserve to be the prime minister. We are forced to wait until the next general election, but we can do something to shorten his term as a prime minister. We must all stand united.”

‘Deceitful’ Movement

Najib called the Bersih movement “deceitful” and said the group is being used by opposition parties to pressure the government to step down before its term is over, according to a posting on his blog.

“The silent majority of people are fed up with the tactics of the opposition,” Najib said. “They just want the government to deliver for them, and that is what my team and I will continue to do.”

The rally comes amid whispers Najib, with one state election and two by-election wins under his belt this year, could hold a vote as soon as March. A ballot is due by 2018.

Bersih protesters last year were mainly Chinese. There were more Malays seen at the protest this year amid what was “still largely” an urban Chinese crowd, said Ibrahim Suffian, an analyst at the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research. Malays make up the nation’s majority and while Najib counts them as his power base, a new party formed by Mahathir’s associates is targeting them too.

Opposition Efforts

“The organizers have tried to reach out to more Malay crowd and that has translated in a slightly better attendance” of Malays, Ibrahim said. “At the same time it also indicates that the opposition still needs to work on getting the Malays to come on board.”

Najib’s party leads the Barisan Nasional coalition, which has ruled since independence in 1957. UMNO has for decades propagated policies that provide favorable access to education, jobs and housing for Malays and indigenous people, known collectively as Bumiputeras. It also lost the popular vote for the first time in 2013.

The opposition has sought to lure Malays discontented at living costs and disillusioned over allegations of graft surrounding Najib.

“Life is getting increasingly hard,” said Ruzlan Abdul Rahim, a school bus driver and father of 11 from the northern state of Penang, who traveled to Kuala Lumpur to protest. “I don’t have enough to eat, I have a big family.”

Police Detentions

Police detained Bersih Chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah on Friday and also arrested the head of the so-called Red Shirts, a pro-government group whose chief is a division leader from Najib’s United Malays National Organisation. The Red Shirts had attacked Bersih motorcades as they were traveling to rural and semi-urban towns in recent weeks trying to drum up support for Saturday’s rally.

“It is unlawful for any parties to try to unseat a democratically-elected government via street protests,” Azalina Othman Said, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said in a statement on Saturday. “They should play by the rules of our democracy and wait until the next election so that the majority of Malaysians can again choose their government via the ballot box.”

Najib has managed to shrug off the scandals surrounding him in part by increasing handouts to farmers, government workers and low-income Malaysians. He retains the backing of his party’s powerful division heads — the bulk of whom have stood by him in the past year.

Poor Sentiment

Opposition parties have struggled to make a dent in his support even as consumer sentiment languished below the level of optimism for much of his second term and some parts of the economy have lost traction.

“It does cause him some embarrassment,” Ibrahim of the Merdeka Center said of the Bersih protest. “But no major shake-up expected in terms of how this rally is going to seriously undermine the people inside his party’s confidence toward him.”

For foreign investors, their concerns lie more in financial markets.

“Market concerns about domestic politics subsided with more signs that Prime Minister Najib consolidated his power,” including wins at a state election earlier this year, said Vincent Tsui, a Hong Kong-based economist at AllianceBernstein LP which oversees about $483 billion.

“Investors are now more concerned about recent weakness of the ringgit and the central bank’s moves to tighten the speculation” in the offshore ringgit forwards market.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 1:02 pm and is filed under
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Najib is the real loser in the successful Bersih 5 rally yesterday

There are those who say that that the greatest loser in the Bersih 5 rally yesterday were the Red Shirts, whose leader pledged a turn-out of over 300,000 people but could muster a turnout of  only one per cent of some 3,000 to 4,000 people.

An inquiry should be conducted whether tens of millions of ringgit had been committed for a turn-out of 300,000 Red Shirts in Kuala Lumpur at Bersih 5 rally yesterday, and what happened to the mega sum of monies after such a dismal turnout  of Red Shirts people, who clearly were quite ashamed of their actions which caused them to hide their faces.

But the real loser in yesterday’s successful Bersih 5 rally  are not the Red Shirts, but the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself, without whom there would not  be the Red Shirt phenomenon in the first place.

It is most remarkable that after a successful Bersih 5 rally, by whatever reckoning, the Prime Minister, far away in Lima, Peru, could  say that Malaysians have become fed up with the Bersih electoral reform group or feel that its rallies do not bring any benefit to the country.

This is a classic case of  a person  able to see the speck in another’s eye but unable to notice the beam in his own eye.

The successful Bersih 5 rally yesterday was all the more  remarkable as it was achieved under great odds and against a backdrop of  an intensive six-week  high-powered campaign of racial provocations, threats, lies and spread of  hatred and unashamed  cyber-bullying to frustrate and thwart the Bersih 5 rally, culminating on the eve of the rally with the arrest of key Bersih leaders and the lockdown of Kuala Lumpur by the police.

