Archive for category Human Rights
Sarawak activists, lawyer detained ahead of polls
by Keruah Usit
Malaysiakini
Jan 7, 11
Police detained four activists and confiscated ‘seditious’ CDs and VCDs containing video and audio recordings of TV Sarawak Bebas and Radio Free Sarawak late last night in Kuching and Miri in what appears to be coordinated arrests.
Kuching-based land rights activist and Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia) secretary Nicholas Mujah and Miri-based land rights lawyer and activist Abun Sui Anyit were both detained by Kuching and Miri police respectively.
The duo had their statements taken by the police. The other two, who were arrested by police in Kuching but without their statements taken, were social activist Ong Boon Keong and Sadia staff Nikodemus Singgai.
Six Home Ministry officials and a team of Special Branch officers raided Sadia office just past midnight and confiscated about 1,200 of CDs and VCDs. Also confiscated were two compact disc burners and some promotional leaflets.
Mujah, Singgai and Ong were subsequently taken to the Satok police station in Kuching.
A few hours later, Mujah was transferred to the Home Ministry office in Kuching for questioning after the confiscated materials were recorded at the Satok police station.
He was told that he is being investigated under Section 6 of the Film Censorship Act. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia slips down Democracy Index
Posted by Kit in Good Governance, Human Rights, Media on Friday, 7 January 2011
Aidila Razak
Malaysiakini
Jan 6, 11
Malaysia has taken a slight tumble down the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2010 Democracy Index, slipping three places to number 71 out of 167 countries, with its overall score dropping from 6.36 points in 2008 to 6.19 last year.
This places Malaysia squarely in the “flawed democracy” category, along with 52 other countries that received overall scores of between 6 and 7.9 out of a maximum of 10 points.
Flawed democracies are countries that have “free and fair elections” and respect “basic civil liberties”, but face “problems such as infringements on media freedom”.
Such countries also have “significant weaknesses in other aspects of democracy, including problems in governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation”, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) index shows. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia Chronicle denied basic right of legal representation by MCMC
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, IT on Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
by Wong Choon Mei
Malaysia Chronicle
When my hand-phone alarm woke me at 5am this morning, it was with reluctance and a heavy heart that I opened my eyes. At the back of my mind the whole weekend was my 11am interview or interrogation by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
And true enough, it turned out not to be a pleasant experience.
Less than 10 minutes into the meeting at the MCMC headquarters in Cyberjaya, my lawyer Latheefa Koya was ‘booted out’ from the room by none other than the director of the enforcement department, who personally came to ‘collect’ her.
And in doing so, he denied me of my fundamental right to legal representation. Read the rest of this entry »
Protecting the vulnerable
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Labour, Tunku Abdul Aziz on Sunday, 26 September 2010
by Tunku Abdul Aziz
My Sinchew
25th Sept 2010
The Government of Indonesia is absolutely right to ban their nationals from coming to work as domestic servants in Malaysia until our own government is prepared to guarantee the safety and well being of these women. This is the least the Government of Indonesia can do to protect their people from being routinely and savagely abused by Malaysian employers. The excesses that are reported in the pages of our newspapers are a shameful reminder of our ambivalent attitude to human cruelty and suffering.
Maid abuse is not a Malaysian invention; it has, however, become an ugly hallmark of our domestic employment culture. There have been far too many reported cases of inhuman physical treatment of foreign maids to ignore. The number of unreported cases of criminal abuse is staggeringly high. What sort of society have we allowed ourselves to be turned into? We shower our animals with love and affection, and yet we cannot bring ourselves to treat those who live, while in our service, under our protection, with a little kindness and dignity. We are dealing with human beings who work under conditions of slavery, out of dire necessity, not of choice. With its own abysmal human rights credentials, we cannot expect our government to be too concerned over such trivialities as foreign worker protection and their rights in a supposedly civilised country. If we do not give a damn about how our own citizens are abused by abusive laws, I should perhaps lower my expectations as far as our vulnerable foreign guest workers are concerned. Read the rest of this entry »
What about permanent residence for foreign spouses of Malaysian citizens?
