As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (esp the new Sedition ACT) to apparently target oppositionists as well as common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary even petty issues.
No where in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of 'police reports' against one another, based on political and inane issues! Worse, police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against only those they choose to believe as 'threats' to civil society! Worse too that the police now feels that it cannot ever be criticised by anyone! Is the police running the country on diktats? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule?
These perceptibly 'unjust' actions of selective and disproportionate justice or police action is creating unease and anger amongst reasonable citizens. They also render our rule of law arguable and sadly regressive and repressive! This is not what our citizens want or wish for, we do not respect and cannot condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on uncontrolled police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok...
Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our silent/absent PM, fascist ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with impunity.
This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following GE13.
Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weakness, by carrying out in-depth post-mortem introspection, this lost minority government has instead embarked on a witch-hunt to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacism, now so passé in today's modern society.
We are now running on empty, backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens!
Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant minsters and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew their hatred and extremist racism, while others face concerted if starkly different attacks!
These 'laws' are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from its own self-destruct mindsets. It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also our tattered institutions of governance and civil society.
I fear Malaysia is entering a dangerous phase of our nationhood, we're facing a distinct if real risk of a potential break-up of immense consequences!
We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation boil over, into a dictatorship of irrational failing state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!
PRESS RELEASE
Malaysia Must Not Become an Authoritarian State
The
Malaysian Bar is heavily critical of the recent spate of arrests under
the Societies Act 1966 and prosecutions under the Sedition Act 1948 and
Penal Code. The raft of arrests and prosecutions of individuals lately
shows that we are undergoing an intense period of oppression against
citizenry and regression in the rule of law marked by the aggressive
curtailment of rights and fundamental liberties under our Federal
Constitution.
These individuals are being charged for allegedly
criticising or insulting political parties and critiquing or making
comments, albeit adverse ones, with respect to court judgments. These
are clearly not offences that are envisaged by, and that are within the
ambit of, either the Sedition Act 1948 or the Penal Code.
In order for legal decisions to stand the test of
time, they must survive the test of public scrutiny. Only then can they
be seen as sound judgments that will serve to govern our conduct and
direct our actions. In no way should criticism of court decisions, or
how they came to be made, be viewed as seditious by virtue of being an
affront to the administration of justice.
The Malaysian Bar is particularly appalled with the
charges that have been brought today against Associate Professor Azmi
Sharom of Universiti Malaya. His comments about the Perak
constitutional crisis of 2009 are wholly within the purview of academic
freedom and public discourse. This cannot, by any stretch of the
imagination, constitute sedition.
Likewise, we reiterate that questioning the exercise
of discretion should not be seen as being disrespectful to those to
whom that discretion has been given, but a legitimate examination of the
proper exercise of that discretion as permitted by law.
Secondly, our Federal Constitution gives to the
state government jurisdiction over the administration of local
government, which conceivably includes the creation of volunteer groups
to assist with local administration. The members of the Pasukan Petugas
Sukarela (“PPS”) are volunteers recruited from the community by the
state government. Any question over the legality of such groups should
be settled by way of federal-state government discussion, and not by the
arrest and detention, and the threat of arrest and detention, of
members of such volunteer groups.
Even if there is a dispute as to the legitimacy of the
PPS, whether under the Societies Act 1966 or otherwise, there appeared
to be no imminent threat to national security, public safety or order
that necessitated the police and Federal Reserve Unit to descend upon
them in the manner that they did. The arrest of members of the PPS
immediately after their participation, at the invitation of the Penang
State Government, in the Merdeka Day parade in Penang was therefore an
unnecessary, unreasonable and disproportionate use of police powers and
discretion.
Power and discretion are conferred by legislation on
the premise or presumption that they are to be exercised properly based
on intelligence and common sense. It appears that neither of these
criteria was present. It gives rise to the impression that the police
are arbitrarily exercising their powers merely because they believe they
can do so with impunity. This is an abuse of power and process.
In that light, the threat by the Inspector General
of Police to investigate and possibly to charge people who criticise or
allegedly disrespect him on Twitter is seen as an intimidation of
members of the public, and is another example of a wholly inappropriate
response.
The Prime Minister once famously declared that the
days of “government knows best” are over. Yet the actions by the
authorities in recent days to detain, arrest and/or prosecute
individuals who have been perceived to have challenged or questioned the
authorities, deny the very humility that that declaration presupposes.
The Malaysian Bar calls upon the authorities to
cease acting in a repressive and oppressive manner. These recent events
have made a mockery of the 57 years of independence that we have just
celebrated. Malaysia must not become an authoritarian state.
Christopher Leong
President
Malaysian Bar
2 September 2014
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