If Najib was  confident that Malaysians have become fed up with Bersih and/or feel that its rallies do not bring benefit to the country, why was it necessary for Najib’s strategists to launch a six-week high-powered campaign to demonise, frustrate and thwart it?

The Najib government should have just left the proposed Bersih 5 rally alone, and not abused state resources and powers to sabotage it, for if Najib is right that Malaysians are fed up with Bersih, then Bersih 5 rally would be a dismal failure.  Najib could then with legitimacy and credibility point to Bersih’s failure and futility!

But not now, when Bersih 5 rally had been an unqualified success, not only in getting more Malay participation than the previous Bersih rally, but in re-igniting the hopes of Malaysians, particularly of the  new young generations, that Malaysian can still be saved if Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, gender, age or even politics, are prepared to take a stand to prevent Malaysia from becoming another kleptocracy like Zimbabwe, or  another autocratic state like North Korea  or another failed economic state like Argentina.

It beggars the imagination as to how Najib could declare with a straight face that he would focus on good governance, when this is the very element which is sorely lacking in his administration and explain why he  could single-handedly catapult Malaysia into the stratosphere to be regarded worldwide as a “global kleptocracy” – the very antithesis of good governance!

The Bersih 5 rally was a clarion call by  Malaysians for Malaysia to become a democracy and not a kleptocrary.

The Bersih 5 rally was the first gathering of Malaysians since the US Department of Justice (DOJ) kleptocratic action against multi-billion dollar 1MDB embezzlement and money-laundering to declare loud and clear  their rejection of Malaysia from becoming a kleptocracy and their reaffirmation in wanting Malaysia to be a democracy.

This is what Parliament should have done during the past six weeks of meeting, but to its eternal shame and disgrace, Parliament had failed to defend the national honour through a motion whether  to rebut and refute the international infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy, or to purge and cleanse Malaysia of such infamy and ignominy if there is basis for such an epithet of “global kleptocracy”.

In my 50 years in politics, I have never come across a Prime Minister who had been so unpopular as Najib. It has not happened to Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Abdullah, and although Tun Mahathir had during his 22 years as Prime Minister been quite unpopular, Najib’s unpopularity is of a different magnitude altogether.

Tribute must be paid to the Malaysian police for ensuring that the Bersih 5 rally yesterday was quite incident-free.

I am on  public record as stating  my belief that the majority of the Royal Malaysian Police officers and personnel  cherish police honour, dignity  and morale which come from their performing their police duties in a  professional and non-partisan manner, to be the guardians of the Constitution, law and order of the country and not to  play  in any political games.

This was shown by the exemplary performance of duties by the police yesterday.

The arrest of Bersih 5 and MPs from DAP and PKR like Anthony Loke (MP Seremban), Tian Chua (MP Batu), Zuraida Kamaruddin (MP Ampang), Howard Lee (ADUN Perak Pasir Pinju) and Ronnie Liu (former Selangor Exco)  are a different kettle of fish altogether and must be deplored in the strongest possible terms as a violation of the constitutional rights of Malaysians to free speech, expression and free assembly, as well as unprecedented threat to Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen from carrying out their legitimate activities as elected representatives of the people.

The arrest of the principal Bersih organisers, in particular chairperson Maria China and others like Mandeep Singh, Hishammuddin Rais and Safwan Anang are wrong and unwarranted.

Maria’s detention under the Special Offences (Security Measures) Act 2012 as well as Section 124C of the Penal Code for activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy are particular vicious, vengeful and vindictive.

The police should release all the Bersih, DAP, PKR and NGO leaders and activists without delay or the world would regard Malaysia as entering a new dark age of repression and undemocratic rule because  the Najib  government is fighting for its life as a result of the Bersih 5 rally yesterday.

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Tens of Thousands of Protesters Call for Najib Razak, Malaysian Leader, to Resign

By RICHARD C. PADDOCK

New York Times

NOV. 19, 2016

Malaysians Demand Resignation of Premier

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, on Saturday to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is accused of taking $1 billion from a government investment fund.

The protesters, wearing the yellow T-shirts of Malaysia’s clean government movement, known as Bersih, converged on the city center to hear their leaders call for Mr. Najib’s ouster. Among the speakers was former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, 91, who once chose Mr. Najib as prime minister but now criticizes his former protégé’s government as corrupt.

The authorities had tried to thwart the daylong, peaceful demonstration by arresting at least eight protest leaders on Friday, including Bersih’s chairwoman, Maria Chin Abdullah. She was being held under the country’s strict Security Offenses Act.