Posted by Kit in Good Governance, Human Rights, Letters on Saturday, 10 July 2010
by A VERY FRUSTRATED SPOUSE OF A MALAYSIAN CITIZEN
Letters
It is heartening to note that the Government is making it easier for Professionals to get PR in Malaysia, I am even told that International Students excelling in their studies will be able to get PR in Malaysia.
I would like to ask our leaders, what about SPOUSES OF MALAYSIAN CITIZENS?
We are in the country for decades on “Long Term Social Visit Pass” our visas state
“Any form of employment is strictly prohibited, spouse of a Malaysian Citizen”
We are not here for social purposes, but here in the capacity of “Principal Care Givers and Providers for our Malaysian Families”
Spouses of Malaysian citizens face a whole range of challenges with regard to our application and renewals of the “social visit pass” and application for permenant residency, leave alone citizenship. Read the rest of this entry »
Not a single Human Rights Commissioner for more than a week an indictment of the cavalier and contemptuous attitude of Najib administration to democracy and human rights
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Najib Razak, Police on Saturday, 1 May 2010
The country has been without a Human Rights Commissioner for more than a week – which is an indictment of the cavalier and contemptuous attitude of the Najib administration to democracy and human rights.
The appointment of all the Suhakam Commissioners expired last Friday and the vacuum or even void in Suhakam for more than a week is not only a terrible reflection of inefficiency and incompetence of the Najib administration but it could not have come at a worse time as there were serious violations of human rights in this one-week period.
The most heinous human rights violation is undoubtedly the national furore over the trigger-happy police killing of 14-year-old Form III student Aminulrasyid Hamzah in the early hours of Monday some 100 metres from his Shah Alam Section 11 house and the shameful episode where the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan tried to hold the nation to ransom threatening to call off police off the streets and not to enforce the law in retaliation against widespread public criticisms over the Aminulrasyid killing.
The police is facing the worst crisis of public confidence its history – all because of police refusal to accept the key recommendation of the Dzaiddin Police Royal Commissionn in 2005 to set up the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service.
Read the rest of this entry »
Barisan Nasional warned that they will lose Sabah as a “fixed deposit” if the basic rights and interests of Sabahans continue to be marginalized and discriminated
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Sabah on Wednesday, 14 April 2010
I regret that the Cabinet has neither taken Parliament seriously nor the long-standing problems and grievances of the people of Sabah.
The Prime Minister’s Department has five Ministers apart from the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister as well as five deputy ministers, but not a single one of them rose in Parliament to answer issues about Sabah development neglect, whether during the winding-up of the debate on the Royal Address or during the committee stage debate on the Prime Minister’s Department on the 2009 supplementary estimates.
Just laid on the table is the 2009 annual report of Suhakam. A staple criticism of MPs and the civil society is the failure of Parliament to have any specific debate on the Suhakam annual reports in the past nine years.
I want to ask Barisan Nasional MPs whether they take the Suhakam annual reports seriously, as most BN MPs would not even open the Suhakam annual reports to read them.
For instance, in the latest Suhakam report on its activities in Sabah, various long-standing problems of Sabahans were referred to.
Read the rest of this entry »
Robert Fisk’s World: Malaya 1948: another shameful episode in Britain’s colonial past
Posted by Kit in History, Human Rights on Sunday, 11 April 2010
THE INDEPENDENT
April 10, 2010
Some 24 innocent villagers were killed by Scots Guards in a pre-Vietnam My Lai
Tham Yong died 11 days ago. I bet there’s not a single reader who remembers that name, unless they happen to live in Malaysia or, like me this week, happened to be in Kuala Lumpur and to read the disgracefully weak-kneed report of Tham Yong’s demise in the capital’s equally disgraceful daily newspapers. A more grovelling, politically neutered, slovenly form of journalism outside Malaysia it would be difficult to discover, and it was typical that The Straits Times, once a serious journal of record (albeit of the colonial variety) decided to report the 78-year-old woman’s death from advanced cancer on page 18.
A bit odd. Because Tham Yong was the only surviving adult witness to the massacre of 24 innocent Chinese Malay villagers by 14 soldiers of the Scots Guards during what the British called the “Malayan Emergency”. This was when, in one of their very few successes in a guerrilla campaign, the British crushed the fighters of the Communist Party of Malaya who were struggling for 12 years to win what they called the “Anti-British War”.
