By Aliran executive committee
28 July 2011
Aliran is gravely concerned to hear that MP Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, one of the Parti Sosialis Malaysia 6 who have been unjustly and unjustifiably held in detention under the Emergency Ordinance, has decided to go on hunger strike.
PSM Central Committee member and Kumar’s wife Rani Rasiah, together with party colleagues, announcing today that the detained MP has started a hunger strike
We know Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, a long-standing and outstanding Aliran member, well enough to know that he does NOT engage in such acts for theatrical effect. Rather, given his steadfast and tenacious character in facing threats and intimidation from the police before, there is every reason to expect that Jeyakumar Devaraj conduct his hunger strike with complete seriousness.
At the same time, knowing he has a poor heart condition that has required treatment and hospitalisation during the period of his detention, we can only be alarmed at the potential damage to his health that this action may bring about.
We understand his frustration and impatience with the endless and pointless attempts by his police interrogators to extract confessions of guilt where none exists except in the imagination of the Special Branch officers and the political masters whom they serve, in particular Prime Minister Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak and Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
Perhaps our politicians have become so used to believing that all politics is about perceptions and images that can be moulded by lies, distortions and propaganda that they cannot anymore recognise that there can be politics of the highest moral level, such as that exhibited by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj and his fellow detainees from PSM.
Politicians like Najib and Hishammuddin and the Inspector-General of Police have been issuing irrelevant and self-serving warnings about how Bersih 2.0 was trying to import the Arab Spring into Malaysia. Let them, who try to hoodwink the Malaysian public and frighten others with images of chaos, remember how the uprising in Tunisia began with the needless self-immolation of one protester.
We in Aliran, together with other concerned citizens, non-partisan but admiring and supportive of the courageous stance of Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj and the other members of the PSM 6, demand their immediate release from an unjust imprisonment.
Free Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj!
Release the PSM 6 unconditionally! Now!
#1 by bruno on Friday, 29 July 2011 - 10:17 am
PM Najib,you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that no matter what you are on your way out.It is either that your Umno is going to lose the GE or the factions in Umno is going to show you the door,the Abdullah Badawi way.
So you better do something good before you go.That is released the PRM 6.If you don’t and your Umno loses the GE you will be arrested and be charge.[deleted]
#2 by bruno on Friday, 29 July 2011 - 10:35 am
PM Najib,if you cannot order your HM and cousin Hisham to released the PRM 6 and your fools didn’t know what to charge them with,then they will be inside till the next GOM comes in.Then you will be branded gutless [deleted]
#3 by bruno on Friday, 29 July 2011 - 10:43 am
If the PRM 6 are not released within the next few days,Najib will forever be branded a yellow livered chicken.[deleted]
#4 by Bigjoe on Friday, 29 July 2011 - 10:48 am
What is beyond me is how the detention of these six especially Jeyakumar could even possibly politically positive for UMNO/BN. To me, it feels like Najib, Hishamuddin and the police have found themselves trapped in a paradox they have no idea how to get themselves out so they keep doing what is the default for them..
The longer the detention, the worst it is for UMNO/BN. Jeyakumar is already being equated to our own Mandiba, the nickname for Nelson Mandela. At this rate, he will be a political deity very soon.
To me it demonstrate not the evil and wrong that UMNO/BN can do but rather the level of stupidity they can reach and loss of plain common sense.
Their only remaining gambit is to wait for people to get tired of the issue and then release them when they will not capture the imagination of their supporters. How ridiculously ENTITLED is THAT? Its plain entitlement gone absolutely MAD. Did the people forget Anwar when he was jailed for how long? After Anwar got released, he came back stronger, much stronger. Jeyakumar and the EO6 is going to be a legend already.. Everyone knows they will win this politically and just waiting get behind them to hammer home the nail to UMNO/BN coffin which is already full of holes.