Human rights advocates criticized the arrests, which they said were aimed at suppressing turnout for the rally.

“Security legislation should not be used against peaceful demonstrators,” said Laurent Meillan, the acting regional representative of the United Nations’ human rights office in Southeast Asia. “We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Maria Chin Abdullah and other activists.”

This was the fifth year that Bersih, whose name means “clean” in Malay, had staged a protest calling for an end to corruption in government. Bersih also organized smaller protests calling for Mr. Najib’s resignation in cities around the world.

Mr. Najib, who has denied taking money from the government investment fund for personal use, has kept a grip on power despite the scandal by blocking investigations, firing critics and arresting opponents.

The fund, 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, was established and overseen by Mr. Najib. The United States Justice Department, which is seeking to recover assets stolen from the fund, has said $731 million from it was deposited in the prime minister’s personal bank account. About $3 billion is missing from the fund.

Mr. Najib criticized the Bersih coalition for trying to bring down his government, which he says was fairly and democratically elected. While Malaysia holds elections, its leaders have long been chosen first by the governing United Malays National Organization, which has been in power since Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957.

Sri Azalina Othman Said, a government minister, issued a statement calling the protest leaders “a motley crew of former enemies driven by self-interest, not the greater good of society.”

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Thousands demonstrate against scandal-hit Malaysia PM

Aljazeera

19th November 2016

Protests against Najib Razak continue in Kuala Lumpur, where thousands of ‘yellow shirt’ anti-PM demonstrators gather.

Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak over his alleged involvement in a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal.

Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders, protesters marched on Saturday from various spots towards downtown Lumpur amid tight security.

Najib, who is attending an Asia-Pacific summit in Lima, Peru, has kept an iron grip since graft allegations emerged two years ago involving the indebted 1MDB state fund that he founded. 1MDB is at the center of investigations in the US and several other countries.

The US Justice Department said that at least $3.5 billion had been stolen from 1MDB by people close to Najib and initiated action in July to seize $1.3 billion it said was taken from the fund to buy assets in the US.

The US government complaints also said that more than $700 million had landed in the accounts of “Malaysian Official 1.” They did not name the official, but appear to be referring to Najib.

Some were chanting “Save Democracy” and “Bersih, Bersih” – the name of the electoral reform group that organised the rally. The name means “clean” in the Malay language.

Bersih said on Twitter that police raided its office on Friday and detained its chairwoman Maria Chin and another official Mandeep Singh.

It said at least seven others including several politicians were also held. It said police also confiscated laptops, mobile phones and bank statements.

“Despite the authorities’ desperate measures to stop us, (the rally) will go on,” the group tweeted.

Another Bersih official, Mandeep Singh, and 12 others including several politicians were also detained, mostly in connection with the rally and to prevent rioting, the police said.

“The reason why people are on the streets is not just about asking him [Najib] to resign, but it is also about changing the system,” Azmi Sharom, a law professor at the University of Malaysia, told Al Jazeera.

“The ruling party can win less popular votes and yet win the large majority in the house, so it’s a serious systematic problem that needs to be changed and this is why most of the people are out on streets today.”

‘Heavy-handed’

The protesters gathered around the Independent Square, the main venue that was locked down by police. A smaller group of red-shirt pro-government supporters held a counter-rally.

Najib, who has denied any wrongdoing, said he won’t be cowed by the rallies.

In a statement on his blog, Najib called Bersih “deceitful” and said the group has become a tool for opposition parties to unseat a democratically elected government.

“We want to see Malaysia more developed and not robbed of billions of ringgit,” said Wan Aisyah Wan Ariffin, an opposition supporter.

A rally that Bersih organized in August 2015 also demanding Najib’s resignation brought together 50,000 people, according to police estimates. Bersih said the number was much higher.

Britain-based rights group Amnesty International slammed the crackdown and called for the immediate release of the Bersih activists, describing them as prisoners of conscience.

“Can protests change anything? We don’t know because that would require a huge move on the part of the election commission, it would need a parliament to agree on something, so it’s a bit of a long shot,” Sharom told Al Jazeera.

“But I think people are angry, they feel the desire, the need to express themselves and hopefully this would push and gather momentum and perhaps in the next elections something positive can come out of it.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 7:22 am and is filed under
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Thousands rally in Malaysia to demand the scandal-ridden prime minister resign

Simon Roughneen

Los Angeles Times

19th November 2016

Thousands of Malaysian opposition demonstrators marched in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday against alleged corruption in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government, a day after the protest organizer was arrested on charges of subverting democracy.

Throngs of yellow-clad protesters – the signature color of an electoral reform movement known as Bersih – rallied in defiance of a police ban and what they described as an ongoing campaign of official intimidation.