The slaughter at the village of Batang Kali – the victims were rubber tappers and tin mine labourers – took place on 12 December 1948. Our colonial authorities insisted that the unarmed Chinese Malayan men were guerrillas who had tried to escape their captors and, in the giveaway words of a British police officer in Singapore, “the Scots Guards had been well placed, and the bandits just ran into their guns. Everyone was killed”. Read the rest of this entry »
Court rules Herald free to use the word “Allah”
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Human Rights, Religion on Thursday, 31 December 2009
By Lisa Goh
The Star
31.12.09
KUALA LUMPUR: The Catholic weekly Herald is now free to use the word “Allah” in its publication after the High Court quashed the Home Minister’s prohibition against it using the word, declaring the order as “illegal, null and void.”
In her decision, Justice Lau Bee Lan also declared that under Article 3(1) of the Federal Constitution, applicant Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam had the constitutional right to use “Allah” in Herald in the exercise of his right that religions other than Islam might be practised in peace and harmony in the country.
She further ruled that the Constitution, which states Islam as the country’s religion, did not empower the minister to make such a prohibition.
“In pursuant to Article 10, the applicant also has the right to use the word ‘Allah’ in the Herald in the exercise of his right to freedom of speech and expression.” she said in her oral judgment Thursday to a packed courtroom.
Justice Lau ruled as grounds for her judgement that both the respondents – the minister and the Malaysian government – had failed throughout the trial to prove how the use of the word “Allah” could threaten national security. Read the rest of this entry »
Penans – Last of our Mohicans?
Posted by Kit in Crime, Human Rights, Hussein Hamid, Orang Asli, Sarawak on Tuesday, 15 September 2009
By Hussein Hamid
In September 2008 The Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) media release said in essence that:
“Penan women from the Middle Baram area of Sarawak are launching a cry of alarm to the international community over cases of sexual abuse by logging company workers in the East Malaysian state’s rainforests.
The Penan are accusing workers from Interhill and Samling, two Malaysian logging companies, of harassing and raping Penan women, including schoolgirls. They come on an almost weekly basis, but the situation is worst during the school holidays when they know the students are in the villages.
In other cases, school transports operated by company vehicles had been arranged in such a way that schoolgirls had to stay overnight at a logging camp, where they were abused.
Mysterious Witness took stand at TBH inquest
Posted by Kit in Crime, Human Rights, Teoh Beng Hock, Twitter on Wednesday, 9 September 2009
02:46 PM
Inquest adjourns 4tmr Malik asking 4date 4thai pathologist pontip 2testify
02:43 PM
After that complained 2 deputy minister murugiah n public complaints bureau as far as he knows only bpa investigated
02:39 PM
He made 1st complaint 2Suaram then made police report n 3rd complaint 2suhakam
02:37 PM
Was treated 4injuries on head kidney private part n bloodclots He went 2studio 2have pictures of injuries taken Siva produced torn underwear
02:33 PM
Ashraf hit him on private part with cane He was asked 2wear back same underwear which was torn becos of torture
Read the rest of this entry »
JOAS condemns arrest of Committee Member, reiterates call for moratorium on development projects
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Orang Asli, Sarawak on Thursday, 13 August 2009
JOAS condemns arrest of Committee Member, reiterates call for moratorium on development projects
13 August 2009
JOAS condemns the arrest of Matek anak Geram early this morning by the police for the crime of allegedly restraining the workers of an oil palm plantation. He was taken into custody by ten fully-armed police personnel at 8.45am and detained for two hours at the Mukah Police Station and charged for allegedly wrongfully restraining the workers of an oil palm plantation company, Saradu Plantations Sdn Bhd. under section 341 of the Penal Code before being released on bail.
Matek, an Iban farmer, a member of TAHABAS (Sarawak Native Customary Rights Network) and Committee Member of JOAS was unarmed when he was arrested by the fully-armed police. For over a year, Matek and his immediate family have been guarding their property against Saradu Plantations who have been encroaching on their native lands. In individual shifts, they have blocked an access road built on their land. JOAS questions the heavy use of force and intimidation against one unarmed man and calls for neutrality of the state infrastructure in this legal dispute between the private company and indigenous peoples.
