Suaram's adviser Kua Kia Song said Malaysia gets an "F" from him for its human rights record in 2013. But more than that, the human rights observer was aghast at the things carelessly said at the Umno general assembly over the weekend.
“(Every time) the delegates at the Umno general assembly will raise all kinds of things that are violations of human rights - racial discrimination, threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group and human rights defenders like us...
“These are not even veiled threats, they are direct threats... which the government is asked to take action against us," Kua told a function in Kuala Lumpur for the release of Suaram’s 2013 report.
He also criticised Umno president Najib Abdul Razak for associating the party’s fight for Malay rights with global anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.
“We have apartheid in UiTM... Umno says not a single non-bumiputera can go into UiTM... is that not apartheid?” he asked.
Kua cited that the government tried but failed to mar the country's civil rights movement late last year when New Straits Times published a report which claimed that human rights NGOs such as Suaram were financed by foreigners with an agenda to destabilise the government.
NST had to withdraw its story and published an apology last month after the organisations threatened to sue the mainstream newspaper.
Also last month, the government had said that it was considering a proposal to make Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) a royal university so that its status as an institution which only admits bumiputera students would not be challenged.
Kua said such an institution was clearly parallel to the apartheid era which Mandela had fought against.
Politicisation of race and religion
In Suaram's 2013 report, it strongly noted that the "BN government had turned to politicisation of race and religion after the coalition's poor showing in the 13th general election."
Even though, Umno received more seats in Parliament, BN as a whole failed to regain its two-thirds majority in Parliament which it lost only for the second time ever in 2008.
"Thus, after the BN coalition's poor showing in the 13th general elections, there were challenges to the leadership of Najib. The growing criticism of Najib's government both from within and without had major implications for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Malaysia," the Suaram report said.
During the Umno general assembly, Umno Bukit Mertajam division chief Musa Sheikh Fadzir called "1Malaysia" to be replaced with "1Melayu" and Johor Umno representative Abdul Mutalib Abdul Rahim said the LGBT community exist to group "bad people" together so that they can quickly die out.
Meanwhile, Najib stressed that Umno's fight has much in common with recently deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela.
Suaram was also probed by the police under the Sedition Act in August after it held an event to raise funds for Suaram's court case in France, relating to alleged kickbacks in the purchase of two Scorpene-class submarines by the Malaysian government in 2002.
At the dinner, lawyer Americk Sidhu spoke of Altantuya Shaaribuu’s murder in 2006 by two former bodyguards of then defence minister Najib. The two bodyguards were freed by the Court of Appeal in August, which ruled that there were serious misdirections by the High Court judge earlier in the case.
When asked why both the Scorpene case and Altantuya trials were not highlighted in the Suaram overview report today, Suaram director Cynthia Gabriel said it was still a raging issue and it will be elaborated in the bigger report.
"This is not just about the death of a sensational Mongolian woman. This is about our judiciary. This is about our law and legal process," she said.
And regarding the Scorpene case, Suaram said it was quiet for the time being as it wanted to respect the court procedures.
"We are waiting for the judge to complete his investigation which has now gone international ... to look at the chain of money as part of the government procurement process," said Gabriel.
By Lawrence Yong
No comments:
Post a Comment