Demonstration organizer Maria Chin Abdullah, the chairwoman of Bersih, was arrested Friday evening on charges of activity “detrimental to parliamentary democracy.” The leader of a rival pro-government group was detained early Saturday, ostensibly an effort to prevent the two sides from clashing on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, a lively business hub.

Police blocked access to Kuala Lumpur’s main plaza, where protesters hoped to congregate and replicate demonstrations of past years. State news agency Bernama said that 15 people were arrested for “illegal assembly” at what was otherwise a peaceful protest.

The rally was a show of strength by Najib’s opponents but looked unlikely to shake his hold on power, which has weakened amid allegations that around $700 million in public money was deposited into bank accounts in his name.

The scandal over a state development fund Najib set up in 2009 has drawn the attention of law enforcement agencies from around the world. The Justice Department alleged in July that “an international conspiracy” helped siphon $3.5 billion from the fund, known as 1MDB.

Some of the money is alleged to have been used to set up a Hollywood production company led by Najib’s stepson that made, among other films, “The Wolf of Wall Street” – a story of financial corruption. Other purchases linked to the fund include properties in Los Angeles and New York, paintings by Monet and Van Gogh and a $35-million jet.

Najib, who was in Peru on an official visit, has said he never took money “for personal gain” and called the deposits a donation from Saudi Arabia that he mostly repaid.

The corruption scandal has gripped a country that has otherwise been a bulwark of political stability in Southeast Asia, long embraced by the West for its moderate brand of Islam.

Stung by the criticism, Najib has recently played up Malaysia’s growing ties with China and castigated Western powers for interfering in former colonies.

In recent months, as calls for his resignation have grown louder, several leading opposition politicians have been charged or jailed  on a variety of offenses including sedition and breaches of communications laws.

Among those facing prison was Rafizi Ramli, an opposition parliamentarian who joined the demonstration, saying Najib “will try to cling to power because [otherwise] he will go to jail.”

Najib’s former deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, ousted last year for criticizing him over the corruption allegations, also joined the opposition alignment and thundered against the government at the rally.

“They steal people’s money; they squander our wealth; they sell our pride,” Yassin said.

The anti-Razak campaign has gathered momentum with the addition of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest serving leader, who addressed the rally in the shadow of the twin 1,483-foot Petronas Towers.

The 91-year-old Mahathir, who led Malaysia for 22 years until 2003, has set up a new party that will run under the opposition banner in the next elections, due by mid-2018.

Malaysia’s political opposition has floundered since longtime leader Anwar Ibrahim was jailed on sodomy charges and opposition parties squabbled over implementing Islamic criminal punishment in the Muslim-majority country.

A handshake between Anwar and Mahathir in September appeared to signal that Mahathir would help lead a new opposition grouping.

Nurul Izzah Anwar, Anwar’s daughter, said the legacy of Mohamad’s tenure in office – which saw Malaysia modernize into one of Asia’s wealthier countries – could draw support from ethnic Malays, who make up about 60% of Malaysia’s 30 million people.

A major anti-government rally last year was dominated by Malaysians of Chinese descent, who make up about one-quarter of the country.

“Bersih is no longer seen through the lens of race, and that is why Najib is acting with heavy-handedness,” she said.

Organizers are likely aware that the demonstration will not unseat the prime minister, according Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

“The challenge that the Bersih rally throws into the ring is a show of defiance, of numbers and of cross-communal teamwork,” he said. “More importantly, it will raise the level of enthusiasm and activism that may carry through to election day, and the sense that the battle for change is not over.”

Many remain skeptical that the opposition parties can coalesce effectively, given their ethnic and religious differences. Even the presence of Mahathir, whose two decades in office were often marked by the type of authoritarianism he now accuses Najib of, might not unite the disparate factions, some analysts said.

“Many middle-class Malaysians are disappointed [the opposition] joined up with Mahathir,” said James Chin, Director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Chin said the rally was unlikely to seriously undermine Najib.

“As long as there is no violence, Najib looks good,” Chin said. “He can claim he was looking after security since [members of] both sides were arrested.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 November 2016, 7:57 am and is filed under
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Anti-graft crusader Clare Rewcastle-Brown draws Malaysia arrest threats

SIMONE FOX KOOB

The Australian

November 21, 2016

Until late last week, British journalist Clare Rewcastle-Brown was looking forward to visiting Singapore and Sydney to march with thousands of people protesting over the Malaysian government’s 1MDB corruption scandal that she has been probing for years.

That was before an alarming discussion with her lawyers swiftly ended the trip.

