Malaysian Arrests Put in Question Vow of Rights
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, ISA, Najib Razak, Police on Monday, 3 August 2009, 11:03 am
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.
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Enough of Pledges! We Need Actions!
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Najib Razak on Monday, 3 August 2009, 10:56 am
By M. Bakri Musa
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s pledge to improve six key areas (crime, corruption and poverty reductions as well as education, infrastructure, and public transportation) would have met widespread applause if only he had indicated just a wee bit more on how he would go about achieving those lofty goals. Malaysians are rightly fed up with highly optimistic targets and stirring slogans; what we desperately need are leaders who could execute things and get us there.
Najib refers to those objectives as national “Key Results Areas” (KRAs). If he is not diligent and imaginative in the execution, Najib’s KRA could very well end up as KeRA (monkey). Kera would then join with Najib’s earlier glokal Malay to be the next laughing stock of the nation.
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IGP Musa – play hardball with murderers, robbers, rapists, Ah Longs and gangsters but not with teenagers and peaceful, patriotic advocates for abolition of ISA
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Police on Sunday, 2 August 2009, 4:09 pm
The four-day remand of 16-year-old Faizudin Hamzah who was arrested in yesterday’s anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) for four days is outrageous, deplorable and underlines the biggest human rights problem in Malaysia – that the greatest violaters of human rights are often the police and the law enforcement agencies.
It is very clear from yesterday’s proceedings that it was the police and not the peaceful and patriotic advocates for abolition of ISA who provoked breaches of peace and created disorder, precipitated by the indiscriminate police firing of tear gas and chemically-laced water cannon on all and sundry.
The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan must be told in no uncertain terms by the Cabinet on Wednesday – play hardball with murderers, robbers, rapists, Ah Longs and gangsters but not with teenagers and peaceful, patriotic advocates for abolition of ISA.
Otherwise, the entire Cabinet must bear responsibility for the IGP playing 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, 7:53 am
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.
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Himpunan ISA 1/8/09 – KL lockdown
Reference:
http://malaysiakini.com/news/109707
http://twitter.com/insider_latest/
Strange mainstream media behaviour about Tee Keat lodging police report for threat to him – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese press but totally ignored in English and Bahasa media
It is indeed a strange behavior of the mainstream media today – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese newspapers on the police report lodged by MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat about a threat to him but totally ignored by English and Bahasa Malaysia media (even by MCA-owned Star)!
Why is this? A Cabinet Minister and leader of the third largest Chinese political party in the world receiving threat or death threat but not newsy enough to be reported in the English and Bahasa Malaysia mainstream media, even by MCA’s own Star newspaper?
Is it a farce and all-in-the-know in the media business know that it is a charade – to be played up in the Chinese media but ignored in the English and Bahasa Malaysia media?
This is the first question that intrigued me when I saw the various media coverage of Ong’s police report of a threat to him.
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Why was health, in particular the war against two killer epidemics – A(H1N1) and dengue – excluded from Najib’s National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) announced last week?
Health Minister, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai cannot be serious about his ministerial commitment to provide the best health services in the country when the health front, in particular the war against the two killer epidemics of A(H1N1) and dengue are excluded from the National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) announced by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak last week.
In fact, it is not only Liow but also the Minister for KPIs, Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon who should also explain why the Prime Minister’s short-term targets for six NKRAs had excluded health, especially with the country facing two killer epidemics.
There have been 69 new locally-transmitted influenza A(H1N1) cases reported on Thursday, bringing the total number in the country to 1,371 with four deaths so far.
At a recent briefing to the National Influenza Pandemic Task Force meeting (July 27, 2009), Dr Tee Ah Sian, director of communicable diseases of WHO, painted a possible scenario for the Malaysian A (H1N1) pandemic.
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Each new day is the dawn of a new horror….
