“What is most surprising is that Siva had only met representatives from various government quarters including Taiping Hospital, the police and the Kamunting detention centre but not Uthayakumar himself …” Kit

How convenient to depend on second hand or third hand heresay! Because then you could clarify later without being seen to be losing too much integrity.

“ISA is still necessary but must have proper restrictions and judicial review after perhaps 30 days maximum detention.” HJ Angus

Agreed. You don’t want to act in haste especially now that there is a possibility PR may take over the federal government! Imagine using the ISA on BN politicians and give them a taste of their own medicine! That would be fun to watch!

Rice futures this morning reached an all time high!

Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed.

Guys, it is all about the presumption of innocence. You are innocent until proven guilty. The burden is on your accuser to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the crime you are charged with.

But until you know the allegation or allegations made against you i.e. the offence of which you stand accused, how are you going to defend yourself?? What the ISA does inter alia is it reverses the burden of proof. You are guilty until proven innocent. The onus is instead on the accused and not his accuser.

All ISA detainees must be charged in court or released. Charge them or release them.

As for the lawyers they don’t decide if their clients are not guilty. The court does. The lawyers only defend their clients based on all the evidence. But how are the lawyers going to defend these people who are detained under the ISA? The detainees have no access to legal counsel. Jeffery QC can help me out on this one as I’m not sure if they have the right to counsel. More important they don’t even know what they are accused of?

What of indigent clients? Would they be given a lawyer if they cannot afford one?

For the time being the focus understandably is on the HINDRAF detainees who are the subject of international attention. But there is no reason why the rest of the detainees should not be charged or released if not charged! When they are charged in court and if the offences are bailable offences, bail should be set and they should be released on bail.

“You believed that this draconian law is unjust and yet you want to use them for revenge. That is equally wrong! Abolish ISA and not use it as a weapon against anyone anymore. Let’s be rational.” ilovedap

It is unjust for the above reasons.

We must remember that today we are fighting terrorism, and against an enemy who look upon death as a release from their burden. who would rather die than live under terms not of their making. We must remember we are living in a post 9/11 world and countries all over have passed similar legislation.

We need legislation like the ISA but with the right to judicial review and other legal safeguards. It should be used only against terrorists. It was used among others against the father of the recently deceased Rustam Sani, Ahmad Boestaman who had links to the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party of Indonesia).

It is not to be used to suppress political opposition such as when it was used againt Kit and the others in Ops Lallang etc.

“USING ISA AS A TOOL OF REVENGE IS JUST AS EVIL. dont even think about it.” ADAM

That was tongue in cheek!

Jong,

You’re right about the price of rice. But it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with shortage.

A bag of rice in the U.S. today has gone up by some 122% and rising!

An interesting take by poster TokyoBanker given in another blog –

“The hedge fund managers, especially, then ventured into the agriculatural commodity products like grains, rice, sugar etc, with the notion of just trying to make a few bucks.

If you put $100 million into the oil market, you could hardly move the oil prices by $1.00. However, if you put $50 million into the rice market, the rice price may double or triple within a month, which happened recently and causes the people’s riot in Haiti.”

To side track a little –

“There is definitely not a shortage of rice in US and Canada.” Jong

The shortage may not be actual but the price has almost doubled over the course of one year! We are also being told on TV that there’s no shortage!

We can all speculate as to the reason but it’s not going to make a difference as prices keep rising and real income shrinks. Rice in the U.S. is grown and mostly comes from California. The rest is imported from India, Vietnam and Thailand.

I suppose the U.S. government doesn’t put too much emphasis right now because Asians only make up some 3-4% and the Hispanic population some 24% of the total population.

Now didn’t the great Confucious once say “Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed”?

Secretary Rice??

Don’t know about you but I think Secretary Rice has the answer.

Detainees alleged to be involved in terrorist activities should be charged and/or released to face trials in open courts. Detainees involved in drug, counterfeiting and other illegal activities and crimes unrelated to terrorism should be charged under the respective Sections of the Penal Code, and released on bail if the offences are bailable, to stand trial.

I suspect the government cannot release the HINDRAF detainees without coming under pressure to also release the others who have in fact been under detention for a much longer period – especially when the rest of the detainees were mostly Malays.

It will be seen as discriminatory. It will be seen as a weakness on the part of the federal government.