Rewcastle-Brown was warned last week in no uncertain terms: the threat of arrest was far too high, due in part to the latest attempt by the Malaysian government to silence the investigative journalist.

“The threat of arrest has become quite real,” the veteran journalist told The Australian from her home in London.

“The case about 1MDB and (Singapore’s) BSI bank has been a major case in Singapore. So they have special extradition arrangements with Malaysia, and I was told that Malaysia had been putting enormous pressure to try one way or another to get their hands on me. The lawyers told me it just wasn’t worth the risk,” she said.

Rewcastle-Brown, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, recounted her most recent run-in with the Najib Razak-led Malaysian government almost nonchalantly. For the experienced foreign correspondent and journalist, it’s just the latest chapter in a decade-long battle against the state-controlled media operating in the Southeast Asian country where she was born.

The past five years in particular has seen the tension escalate, following her sustained and groundbreaking investigation into the 1MDB scandal, whereby billions of dollars were being borrowed by the government and funnelled out of the country through Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad on the instruction of the prime minister.

The story has global implications and exposed ties between corrupt Malaysian government leaders and investment banks in Britain, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore that facilitated transactions for 1MDB.

During this time, Rewcastle-Brown has used her blog The Sarawak Report and the Radio Free Sarawak station to publish her content, but has been forced to constantly modify her web address to fight sustained cyber attacks and has experienced regular radio jamming, both of which she said can be traced back to the government.

“I had a fairly good idea of the types of people I had started writing about, and their willingness to misuse power in their own interests,” she said. “Originally (Sarawak Report) was about indigenous issues. I’d already had the most violent, aggressive and illegal reactions to that. I knew what their tactics tend to be. So when this 1MDB started to arise, once I’d proved massive wrongdoing on the part of the Prime Minister, I wasn’t really any under illusions they would do what they could to make my life difficult.”

The most dramatic step taken by the government came last year when the Royal Malaysia Police announced it had obtained an arrest warrant for Rewcastle-Brown and would be applying to have her placed on Interpol’s Red Notice list, normally reserved for terror suspects. The application was swiftly rejected.

None of these attempts has seen her stray from her goal, which is outlined clearly on her blog: “to offer an alternative vision of justice, transparency and a fairer future”.

“I think that’s my justification, and the reason I feel honour bound to do it,” she said. “Malaysia is full of very good journalists, and if they were free to write about these issues then my actions wouldn’t be necessary.

“This very week, we’ve seen Malaysian online newspaper Malaysiakini’s entire management dragged up before the newly created cyber crimes court,” she said. “They do come up with the most Orwellian and self-damning terms. The reason they were up there is they filmed a press conference held by a former leader who had voiced that he thought the Attorney-General had exceeded his powers, which by any objective criteria he has, and ought to resign.

“For filming that press conference, they have charged the Malaysiakini management for publishing offensive material. Basically anything you say that they find offensive can get you one-year imprisonment. That’s how bad Malaysia has got for journalists.”

This past weekend, Malaysian reform coalition Bersih held a rally attended by hundreds of thousands in Kuala Lumpur calling for the resignation of their Prime Minister.

Several of the activists who organised the rally have been arrested, including Bersih Chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah, for attempting to undermine Malaysia’ parliamentary democracy. It’s this silencing of dissenting opinion, Rewcastle-Brown says, that drives her to continue to look into 1MDB, even if she has been forced to do it remotely from abroad.

“Issues in Malaysia, I could never get my stories onto mainstream,” she said. “But what I found in my internet site, I was immediately getting hundreds of thousands of hits a week. People are interested in what is happening in this democracy in Southeast Asia and all the huge corruption issues I am digging into. I’ve been getting millions of hits a month.

“I’m an old-fashioned journalist: when I was starting, the internet hadn’t taken off. But the internet was something I got into when I started looking at the problems in Malaysia. It has been absolutely pivotal. Up to now, Malaysia has been a richly resourced country and it has been able to pose as a democracy, mainly by controlling all the media. But it wasn’t really a democracy, and the internet has put them under pressure because everything has been exposed.”

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 November 2016, 10:51 am and is filed under
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Call for immediate release of Bersih leaders  Maria Chin, Hishamuddin Rais, four  Pakatan Harapan  MPs/SA  Anthony Loke, Zuraida,  Tian Chua and Howard Lee and others arrested in government’s  Bersih 5 crackdown

Deepavali is the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and hope over despair.

Because of man’s imperfections and weaknesses, this will be an eternal struggle.

The successful Bersih 5 rally in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, where Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region, gender, age or politics came  out as one people for democracy  symbolized the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and hope over despair – which was all the more remarkable as it was achieved against the backdrop of great odds and obstacles caused by a six-week high-powered UMNO-sponsored Red Shirt campaign of racial provocations, threats, hatred and unashamed  cyber-bullying to frustrate and thwart the Bersih 5 rally.

