Najib painting ‘deceptive picture’ for Obama

Visiting US President Barrack Obama must look beyond the “deceptive picture” of Malaysia which is being painted by the ruling Barisan Nasional government.

Sarawak PKR chief and Ba Kelalan assemblyman Baru Bian said the world has been blind to the erosion of human rights, justice and fairness in Malaysia thus far and urged Obama to look beyond this ‘picture’ of Malaysia.

In a letter to Obama, who arrived here for a two-day official visit on Saturday, Bian drew the former’s attention to the plight of Sarawak’s indigenous people, religious extremism, rampant abuse of power, corruption, deaths in police custody and gerrymandering.

Of the indigenous community, Bian said they were being treated with “indifference and contempt”.

“Large tracts of the native customary land of the indigenous people are taken by logging companies, huge plantations and dam builders, often without notice, consultation and free prior-consent and/or compensation as required under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

“These activities are often sanctioned or even aided by those in authority. The government has (also) ignored confirmed reports of rape of native girls by logging company workers in the remote jungles, “ he wrote.

On the simmering racial and religious issues, Bian told Obama that Prime Minister Najib Razak “dares not defend our constitutional rights for fear of offending the Islamists.”

“Racial and religious intolerance is allowed to simmer and fester by those who have the authority and means to stop it but lack the political will and fortitude to do so.”

“Religious extremists and bigots are attempting to convert this secular country into an Islamic state but our Prime Minister dares not defend our constitutional rights for fear of offending the Islamists,” he said.

Bian also pointed out the “widespread” abuse of power and corruption at “all levels of the executive, legislative and judicial systems.

Not meeting Anwar

He said persecution and imprisonment of opposition leaders is the government’s preferred method of dealing with dissent.

“Citizens who dare to march in the streets for their rights are assaulted with teargas, acid-laced water cannons, beatings and arrests.”

“The mainstream press is tightly controlled by the authorities and indeed many of them are owned by those with close links to the ruling coalition.”

“Deaths of those in police custody continue to occur unabated with at least one death reported per month since the year 2000,” Baru said.

Amidst all this, he said Malaysians were patiently chipping away at  “the grip that the oppressive, self-serving and corrupt regime has on the reins of power.”

He also pointed out that despite winning 52% of the popular votes, the multiracial opposition was denied the opportunity of forming the government because of the practice of malapportionment and gerrymandering in the country’s electoral system.

“We need you to take the lead of international leaders to recognise the struggle for democracy that is happening now in Malaysia.

“I pray that you will hear the many voices who will be speaking about our hopes and dreams for a beautiful, free and fair Malaysia that was meant to be, and which has the potential to be, if given the chance,” he told Obama.

Obama has spent the last two days in Kuala Lumpur meeting officials and in closed door talks with Prime Minister Najib Razak.

He was given a state welcome at Parliament house on arrival nd later attended a royal banquet. Yesterday Obama visited the National Mosque and held a town-hall style session with young leaders from Asean.

He is also to meet NGO leaders who have been critical of the government.

But he will not be meeting Pakatan Rakyat leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar however will meet the US national security adviser Susan Rice.

An open letter from Dennis Ignatius

25 April 2014

Dear Mr President,

It has been widely reported that you won’t be meeting Malaysia’s Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim during your visit to Malaysia that begins tomorrow.

If this is indeed true, it would be an astonishing betrayal by a country that has often portrayed itself as a world champion of democracy and human rights.

It also sends an unmistakable signal to corrupt and abusive governments everywhere that disrespect human rights. The curtailing of democratic governance will be overlooked in exchange for pro-American policies.

Mr President, you should re-read the US Declaration of Independence and remind yourself of American’s guiding principles, particularly the part about being endowed “with certain unalienable Rights… [including] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The inalienable rights of Malaysians are under threat today, as never before. All democratic nations should therefore be rightly be concerned.

If such rights are only for Americans, America has no right to claim moral leadership in the world, but if they be for all men, as America’s founding fathers clearly intended, you, Mr President, have a moral obligation to passionately affirm and defend them, both in word and deed, wherever you go.

It cannot be that you are unaware of what is going on in Malaysia – the corruption and abuse of power, the tainted elections, the harassment and jailing of opposition leaders, the racial and religious incitement, the intolerance of dissent and the narrowing of our democratic space.

No, one has to reach the unhappy conclusion that you have chosen to remain silent, to close your eyes, to shut your ears to what’s going on in order to maintain good relations with the Najib Abdul Razak Administration, for political and economic gains and strategic advantages.

Moderate Islamic democracy?

To provide yourself with political cover, your administration has taken to referring to Malaysia as a “moderate Islamic democracy”. That is nothing more than a chimera built on Malaysian government propaganda.

In the first place, there is no such thing as an “Islamic” democracy or a “Christian” democracy for that matter; a nation is either democratic or it is not. And increasingly, we, Malaysia, are not.

Of course, the majority of our people are Muslim and proud of it. However, that does not make us an Islamic state. If you care to study our constitution, you will find that we are, constitutionally, a secular state.

Listen to what our founding father, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, had to say when he read Malaysia’s proclamation of independence in 1957 in our name: “We will be forever a sovereign democratic and independent state founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people…”

Foreign leaders who refer to Malaysia as an Islamic state or an Islamic democracy, therefore, do enormous damage to our secular constitutional foundations.

As for moderation, Thomas Paine once remarked that “moderation in principle is always a vice”.

We don’t need moderation in the pursuit of justice or moderation in the number of people tortured and killed in our prisons ,or moderation in the fight against corruption or moderation in the harassment of racial and religious minorities.