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Hussein Hamid on Saturday, 1 August 2009, 6:30 am
by Hussein Hamid
I know that in the last UMNO meeting chaired by Dato Onn before he left UMNO, he wanted to know who was going to take his place as leader. Nobody was prepared to answer Dato Onn’s question. He then turned to Tun Razak and asked: “Adakah awak yang hendak menjadi Ketua Umno?”. Tun Razak replied: “Belum sampai masa lagi untuk saya nak jadi Ketua UMNO – tapi saya ada satu orang yang saya fikir layak …ya itu Tunku Abdul Rahman” and so it came to pass that Tunku became UMNO’s President.
I obtained the above information from just five minutes of surfing the internet. Now what has this got to do with Najib son of Tun Razak? Very simply this – through the internet we know what you have done in the past, what you have done while you were with MINDEF and what you are doing now. We know about your personal life, your social life and your political life. If you had known then about the internet and that you would one day be Prime Minster of this country you might have done some things differently. With hindsight so would we and be better people.
and now to the present…. Read the rest of this entry »
So who has ‘Misunderstood’ the ISA?
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, ISA on Saturday, 1 August 2009, 4:30 am
By Farish A. Noor
It is now being claimed by some that the Internal Security Act has been ‘misunderstood’ by a significant section of the Malaysian public, and if only they can be made to ‘understand’ it they would come to realise that it is after all a good tool that ought to be kept in the coffers of the state.
That such a claim can be made today is interesting, for at least it makes the concession that there are enough Malaysians out there who reject the manifold uses and abuses of the ISA so as to warrant the call to have it abolished, or at least so radically revised that it cannot be abused further. However we are left with the question: Who, exactly, has ‘misunderstood’ the ISA? The Malaysian public or the politicians who run the country?
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A(H1N1) and Dengue killer epidemics – Tiong Lai should take leave from MCA party duties to lead a 24/7 national campaign, resign as Health Minister or take leave as Health Minister so that a “full time” Health Minister can provide leadership
It is shocking that instead of leading the national war against the double epidemics of A(H1N1) and dengue, the Health Minister, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai is leading the national blame game with the MCA-owned Star putting him on the front-page headline news blaming “the lack of vigilance by members of the public and even some doctors”.
Let me tell Tiong Lai. Don’t blame others. If you want to blame somebody, blame yourself for failing to provide the needed leadership to mobilize Malaysians to fight the double epidemics as Health Minister.
Liow does not seem to be a Health Minister who is confronted with the two killer epidemics, with A(H1N1) claiming four deaths and recording a total number of 1,302 cases while dengue has killed 64 and recorded 26,446 cases since January, set to break even last year’s worst dengue epidemic of 49,335 cases and 112 casualties.
The worse is yet to come for both deadly epidemics.
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Penan Starvation: People First, Performance Now?
Posted by Kit in Augustine Anthony, Human Rights, Orang Asli on Friday, 31 July 2009, 1:07 pm
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?
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Will recruitment of Rela personnel to help police to keep streets safe be a cure which is worse than the disease if Rela personnel are not sensitized about the importance of human rights?
Posted by Kit in Crime, Human Rights on Friday, 31 July 2009, 12:52 pm
Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said yesterday that the best from the civil Defence Department and Rela have been enlisted to help police keep the streets safer and that 254 – 115 from the Civil Defence and 139 from Rela – had been shortlisted from 1,000 applicants last week.
The recruitment of Rela personnel to help police to keep streets safe raises public fear whether Rela human rights abuses against immigrants will now extend to ordinary Malaysians.
Rela human rights abuses have become so notorious not only locally but also internationally that human rights organizations local and abroad have called for Rela’s disbandment.
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As there is a clear and present conflict-of-interest, Azmi should belatedly stand down and disqualify himself from conducting the PAC inquiry into the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Parliament, PKFZ on Friday, 31 July 2009, 11:00 am
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be guilty of gross incompetence if it should come to the conclusion that the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal is all due to the project being “managed by a group of incompetent people from day one” and nothing more.
This appears to be the present line of thinking of the PAC Chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid who told the media after the PAC meeting on Wednesday, which was attended by former Transport Minister Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy with his retinue of a lawyer and two aides, that “In general, the huge project was managed by a very incompetent group of people” from day one.