The Bersih 5 rally was a clarion declaration by  Malaysians for Malaysia to become a democracy and not a kleptocrary.

It  was history-making  as it was the first gathering of Malaysians since the US Department of Justice (DOJ) kleptocratic action in July against multi-billion dollar 1MDB embezzlement and money-laundering to defend the honour and good name of Malaysia in national and international society from the infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy”!

But the darkness has not been completed dispelled in Malaysia, even gaining ascendance in some new areas –  as witnessed by the government’s undemocratic Bersih 5 crackdown with the indiscriminate arrest of Bersih 5 activists, Pakatan Harapan elected representatives and NGO activists.

DAP call for the immediate release of Bersih chairperson Maria Chin, Bersih leader Hishammuddin Rais and four  Pakatan Harapan elected representatives,  MPs Anthony Loke (Seremban), Zuraida Kamaruddin (Ampang) and Tian Chua (Batu) and Perak Assemblyman Howard Lee – who are still in detention in the Bersih 5 crackdown.

Tribute must be paid to the Malaysian police for ensuring that the Bersih 5 rally yesterday was quite incident-free.

It reaffirms my belief that  the majority of the Royal Malaysian Police officers and personnel  are law-abiding, who cherish police honour, dignity  and morale which come from performing their police duties in a  professional and non-partisan manner, to be the guardians of the Constitution, law and order of the country and not to  play  in any UMNO or Barisan Nasiponal  political games.

The arrest of Bersih 5 organisers like Maria Chin, Mandeep Singh, Hishammuddin Rais and Safwan Anang and elected representatives  from DAP and PKR like Anthony Loke (MP Seremban), Tian Chua (MP Batu), Zuraida Kamaruddin (MP Ampang), Howard Lee (ADUN Perak Pasir Pinju) and Ronnie Liu (former Selangor Exco)  are a clear abuse of power by those in authority, and must be deplored in the strongest possible terms as a violation of the constitutional rights of Malaysians to free speech, expression and free assembly, as well as unprecedented threat to Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen from carrying out their duties as elected representatives of the people.

Maria’s detention under the Special Offences (Security Measures) Act 2012 as well as Section 124C of the Penal Code for activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy is most deplorable, as it is clearly  vicious, vengeful and vindictive.

Maria, Hishammuddin, Anthony, Zuraida,  Tian Chua and Howard Lee  should be released without delay or the world would regard Malaysia as entering a new darkness  of repression and undemocratic rule because  the Najib  government is fighting for its life as a result of the Bersih 5 rally yesterday.

(Speech at the Nilai DAP Deepavali function  on Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 8.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 November 2016, 6:41 am and is filed under
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DAP wants to topple the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government for making Malaysia a “global kleptocracy”, but by constitutional means through the democratic process  by the ballot box and not in any  violent, unconstitutional or revolutionary manner

DAP National Organising Secretary and MP for Seremban, Anthony Loke is the first casualty of the Bersih 5 crackdown which have seen the arbitrary,  indiscriminate  and mass arrest of Bersih chairperson Maria Chin, other Bersih activists like Mandeep Singh, Hishammuddin Rais, Muhamad Safwan, student leaders Anis Syafiqah Md Yusof, Muhamad Luqman Nul Haqim Zul Razali and Pakatan Harapan elected representatives Zuraida Kamaruddin (MP – Ampang), Tian Chua (MP – Batu) and Howard Lee (Perak State Assemblyman – Pasir Pinji).

Anthony is held under the Sedition Act for his speech at the Pakatan Harapan Convention the previous Saturday calling for the toppling of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Let me make it very clear that the DAP and Pakatan Harapan is committed to the toppling of the Prime Minister, Datuk Najib Razak and the UMNO/Barisan Nasiuonal government for making Malaysia a “global kleptocracy”, but by constitutional means through the democratic process by the ballot box and not in any violent, unconstitutional or revolutionary manner.

Are  the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali now claiming that any attempt to secure not only the majority popular vote but the majority of parliamentary seats so that the Prime Minister  and the UMNO/BN government in Putrajaya could be replaced have now become criminal and even seditious offences, which come not only under the Sedition Act but the new-fangled crime in Section 124B of the Penal  Code, which reads:

“ 124B: Activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy. Whoever, by any means, directly or indirectly, commits an activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to twenty years.”

If this is the case, then let the Prime Minister or the Home Minister bring an amendment to the Penal Code, the Sedition Act and the Constitution to make it a criminal offence even for MPs in Parliament to talk about replacing the Prime Minister and the UMNO/.BN Government through the constitutional and democratic process – and abandon all pretences of democracy, the rule of law  and constitutionality.

