Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- MOVE in Defense of Aziz Bari
- Malaysia urged to reject bill clamping down on peaceful protest
- BERSIH 3.0: a warning to Najib
- The Najib flip-flop
- BERSIH 3.0
| Posted: 27 Nov 2011 09:12 PM PST The Malaysian Academic Movement (MOVE) once again reiterates our concern with respect to the continuing persecution and possible prosecution of Professor Abdul Aziz Bari of the International Islamic University Malaysia by the powers that be. We urge the parties concerned to stop and revoke all investigations and disciplinary proceedings that aim to intimidate students and academics from addressing their immediate concerns. Professor Abdul Aziz is a highly regarded scholar of Malaysian constitutional law and society. While he has written many scholarly books over the years on Malaysian Constitution, he continues to be persecuted by the police, politicians and his own university (IIUM) for his scholarship. Advocates of public debates and nonviolent approaches like Professor Abdul Aziz are silenced by state power and its apparatus. Professor Abdul Aziz is becoming the symbol against a long history of academic repression and harsh censorship in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the problem of intellectual freedom and free speech in Malaysia has had a poor record. In 2011, the World Press Freedom Index placed Malaysia in 143th place in a list of 196 countries, whereas Malaysia was in 124th position when the current leadership came to power in 2008. Moreover, constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, expression and assembly are undermined by other provisions, and in practice they are only partially upheld. Professor Abdul Aziz Bari's prosecution for exercising his right to freedom of expression conflicts with Malaysia's obligations to recognize the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; the right to freedom of expression; and the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of association as delineated by the Constitution of Malaysia. Thus, threatening and intimidating students and professors for exercising their right to free expression and assembly violates international and Malaysian law. Punishing dissenting comments and ideas undermines academic freedom, which is all about the right to free expression and freedom of opinion. The International Islamic University Malaysia should rescind all investigation and disciplinary proceedings against Professor Abdul Aziz Bari. We believe that institutions of higher learning must resolutely uphold and defend the principles of academic freedom, and must also be sanctuaries for the free expression of ideas and opinions. This means that universities must also be a haven for controversial speech. We commend our national and international colleagues for your clear and vigorous defense of academic freedom and free speech in this case, and we continue to stand firm in defense of Professor Aziz Bari. |
| Malaysia urged to reject bill clamping down on peaceful protest Posted: 27 Nov 2011 08:58 PM PST AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE The Malaysian government has introduced a law which would further tighten the country's excessive restrictions on peaceful protest ahead of next year's expected general elections, Amnesty International said today. If enacted, the Peaceful Assembly Bill would effectively prohibit street protests and fine demonstrators who fail to comply up to 20,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$6,000). The Malaysian Parliament is to consider the bill on Tuesday.
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| BERSIH 3.0: a warning to Najib Posted: 27 Nov 2011 05:48 PM PST Najib forewarned he is heading for another political disaster after July 9 Bersih 2.0 misjudgment if rejects proposal for a Parliamentary Select Committee and forces the Peaceful Assembly Bill through all readings in Dewan Rakyat tomorrow Lim Kit Siang The Police Royal Commission Report 2005 listed the complaints against bias, unreasonableness and discrimination in the exercise of police powers under Section 27 of the Police Act 1967 which vests police with the power to regulate assemblies, meetings and processions through the granting of a permit, including the following:
There is nothing to demonstrate that in the six years after the publication of the Dzaiddin Police Royal Commission Report and its 125 recommendations, the Malaysian Police has won public confidence as it has transformed itself into an independent, incorruptible and professional police force, discarding the outmoded colonial police concept of "regime protection" and replacing it with the modern principles and concept of "democratic policing". As a result, the rampant complaints against the lack of police independence and professionalism under Section 27 of the Police Act will continue to remain as major grievances under the Peaceful Assembly Bill unless there is a total change of police mentality and mindset that the police serve the people and the laws of the land and not the political masters of the day. To end all politicking and bias, and suspicion that the police are serving the agenda of their political masters, the role of the Home Minister as the final arbiter in the Peaceful Assembly Bill should be removed and replaced by the courts. The Australian Home Minister and the various Australian State Police Ministers have no role whatsoever in the decision-making process on freedom of assembly in Australia. Under the Queensland Peaceful Assembly Act, which is one of the models adopted by the Barisan Nasional government for the Peaceful Assembly Bill, only five days' notice to the relevant authorities is required for the holding of a public assembly and the courts are the final appellate authorities over any police decision to prohibit any assembly. Is the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak prepared to make amendment to Clause 16 of the Peaceful Assembly Bill which gives the Home Minister the powers as the final arbiter whether a peaceful assembly could be held and to vest these powers in the courts as in the Queensland Peaceful Assembly Act 1992 so as to eliminate all possibilities of political bias and politicking in the decision-making process? The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein is very fond of telling other people not to "politicise" issues when he as Home Minister had been most guilty of such politicking – as in the notorious cow-head stamping sacrilege in Shah Alam in September 2009 and the seditious lie by Utusan Malaysia earlier this year that DAP wants to create a Christian Malaysia. The Home Minister's powers as final arbiter under the Peaceful Assembly Bill on whether assemblies could be held is only one of the objections to the Bill and this is why more time must be given not only to MPs but to the civil society, human rights groups and all concerned Malaysians to study the implications of the very badly drafted Peaceful Assembly Bill by referring it to a Parliamentary Select Committee. I call on Najib to reconsider the decision to force the Peaceful Assembly Bill through all three readings in the Dewan Rakyat tomorrow as it will be proof that he has not learnt the lessons of his massive misjudgement and mishandling of the July 9 Bersih 2.0 peaceful rally for free,fair and clean elections in Malaysia. Najib should be forewarned that he is heading for another political disaster after his July 9 Bersih 2.0 misjudgement if he rejects the proposal for a Parliamentary Select Committee on the Peaceful Assembly Bill.