Could the ballooning of the PKFZ scandal from RM1.088 billion in 2002 when Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik was Transport Minister,quadrupling to RM4.63 billion in 2006 under Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy as Transport Minister, and now set to mushroom to become a RM12.5 billion scandal under Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat as Transport Minister all because of management by “a very incompetent group of people” from day one?
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Tiong Lai – do not be like ‘Nero playing fiddle while Rome burns” only interested in playing MCA politics despite mounting deaths from dengue and H1N1 epidemics
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai should not be like “Nero playing fiddle while Rome burns” only interested in playing MCA politics despite mounting deaths from dengue and H1N1 epidemics.
The influenza A (H1N1) has claimed a fourth casualty in Malaysia – 20-year-old woman who died of “severe community acquired pneumonia” at 9.40 am on Tuesday at the Malacca Hospital, after suffering from the flu for 11 days.
On the dengue front, two more deaths have occurred this year, a 77-year-old man from Sipitang, Sabah and a 45-year-old female teacher from Ampang, Selangor who died last week.
Since January this year, there have been 26,446 cases and 64 fatalities Liow seems to have forgotten what he started six months ago, when he declared an all-out war against dengue, which recorded the highest number of 49,335 dengue cases and 112 lives last year – 50 per cent of whom were preventable deaths.
Now, Malaysia is heading towards an even higher incidence of dengue cases and fatalities than last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Was Teoh Beng Hock pulled up by his jackets and trousers/belt and pushed out of 14th floor MACC hqrs?
Posted by Kit in Crime, Teoh Beng Hock on Thursday, 30 July 2009, 2:43 pm
Before last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, the family and the Malaysian public were assured by the four MCA Ministers and the Minister each from Gerakan, MIC and SUPP that they would support in Cabinet the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh Beng Hock’s mysterious death at Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Shah Alam.
In the event, these seven Cabinet Ministers from MCA, Gerakan, MIC and SUPP disappointed the Teoh family and justice-loving Malaysians by agreeing to the most unsatisfactory formula of dividing the inquiry into two parts – an inquest into Teoh’s death and a Royal Commission of Inqury into MACC’s interrogation techniques.
This created an nation-wide uproar which even ordinary MCA, Gerakan, MIC and SUPP ground leaders and members fully participated, for they just cannot understand why their party leaders in the Cabinet could be so insensitive to what basic justice and fair play demand – a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh’s death.
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Could the PKFZ project become a RM12.5 billion “mother of all scandals” if the three Transport Ministers and four PKA Chairmen – all from MCA – had not been equally incompetent and negligent as the PKA managers from day one?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, PKFZ on Thursday, 30 July 2009, 11:09 am
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman blamed the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal on “a group of incompetent people” from day one. (NST)
The ad hoc committee on corporate governance probing the PKFZ fiasco, headed by Transparency International chairman Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan, denounced the PKA Board members for “gross negligence” in failing to discharge their fiduciary duties diligently, resulting in the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.
Both Azmi and Low are only half right. Could the PKFZ project become a RM12.5 billion “mother of all scandals” if the three Transport Ministers (Ling Liong Sik, Chan Kong Choy, Ong Tee Keat) and four PKA Chairmen (Ting Chew Peh, Yap Pian Hon, Chor Chee Heung and Lee Hwa Beng) – all from MCA – had not been equally incompetent and negligent as the PKA managers “from day one”?
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Politics, Power and the Violence of History
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Islam on Thursday, 30 July 2009, 5:00 am
By Farish A Noor
The guillotine, it ought to be remembered, was originally conceived of as a safe, clean, efficient and ironically ‘humane’ method of murdering people when it was first introduced. Dubbed the ‘revolutionary razor’ when it was first used to execute the enemies of the state at the outset of the French revolution, it was seen as an improvement and advancement from the age of neo-feudal rule where the despotism of the King of France was manifest in the macabre and gruesome spectacles of public violence that were enacted in the kingdom against those who were seen as the enemies of the regime.