Until then, the Inspector-General of Police, the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister should stop abuses of power and the law and constitution and stop arresting those who want to perfect and not undermine the system of parliamentary democracy by enabling a change of

 the government in Putrajaya through constitutional and democratic means, as through the ballot box.

No DAP leader in the past 50 years had ever advocated violent and unconstitutional overthrow of the elected government of the day, and no Bersih leader whether from Berish 1 to Berish 5 rallies in the past nine years had advocated any violent overthrow of the government by undemocratic and unconstitutional means.

If Najib still believes in the system of parliamentary democracy and the  rule of law, he should direct the Inspector-General of Police to immediately release all the detainees in the Bersih 5 crackdown, including the Bersih Chairperson, Maria Chin, Bersih activist Hishammuddin Rais and  Pakatan Harapan elected representatives – Anthony Loke, Zuraida Kamarauddin, Tian Chua and Howard Lee – who are still held in detention.

(Speech at the candlelight vigil for DAP National Organising Secretary and MP for Seremban, Anthony Loke, detained in the Bersih 5 police crackdown at the Sikamat Police District Office in Seremban on Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 9.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 November 2016, 9:11 am and is filed under
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Call on all MPs, including from BN, to reject five-year extension of Sosma police powers to detain a person for 28 days for investigation  with the pernicious abuse of powers in Maria Chin’s detention, which is vengeful, vicious, vindictive

It is no wonder that the Malaysian education system and standards are  so atrocious when Puad Zarkashi, who was the Deputy Education Minister when the Security  Offences (Special Measures) Act was passed in Parliament in April 2012, can now talk such rubbish that Bersih chairperson Maria Chin’s “misdeeds” fit Sosma perfectly.

Puad, who is UMNO supreme council member,  cannot be so dumb as not to know that the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who piloted the Sosma legislation through Parliament in April 2012, made a categorical assurance in Parliament which binds all Cabinet Ministers and Barisan Nasional leaders that Sosma legislation was meant to deal exclusively  with the threat of terrorism and not meant for legitimate democratic   activities like Bersih rallies, the first of which was held on 10th November 2007, Bersih 2 rally held on  9th July 2011, and the Bersih 3 rally  held some ten days  after Sosma was passed by Parliament on 28th April 2012.

I believe that if Nazri as the Minister responsible for the Sosma legislation had been asked pointedly  in Parliament at the time in 2012 whether Bersih leaders, at that time led by Datuk Ambiga Sreenivasam, were likely to be targets and victims of Sosma detention, the answer will be a clear and categorical “No”, as even Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs would know that the Bersih coalition of NGOs was neither a   violent nor terrorist organization but committed to a peaceful, non-violent and democratic campaign to raise national consciousness for clean, free and fair elections.

No one broached the idea of Sosma detention when Bersih 4 rally was held in Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching  on August 29 and 30 last year – and rightly so.

Why and when did the Police deviated from its past practice in the case of Bersih 5 to detain the Bersih Chairperson Maria Chin under Sosma legislation, when Maria  Chin had never deviated from the established Bersih campaign to use peaceful, non-violent and democratic methods to canvas for popular national support?

Tomorrow in Parliament, there is a motion in the name of the Home Minister  to extend for another five years from 31st July 2017 the powers in   Section 4(5) of the Sosma legislation allowing  a police officer of or above the rank of superintendent to extend the period of detention to not more than 28 days to facilitate the investigation, after an initial 24-hour detention period.

As the Sosma powers have been grossly abused in the case of the detention of Maria Chin, which is vengeful, vicious and vindictive, all MPs, including those from Barisan Nasional, should reject such a five-year extension for such pernicious police powers.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 November 2016, 5:26 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal – Nothing to see here

Economist

Nov 19th 2016

Billions are stolen; only a whistle-blower goes to jail

IT IS more than two years since Malaysians began asking awkward questions about 1MDB, a state-owned investment firm from which billions of dollars are missing. But Malaysia has yet to prosecute anyone in connection with the scandal, perhaps the gravest in its history. Instead, on November 14th a local court handed a prison sentence to Rafizi Ramli, an outspoken opposition politician who has done much to educate the public about the affair. If Mr Rafizi’s appeal is rejected he will spend 18 months in jail.

Mr Rafizi’s offence was to leak details from a report into 1MDB’s dealings which had been produced by Malaysia’s auditor-general, but which the government had declared classified. Mr Rafizi had publicised a brief passage from the report to support speculation that the state firm’s massive losses could have delayed certain payments to Malaysian veterans (the organisations involved reject this claim). The government had initially promised that the auditor-general’s report would be released to the public in full, as is the convention. Now it is using the Official Secrets Act to silence those who refer to it.