Read the rest of this entry »
ASEAN must condemn ASSK’s 18-month house arrest as an unacceptable violation of ASEAN Charter on human rights
Posted by Kit in ASEAN, Burma, Human Rights on Wednesday, 12 August 2009
ASEAN and individual ASEAN governments must make clear their condemnation of another 18-month house arrest of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi by the Myanmese military junta as an unacceptable violation of ASEAN Charter on Human Rights.
ASEAN Foreign Ministers at their meeting in Phuket last month had endorsed the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the ASEAN Commission on Human Rights, which is to be launched at the ASEAN Summit in October but the latest egregious violation of human rights by the Myanmar military junta raises the question whether such an ASEAN Human Rights Commission would represent a step forward in the promotion and protection of human rights or just a figleaf to give legitimacy to continuing gross human rights violations in the region.
The continued house arrest of Suu Kyi represents at least four things:
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Firstly, the mortal fear the Myanmar military junta has for the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate who had spent 14 of the past 20 years in incarceration and recognition her unsurpassed power to evoke the hopes of the people of Burma for democracy, justice and national reconciliation. This is the reason for the term of 18 months of additional house arrest, barring her from campaigning in next year’s national elections although the Myanmar military junta had already in a sham referendum written a new constitution to exclude her from being a candidate.
Greatest disappointment of all 18 Najib Cabinet meetings – utter failure to address six urgent national issues from crime, corruption, education, health to nation building
Posted by Kit in Education, Health, Human Rights, Najib Razak, nation building, Police, Teoh Beng Hock on Friday, 7 August 2009
The Cabinet meeting this Wednesday (5th August) is the greatest disappointment of all the 18 Cabinet meetings in the 124 days of Najib premiership because of its utter failure to address at least six urgent national issues ranging from crime, corruption, education, health to nation building.
The Cabinet has irresponsibly skirted grave and urgent national issues including:
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Cabinet’s failure to heed nation-wide outrage at its refusal to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh Beng Hock’s mysterious death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on July 16 instead of breaking up the process into two parts – an inquest into the causes of Teoh’s death and a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into MACC interrogation techniques.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said in Pekan on Tuesday that the Commission of Inquiry into the MACC’s interrogation methods would only begin its work after the inquest into Teoh’s death.
It is Najib’s ensuing statement that the RCI “will take into consideration the findings of the inquest” which has given Teoh’s family the false hope that if they are not satisfied with the inquest findings, Najib is prepared to consider their request for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh’s death.
Demonstrations: A fundamental right of citizens
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Najib Razak, Tunku Abdul Aziz on Friday, 7 August 2009
by Tunku Aziz
It would be an untruth if I said I was ever a fan of Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Be that as it may, I am sorry about his coming into office, unlike all his predecessors, weighed down by the heaviest baggage imaginable, stuffed up to the neck with allegations of impropriety that I’d rather not bore you with.
I will not enumerate them either as they are too many. Also it would be pointless to waste our time dwelling upon unproven allegations that should have been nipped in the bud before they got out of hand, but for some unexplained reason, Najib had allowed them to fester like tropical sores on his credibility and honour.
I, like many other Malaysians, want very much to keep an open mind. We earnestly hope that he will give serious consideration to confronting, in a court of law, those who have defamed and reviled him.
His studied indifference might be considered by some to be an appropriate response, but he is not helping his own cause. He is pandering to the insatiable appetite of the noisy rumour mongering, chattering classes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why do Malaysians march?
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, ISA on Wednesday, 5 August 2009
By Yeo Yang Poh
WHY march, when the government has said that it will review the Internal Security Act? Why march, when there are other very cosy ways of giving your views and feedback?
One would understand if these were questions posed by nine-year-olds. But they are not. They are questions posed by the prime minister of this nation we call our home. Answer we must. So, why?
Because thousands who died while in detention cannot march or speak any more. That is why others have to do it for them.