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2011 04:57 PM PST Najib's "clarification" is proof that Peaceful Assembly Bill is the worst and most slipshod bill in 54-year parliamentary history raising questions about the Prime Minister's bona fides in political reforms Lim Kit Siang The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak's last-minute clarification today of the Peaceful Assembly Bill (PAB) is testimony that the PAB is the worst and most slipshod bill ever drafted in the 54-year history of Malaysian Parliament as well as raising questions about Najib's bona fides in political reforms and transformation. Najib blamed Pakatan Rakyat (PR) for "confusing" the public with regard to the 30-day notification requirement. He said: "Actually the wording is within 30 days, it can be within five or 10 days but that word led to so much confusion so we decided that 10 days to be specific, so that there will be no doubts." (The Malaysian Insider) Najib said the previous 30 days' notification did not mean a month's notice was needed. Najib's "clarification" is utterly ridiculous. In fact, Najib is presenting a sorry public spectacle of a Prime Minister who does not know what he is talking about, and even worse does not understand the content of the Bill he introduced in Parliament on Thursday though he described it as "revolutionary". It is a terrible reflection of the quality of leadership and governance in Malaysia that the Prime Minister can be so badly advised as to the Bill he presented in Parliament as to cause the Prime Minister to totally mislead Parliament and the country about its import and implications. I do not believe that Najib has deliberately told a lie about the PAB, but clearly he had been told a lie by his advisers causing him to spread a lie! I challenge Najib to explain how he could claim that under the PAB, before the proposed amendment tomorrow to reduce the 30-day notice requirement to 10 days, it would be possible to organise an assembly "within five or 10 days"? Let us take a hypothetical case. Say an organiser wants to hold an assembly on 30th December 2011. Clause 9 (1) of the PAB on "Notification of assembly" provides: "An organizer shall, within thirty days before the date of an assembly, notify the Officer in Charge of the Police District (OCPD) in which the assembly is to be held". Can Najib explain how the organiser could comply with the PAB if he gives notice to the police "within five or 10 days", i.e. from 20th December or 25th December? This is clearly impossible because Clause 12 requires the OCPD concerned to inform "persons who have interests" within 48 hours of the assembly notification and who have five days to communicate to the Police their "concerns or objections to the assembly". This would have taken up seven days - exceeding the five-day claim by Najib that a proposed assembly could be held. Under Clause 14, the OCPD has to respond to the notification of assembly within 12 days. Clause 16 provides four days for the right of appeal of the organiser to restrictions and conditions imposed by the police to the Home Minister, who has six days to give his decision. This means that the quickest an organiser will know about the outcome of his notification of an assembly on Dec. 30 is 12 days after submission of notification, provided the police does not impose restrictions and conditions. If there are police restrictions and conditions followed by appeal to the Home Minister, the quickest an organiser can clear the bureaucratic notification process is 22 days. This means that an organiser must give notification at least 22 days before the proposed assembly date or he may not be able to complete the maximum of 22-day bureaucratic notification process. The words "within thirty days before the date of an assembly" in Clause 9(1) is utterly misleading and meaningless and is no help to Najib to explain how an assembly under the PAB could be held "within five to 10 days". Najib should not blame the Pakatan Rakyat for the atrocious PAB drafting but the parliamentary draftsmen, the Attorney-General and his legal officers, as well as the entire Cabinet who have proven to be sleeping on their jobs. Najib said that under the PAB: "The Peaceful Assembly Act is divided into two categories, for designated areas, they only need to inform the police and there will be people to supervise even if it's on a short notice." "For non-designated areas, then it will require a 10-day period so the police can negotiate with the local community to get their views." (Malaysiakini) Here is further testimony of the atrocious drafting of the PAB. Where does the PAB say that the police must be informed for assemblies to be held in designated areas? The PAB is silent on the matter. Najib is offended at the comparison with Myanmar but can he explain why Myanmar can pass a law on freedom of assembly requiring only five days' notice but Malaysia needs 10 days' notice? In actual fact, if Article 10 of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly as one of the fundamental rights of Malaysians is to have real meaning, the government should not be designating permissible places of assembly, as all areas should be open to Malaysians to exercise their right to freedom of assembly – except for certain designated areas declared/gazetted "out of bounds" for security and other considerations. The "designated areas" should be places where freedom of assembly is not allowed rather than where freedom of assembly is permitted. Najib has only provided more grounds why there should be no indecent haste to force through the passage of PAB in Dewan Rakyat tomorrow and that it should be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee for full, meaningful and mature consultation, consideration and consensus.
