I agree that it was heavy-handed to treat the problem of the two Form Five students who ranted on the SPM history paper in a viral video with obscene remarks as a police problem when it should be treated as a school problem.
I remember that when I was in Form IV back in 1958, my teacher asked the class to write an essay. Instead of writing the essay, I wrote a piece on why the essay title was inappropriate.
The teacher returned to the essay unmarked and that was the end of the matter. I cannot remember now the title of the essay which I complained about.
The Lawyers for Liberty director Zaid Malek is right that the raid at their homes, followed by arrest and a drug test, would have caused the two 18-year-olds and their family ‟extreme trauma”.
They should not be treated as “hardened criminals” as they had already apologised for their video.
As the DAP MP for Bandar Kuching, Dr Kelvin Yii has said, the arrests were ‟beyond excessive, disproportionate, and may possibly create unintended mental stress and infliction on their overall well-being”.
The students need to be educated and guided rather than being treated as criminals.
I also agree with the Muda president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman that the Anwar Government must fulfil its pledge of repealing the University and Universities Colleges Act 1971 (UUCA).
Pakatan Harapan had given its assurance that the UUCA Act would be abolished if the coalition won the general election in 2018.
This was not fulfilled by the Pakatan Harapan government because of the Sheraton Move political conspiracy in Feb. 2020. Now is the time to fulfil that pledge.
(Media Statement by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Monday, 27th February 2023)
#1 by tmc on Monday, 27 February 2023 - 1:53 pm
Yes LKS, we stand with you that the unity govt of today should fulfil its assurance that the UUCA Act should be abolished, it’s taken some time but better late than never. What about the bans on blogger Hussein Hamid and Marian Mokhtar, banning/blocking/blacklisting a human being from his/her land of birth or threatening them if true with arrest upon their setting foot back in their land of birth? If this is true, that is cruelty indeed. This is surely the right time and moment for the unity govt to allow them back.
Compare those who blow up people with C4 explosives? Or those who abduct people in broad daylight ? Or those who steal billions of Ringgit of taxpayers money? Or those who are ISIS terrorists? They are greater threats to our entire society. These are the ones who should be banned or prevented from entering the country?
So where is our unity govt’s sense of right and wrong and justice? What exactly is right, wrong, justice and injustice. Allow our people to come back. Our govt under Anwar must walk the talk.