These are not moderation, but vice. They are suffocating our democracy, destroying our freedom, undermining our institutions and looting our national wealth.

A government that exploits everything

All this to say, Mr President, is that the so-called moderate Islamic democracy that you speak of is simply non-existent. What we have is a government that cynically and opportunistically exploits both religion and the trappings of our democracy, which remain, to stay in power.

As for Anwar Ibrahim, whether it is convenient for you or not, he is the leader of the opposition. The multiracial and multi-religious coalition he leads (Pakatan Rakyat) won the majority of the popular votes cast in our last general election.

As your own State Department would no doubt have briefed you, only fraud and gerrymandering kept him from taking his rightful place as prime minister of our nation.

Anwar Ibrahim, therefore, has a greater claim to speak for Malaysia than anyone else. If you want to understand our hopes and aspirations, speak to him. Ignore him and you trample upon our long struggle to build a better and more just nation.

Whatever it is, you cannot come to our country and treat the parliamentary opposition leader in such a callous and contemptuous manner. It is like spitting on our democracy! It is like going to Myanmar and refusing to meet Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Furthermore, given the persecution, harassment and recent sentencing of Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up charges of sodomy in a trial that has almost universally been condemned, your refusal to meet him will be seen as an endorsement of the Najib Administration’s manipulation of the justice system to incarcerate a political opponent and stymie hopes for democratic change.

Remember what you once said, Mr President

You might as well be on hand to turn the key to Anwar’s cell and lock him up for what might be the last years of his life.

If you keep silent at this time, if you decline to meet him, you are as guilty of this travesty of justice as Malaysia’s government is.

Martin Luther King Jr., one of your own heroes, said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

And, Mr President, you yourself once said: “When the United States stands up for human rights, by example at home and by effort abroad, we align ourselves with men and women around the world who struggle for the right to speak their minds, to choose their leaders, and to be treated with dignity and respect.

“We also strengthen our security and well being, because the abuse of human rights can feed many of the global dangers that we confront – from armed conflict and humanitarian crises, to corruption and the spread of ideologies that promote hatred and violence.”

During your visit, Mr President Barack Obama, you will have a historic opportunity to align yourself with the struggle for justice and democracy in Malaysia. I hope you will seize this opportunity, and walk your talk.

Told to butt out on hudud, DAP MP fires back at PAS -April 24, 2014

DAP will openly fight PAS if the Islamist party insists on trying to remove the constitutional safeguards that prevent it from enforcing hudud, Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo said today.

Criticising his ally for now claiming that it only pledged not to push for Malaysia to be declared an Islamic state, the DAP leader said PAS was disingenuous to say that introducing the Islamic penal code in Kelantan was not part of its commitment to the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pact.

“That is a weak excuse to avoid the truth which is the fact that all along hudud was never part of the Pakatan agenda announced in 2011 which applies across the board,” he said in a statement today.

Gobind, whose late father Karpal Singh had been one of the staunchest opponents towards hudud and an Islamic state, also took aim at PAS for saying its allies PKR and PAS have no right to speak out against its renewed push to implement the Islamic law.

Reminding PAS that it made its gains in Election 2008 and 2013 by being a part of the tripartite pact, Gobind said Malaysians gave the party and its allies support as a whole that did not include hudud, rather than as individual entities.

He told PAS to expect “full, firm and open resistance” from DAP towards its attempts to introduce two private members’ bills ostensible aimed at removing clauses in the Federal Constitution that prevent it from enforcing Kelantan’s Syariah Criminal Code Enactment that is passed in 1993.

Reminding PAS that it made its gains in Election 2008 and 2013 by being a part of the tripartite pact, Gobind said Malaysians gave the party and its allies support as a whole that did not include hudud, rather than as individual entities.

He told PAS to expect “full, firm and open resistance” from DAP towards its attempts to introduce two private members’ bills ostensible aimed at removing clauses in the Federal Constitution that prevent it from enforcing Kelantan’s Syariah Criminal Code Enactment that is passed in 1993.

“The DAP will not be cowed by threats. We will continue to do what is right and speak up against hudud as it is clearly unconstitutional and against the Pakatan Rakyat agenda,” Gobind added.

Yesterday, Deputy Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah had told PKR and DAP to stop disputing PAS’s aim of rolling out hudud in Kelantan, saying it only agreed not to push for the Islamic penal law at the federal level.

Today has seen a marked increase in acrimony between the two ideologically-opposed PR partners over their long-standing difference on the Islamic penal law.

Earlier, DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang also told PAS that pushing for hudud has never gained it significant Malay support; rather, he said it would have cost both the party and PR dearly had this been an issue ahead of Election 2013.

In Islamic jurisprudence, hudud covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape, sodomy, making unproven accusations of adultery, causing physical hurt, drinking intoxicants, apostasy, and acts contrary to Islamic belief.

PAS announced plans this month to introduce two private members’ bills in Parliament to allow it to enforce hudud in Kelantan.

But in doing so, it again resurrected the on-and-off conflict between DAP and PAS that dates back to the 1990s and which had kept the two from co-operating for decades.

PAS’s attempt to push for hudud is not new. Previous attempts by PAS to table similar bills have been blocked by the BN-dominated Parliament and have never been voted on.

In all previous attempts, PAS had been frustrated by BN tactics to prevent any vote by employing a “talking out” tactic where BN MPs have been allowed to speak for an extended period of time to prevent such private members’ bills from even being debated. The filibuster-style tactic was frequently used when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was still prime minister.

But Umno in recent times has openly expressed support for PAS’s latest bid, even as the Islamist parties allies outwardly reject or remain non-committal to its professed goals.