The month-long jail sentence together with the maximum fine of RM1,000 on “Occupy Dataran” student Umar Mohd Azmi has become a national and international cause celebre because it is utterly outrageous as well as a devastating reminder just before the 13th General Elections that despite all the sloganeering about government, economic, educational, social and political transformation programmes, the criminal justice system in Malaysia still sucks even under the four-year premiership of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

I am now in Sydney or I would have visited the protest camp set up by student activists outside the Kajang prison to demonstrate my support, sympathy and solidarity with Umar at the gross injustice of the harsh sentence imposed on him for obstructing a public official from performing his duty.

Why was Umar imposed the harsh penalty of a maximum fine of RM1,000 together with a one-month jail sentence, when the maximum sentence for an offence under Section 186 of the Penal Code for obstructing any public servant in the discharge of his public functions was a maximum jail sentence of three months or with maximum fine of RM1,000 or both?

One powerful reason why there must be change of Federal government in Putrajaya in the forthcoming 13th general elections is that the country is teeming with cases where the criminal justice really sucks like the case of Umar. Read the rest of this entry »