Mr Rafizi’s conviction may prevent him from defending his parliamentary seat at the next general election. It adds to a string of legal battles hampering the opposition, which is readying for polls that may be called next year. Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, has been imprisoned since 2015 on flimsy sodomy charges. A corruption case is presently being pressed against Lim Guan Eng, the chief minister of Penang (an opposition stronghold).

The whitewash in Malaysia contrasts with dogged investigations continuing abroad. On November 11th a banker who had handled some of 1MDB’s money was convicted in Singapore of forgery and of failing to report suspicious transactions; he was sentenced to 18 weeks in jail. In July investigators from America’s Department of Justice alleged that more than $3.5bn had been “misappropriated” from 1MDB, and that hundreds of millions of dollars had been paid to Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak.

Mr Najib denies wrongdoing. Having last year purged critics from his party, his position looks secure; an aide boasts that the prime minister is matey with Donald Trump, America’s president-elect. In a typically brazen response to questions from the Nikkei Asian Review, published the day after Mr Rafizi’s sentencing, the prime minister said that Malaysian authorities had “led the way” in investigating allegations of wrongdoing linked to 1MDB. His answers were submitted in writing; Mr Najib might have struggled to say such things in person with a straight face.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 November 2016, 3:33 pm and is filed under
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Nur Jazlan’s statement that Maria Chin’s arrest under SOSMA  was not because of  terrorism is irrefutable proof that Najib is the undisputed “U-turn King” and Malaysia’s  most untrustworthy Prime Minister whose promises and pledges, even in Parliament, are not worth a single sen

Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Seri Nur Jazlan’s statement yesterday that Bersih chairperson Maria Chin’s arrest under SOSMA was not because of terrorism is irrefutable proof that Datuk Seri Najib Razak is the undisputed “U-turn King” and Malaysia’s most untrustworthy Prime Minister whose promises and pledges, even in Parliament, are not worth a single sen.

In fact, the extraordinary scenario where the Najib administration through one Minister makes a solemn pledge about a new law in Parliament is contradicted when the law is implemented by another Minister was foreseen by the DAP MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok during the winding-up debate enacting the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA) in the Dewan Rakyat on 17th April 2012, when she posed the question:

“Teresa Kok Suh Sim (Seputeh): Yang Berhormat Menteri, kenapakah selepas rang undang-undang ini di luluskan di Dewan ia akan dilaksanakan oleh Kementerian Dalam Negeri, tengok Kementerian Dalam Negeri semalam kebanyakkan masa tidak ada, tidak mendengar keluhan daripada pihak di sebelah sini dan juga macam mana dia boleh melaksanakan apa yang dicadangkan oleh Dewan ini.”

At the time, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Nazri Aziz, who was responsible for the passage of the SOSMA bill in Parliament, ridiculed Teresa Kok’s concerns boasting:

“Tuan Yang di Pertua, Yang Berhormat Seputeh, saya ini Menteri yang menjaga Parlimen dan ditambah juga dikatakan sebagai de facto Menteri undang-undang. Ini ada kaitan dengan Parlimen dan ada kaitan dengan undang-undang……kalau saya hendak, saya boleh menjawab bagi mana-mana pihak oleh sebab saya dalam keadaan yang emergency kalau sekiranya ada orang yang tidak dapat hadir, tidak melanggar apa-apa peraturan untuk saya menjawab bagi pihak mana-mana kementerian.”

Nazri went on to make two important pledges: firstly, the SOSMA Bill “merupakan undang-undang yang menentang keganasan, oleh yang demikian rang undang-undang ini akan berbeza dan tidak bolehlah disamakan dengan undang-undang jenayah yang biasa”; “bertujuan untuk melindungi Malaysia daripada terdedah kepada ancaman pengganas” that SOSMA would only be used to fight terrorism.

Secondly, that the Najib Cabinet is bound by the principle of collective responsibility – “Kementerian tidak akan hilang, individu akan datang dan pergi dan kita terikat dengan apa juga keputusan yang telah dibuat oleh Menteri-menteri yang terlebih awal”.

Clearly, the principle of collective responsibility is meaningless for the Najib premiership, where  SOSMA was presented to Parliament in 2012 with the specific undertaking that it would be used solely to fight terrorism could be violated and reneged by the same Prime Minister!

It is time for Najib to speak up as to why he is breaking his undertaking to Parliament made through his Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department on  April 17,  2012 that SOSMA would not be abused and would only be used to fight terrorism, and whether he would ensure that Maria Chin would be released from SOSMA detention immediately without any delay.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 November 2016, 8:55 am and is filed under
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