Because persons in the corridors of power, persons who have amassed tremendous wealth and live in mansions, and persons who are in the position to right wrongs but won’t, continue to rule our nation with suffocating might. And they certainly would not march. They would prevent others from marching.
Because the have-nots, the sidelined, the oppressed, the discriminated and the persecuted have no effective line to the powerful.
Because the nice ways have been tried ad nauseam for decades, but have fallen on deaf ears.
Read the rest of this entry »
Police arrest of 589 people in crackdown of peaceful “Abolish ISA” assembly a “black eye” to Police and BN human rights but which Najib and Hishammuddin seem to regard as a “badge of honour”!
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, ISA, Najib Razak, Police on Monday, 3 August 2009
It is indeed both tragic and pathetic.
The mass arrest of 589 people in the harsh police crackdown of the peaceful patriotic “Abolish ISA” assembly in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday using excessive force and indiscriminate firing of tear gas and chemically-laced water cannon at all and sundry, including women and children, passers-by and the residents in the vicinity, is a veritable “black eye” to the police and the Barisan Nasional human rights record – nationally and internationally as evidenced by the very critical and damaging international media coverage.
But to Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and their other Cabinet Ministers, the “black day” in the Kuala Lumpur streets of August 1, 2009 – where it is not the peaceful patriotic tens of thousands who caused breaches of peace and disorder with their remarkable discipline and commitment to peaceful protest but the “disciplined” 5,000-strong police force on the directives of their police superiors – and the “black eye” to the police and Barisan Nasional human rights record are regarded as a “badge of honour”!
Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysian Arrests Put in Question Vow of Rights
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, ISA, Najib Razak, Police on Monday, 3 August 2009
By THOMAS FULLER
Published: August 2, 2009
New York Times / International Herald Tribune
BANGKOK — Soon after coming to power four months ago, Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, vowed to temper the country’s repressive laws and respect civil liberties though they have often been ignored.
But Malaysia’s honeymoon of liberalism hit the rocks over the weekend, when the police broke up a large rally in Kuala Lumpur, arresting nearly 600 people and reaffirming the governing party’s longstanding policy of zero tolerance toward street protests.
Opposition parties, which organized the rally, were calling for the repeal of a law that allows the government to jail its critics indefinitely without charge. The opposition is also pressing the government to expand an inquiry into the recent death under mysterious circumstances of a political aide after a late-night interrogation by anticorruption officials.
Read the rest of this entry »
Musa Hassan wreaking personal vengeance against me and other Pakatan Rakyat leaders for the Parliamentary Roundtable last week calling for a new IGP to create a safe Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Najib Razak, Police on Sunday, 2 August 2009
I come straight from Kuala Lumpur where this afternoon tens of thousands of Malaysians of all races participated peacefully in a mammoth gathering to demand the repeal of draconian laws, in particular the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA).
For the first time in 43 years in politics under six Prime Ministers from Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdullah and Datuk Seri Najib Razak, I experienced first-hand today the indiscriminate police use of tear gas and its corrosive effects.
Is this an indication that the Najib premiership is going to be the most draconian of all Prime Ministers since Merdeka in 1957?
It was clear that the cause of breach of peace and public disorder in Kuala Lumpur today was not the peaceful tens of thousands of Malaysians who merely wanted to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Prime Minister that draconian laws like the ISA must be removed from the statute books, but the police who indiscriminately fired tear gas and chemically-laced water cannons at the peaceful masses, in utter disregard of human rights of Malaysians to freedom of speech, expression and assembly.
Read the rest of this entry »
Penan Starvation: People First, Performance Now?
Posted by Kit in Augustine Anthony, Human Rights, Orang Asli on Friday, 31 July 2009
by Augustine Anthony
Time and again I have said that our country is a land of milk and honey but we now suffer a well entrenched system of governance that betrays its own people.
The news report in Utusan Online under caption “Lebih 3,000 Penan kebuluran” is one by product of a system failure.
Malaysia is seen on many occasions as a generous contributor whenever there are calamities around the world. Some of the aids that are despatched are laudably swift, perhaps within days or weeks of such calamities.
Of course we welcome such generosity of Malaysia. But what about our own backyard?
Read the rest of this entry »
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