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2011 01:12 AM PST By the total control of all legal and political apparatus, a presiding government is capable of restructuring everything to suit its needs. By Hakim Joe Winning at general elections are never ever about obtaining a simple majority of votes as garnering slightly more than 50 percent of all votes do not consequently signify being able to form the next government, especially against an incumbent government. This is particularly accurate in a democratic country that possesses one single government administrating over it since independence and for more than half a century. Additionally the fact that the citizens of such a country have never experienced an alternative government A government in place always has a winning formula to improve the chances of retaining its position and it is mostly by racial means especially in a multiracial nation. Even in the United States where any of its American born citizens can become the President, the two American political parties do the same. Would you field a White candidate in a majority Blacks constituency? The racial game is however played differently here whereby previous PMs declare an outright brutal war whereupon a Non-Bumiputra winning a seat would spell fire and brimstones to the Bumiputras and that all their privileges will be revoked. The question is not such an event occurring but why these privileges are accorded in the first place but no one seem to be answering that question. A long-standing government in place enhances their probability of winning even more by manipulating the electoral structure and legal framework to befit its likelihood of victory in any general election and when the voters award not only a simple majority to them but more than two thirds of the allocated parliamentary seats, this allows the winning political party to rewrite any legislations they fancy and to appoint any individuals they deem suitable to positions of power in order to secure the outcome of the following general elections in advance. With a two-thirds majority in Parliament, any new bill will sail smoothly through regardless of whether the entire world's population opposes it or not and after being enacted as law, everything becomes legal. By the total control of all legal and political apparatus, a presiding government is capable of restructuring everything to suit its needs. In many a democratic country, politicians are forbidden by law to own or even to possess shares in any mass media companies. An individual seeking a political future would have to resign his position and to sell off all his shareholdings before being applicable to be nominated as a candidate in a general election. In Malaysia, the ruling political parties own the majority of the mass media and the fact remains that we, the voters, have permitted them to doing so by conferring to them the mandate to reshape any laws they desire. By controlling nearly all mass media forms, it allows them to propagandize to the people exactly what they want the people to know and withholding any news they do not want anybody to know. The power of the media lies however in the way they tell the news. A 100,000 and more strong BERSIH 2.0 rally was reported as a group of about 5,000 unruly protestors. Without a doubt the Internet has lessened the impact of these propaganda, the truth remains that many of the rural areas remain outside the (paying) broadband coverage and the inhabitants there are dependant on both the (free) radio and the television for their daily ration of the Malaysian news. Gerrymandering is yet another subtle but extremely effective form of legally tilting the playing field to be advantageous to particularly one political party only. Take for example the DAP "sure-win" constituency of Seputeh. In any parliamentary election for the past decade, this election results will be amongst the first to be confirmed as a landslide win for the Opposition, way before all the ballot boxes has been counted. To neutralize this phenomenon, all the EC needs to do is to redraw the boundaries and to form yet another parliamentary constituency inside Seputeh's boundaries. This does not automatically signify a win for the government as this new constituency might actually vote Opposition but with the government setting up an army camp inside it, the probability of a sure-win for Postal votes are yet another form of voting that can be manipulated even though there is no evidence to point towards it as being compromised. However the fact that more than 90 percent of all postal votes are for the same political party in every general election since independence seem doubtful even to the most liberal onlooker. The number of postal votes might not seem noteworthy but the results of many significant seats have been decided purely on these postal votes. Inaccurate electoral rolls are a fact of life in any elections anywhere in the free world but appears consistently prevalent here. Are these the EC's unintentional mistakes due to short staffing and an insufficient budget, or otherwise? The fact that nothing has been done, or Electoral reforms to ensure fairplay and to exhibit the true intentions of the voters must be called for immediately, and subsequently be established before the next general elections. That is what BERSIH represents but with the introduction of the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 into Parliament last week to seriously curb BERSIH, its organizers and participants, the government is sending a loud message that it will no longer tolerate such actions by the people who put them there and significant measures are now undertaken to punish those The urgent need for us all to become a single voice is mandated now unless we desire the same coalition of political parties to rule over us for yet another half a century. Will you be there on the streets when BERSIH 3.0 comes around?
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