In time however it is clear that even this mode of public execution has been inscribed with negativity and regarded as a brutal way for the state to express its power in the public domain. Robbespiere, Danton, Saint-Just were all victims of the same mode of state violence that they had originally supported and promoted, and it is ironic that Robbespiere and his contemporaries met their end at the same guillotine that they had used to execute their enemies earlier.
The tale of the guillotine is an apt reminder of the historical impasse that Muslim societies are in today, and how the dream of political Islam is now Read the rest of this entry »
Is Ong Tee Keat just “crying wolf” in the MCA “Ong-Chua” power struggle or is his revelation of death threat to him and BN-underworld politico-business“dark forces” compromising Cabinet decision-making for real?
MCA Vice President and Health Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai thinks he is being smart when he is being downright foolish.
He thought he had found a very clever way to respond to my lodging a police report on Monday to protect Ong Tee Keat’s life from death threat revealed repeatedly in the public by the MCA President himself.
What Liow does not seem to be able to grasp is that my police report is not just to protect the life of the MCA President, but that of a Minister and all members of the Cabinet as Ong had revealed multiple serious crimes being committed not only because of the death threat to him but also about “dark forces” of politico-business underworld combined with Barisan Nasional elements to compromise and suborn government decision-making process all the way to the Cabinet.
It is therefore not just a matter of concern solely to MCA leaders and members but a public issue concerning the integrity of the government and Cabinet which must be the concern of every public-spirited Malaysian citizen.
Why is Liow completely unconcerned that Ong has received a death threat and Ong’s serious allegation of “dark forces” of politico-business underworld and Barisan Nasional elements to coerce and arm-twist Cabinet Ministers?
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Is MACC prepared to submit to a public inquiry to establish that it is not any manner responsible for the “black blog” set up in past week to defame DAP Selangor Excos with lies, half-truths and doctored documents
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Crime, Teoh Beng Hock on Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 3:59 pm
Suspicions abound as to who are responsible for the “black blog” which had appeared anonymously in the past week to defame DAP Selangor Excos, Ronnie Liu and Ean Yong Hian Wah, accusing them of corrupt practices, based on lies, half-truths and doctored documents.
One suspicion is the MACC or MACC officers, in order to deflect public outrage over the mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock at the MACC Headquarters on July 16, 2009.
As Professor Dr. Shad Faruqi of the of the Faculty of Law, UiTM wrote in the Star “Ferreting out the Facts” today, many questions cry out for answers about the Teoh’s mysterious death at MACC, including:
After Teoh was released, did he make any telephone calls which could give some pointers to the time of his death? Was his handphone seized? Was his handphone tampered with? Were the injuries on his body the result of the fall or of prior abuse by himself or by others?
Did he die because of the fall or was he already dead when his body plunged to the floor below? Did no one hear the sickening thud of his body falling nearly 10 floors?
Najib – turn the first stone to find out the causes and circumstances of Teoh’s unusual death at MACC by respecting the family’s wish and set up Royal Commission of Inquiry
Posted by Kit in Crime, Najib Razak, Teoh Beng Hock on Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 2:26 pm
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has not turned a stone in the past 13 days although he promised the Teoh Beng Hock family yesterday that “no stone will be left unturned” to find the causes and circumstances of Teoh’s mysterious death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.
I met the Teoh Beng Hock family members, father Teoh Leong Hwee 62, elder brother Teoh Beng Kee, younger sister Teoh Lee Lan and fiancée Soh Cher Wei at the Shah Alam court complex for Teoh’s inquest this morning, and they told me that the Prime Minister conveyed his condolences and explained the Cabinet decision to set up two separate inquiries, one an inquest by a magistrate into Teoh’s death and the other a Royal Commission of Inquiry into MACC’s investigative techniques.
In the press today, it was reported that Najib told the family that the findings of the inquest would also be considered as input for the royal commission of inquiry and that the two-prong approach would hopefully arrive at the truth in a fair and just manner.
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