Matriculation offer: Probe reason for rejection

A DAP leader wants to know the reasons behind a sizeable number of Indian students turning down the offer.

GEORGE TOWN: DAP Senator S Ramakrishnan has called on the relevant parties to probe the reasons behind 586 of the 1,539 Indian students rejecting the matriculation offer.

He said an indepth study would reveal the actual reasons why only 943 students or 61.27% accepted the offer.

The DAP man was puzzled that while Indian students waited to be enrolled in matriculation colleges, which was an assured path to public universities, a sizeable number rejected the offer.

He said it indicated that the Indian community was economically diverse and any help for target groups must be identified and not generalised.

Ramakrishnan urged politicians and Indian-based NGOs to find out whether the students rejected the matriculation offer because they had better alternatives, which then would not be a loss to the community.

But he noted that if the rejection was on the ground of being offered different courses than the ones they applied for or because they would face food problems or difficulties in adjusting being a religious minority, then the matter could be taken up to the relevant ministry.

However, he did not rule out the possibility that Indian students were spoilt and pampered that they would only enroll in a nearby matriculation college and anything else would be “a big no.”

“I hope there can be an open discussion on these matters in forums, the media or online to identify the real reasons behind the rejection,” he said.

Was it an election gimmick?

Deputy Education Minister Wee Ka Siong told Dewan Negara on Monday that of the 4,512 Indian students who applied for the 2012/2013 intake, 1,539 or 34.11% were offered seats in the 13 matriculation colleges.

Some 1,000 students were offered in the first intake with registration on May 28 while the balance 539 students were offered in the second intake with registration on June 13.

However, only 943 or 61.27% Indian students enrolled in the colleges.

An appeal period between April 25 and May 13 was given to rejected students, during which 34,456 students, including 9,527 non-Malays, appealed.

On July 27, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yasin announced another one-off offer to 557 Indian students to fill the vacant Indian quota.

Offer letters have been sent out and students will have to register on July 18.

Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, Perlis, Labuan, Perak and Selangor have a college each while Johor, Kedah and Pahang have two each.

The 13 matriculation colleges enrolled a total of 26,700 students to study in their science and accounting streams per year.

Meanwhile, Ramakrishnan called on Muhyiddin to explain whether the over 1,500 matriculation offers were one-off offers as an election gesture.

“Hopefully, the Umno government does not exploit the community’s weakness,” he said.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/11/matriculation-offer-probe-reason-for-rejection/#ixzz20LIcQKfm

Sodomy 2: Appeal focuses on DNA evidence

The prosecution has delivered a copy of its petition to Anwar’s team.

KUALA LUMPUR: Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah failed to consider the absence of evidence that semen samples were tampered with when he acquitted Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy, the prosecution claims in its appeal against the acquittal.

A copy of the petition of appeal, signed by senior deputy public prosecutor Noorin Badaruddin, was served on the opposition leader’s lawyers late yesterday.

Anwar was acquitted last Jan 9 of the charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan at the Desa Damansara condominium on June 26, 2008.

Noorin said it was wrong for the high court to conclude that the integrity of samples collected from Saiful had been compromised because there was no way for the investigation officer to tamper with them.

She said the court did not establish how investigation officer Blacious Judy Pereira had obtained the samples and how the results of DNA testing on them were compared with DNA profiles obtained from samples collected from the lock-up where Anwar was kept overnight.

The judge failed to consider “in total” how the samples were “collected, handled and analysed”, she added.

Noorin referred to the two chemists called by the prosecution, Dr Seah Lee Hong and Nor Aidora Saedon, saying their testimonies were based on detailed analyses carried out at the Chemistry Department.

She said both chemists had considered “all the possibilities” raised by experts in ensuring that their findings on the DNA samples were conclusive.

She acknowledged Pereira’s testimony that he had cut open a plastic bag containing receptacles for the sample, but said there was no evidence to indicate that the receptacles were tampered with.

She noted that both Dr Seah and Nor Aidora testified to the receptacles being intact.

Judge misdirected himself

Noorin contended that Mohamad Zabidin misdirected himself when he took into consideration the evidence of DNA experts called by the defence without giving weight to expert views and medical literature provided by the prosecution.

She claimed that the testimonies of the defence experts were based on theories in DNA profiling that had not been established.

The judge failed to consider circumstantial evidence supporting Saiful’s testimony, she added.

In concluding the petition, Noorin says Mohd Zabidin wrongly placed on the prosecution the burden of establishing evidences rather that establishing its case beyond reasonable doubt.

In his written judgment, released on July 3, Mohamad Zabidin stated that the court could not be 100% certain of the integrity of semen samples taken from Saiful.

He said the samples could have been compromised before they reached the Chemistry Department for analysis.

Therefore, he concluded, it was not safe for the court to rely on the DNA results obtained by Dr Seah.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/11/sodomy-2-appeal-focuses-on-dna-evidence/#ixzz20LIFmr00

Ambiga: Bersih about people power, not regime change

(The Malaysian Insider) - The Bersih electoral reform movement does not aim to topple the democratically-elected government but is focused solely on empowering voters, its chief Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan has said.

Leaders from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government, including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, have repeatedly painted Bersih’s third and most recent rally last April 28 as an attempt to oust its democratically-elected government, a charge Ambiga has denied just as frequently.

“What we want to see is a multi-party democracy where, every two or three years, the [leading] party will change,” the decorated lawyer and activist told British daily The Guardian in an interview published today.

“We’re not averse to Barisan coming back but if parties think they’re going to lose power, they behave a lot better.

“[This] is about power coming back to the people. It’s about us (the people) being in charge,” Ambiga was quoted adding.

Bersih has been lobbying the Najib administration to enforce electoral reforms, including cleaning the voter roll of dubious entries, before the next national polls due in nine months.

Putrajaya has pledged to undertake the reforms after last year’s massive July 9 rally garnered negative publicity for the Najib administration around the world, but the authorities have been accused of dragging their feet over their implementation, which the Election Commission (EC) said will take time.

Ambiga also accused the BN coalition of a relentlessly “demonising” the electoral watchdog, with the latest incident seeing anti-Bersih flyers bearing the Information, Communication and Culture Ministry’s official logo being distributed around the Klang Valley.

A social activist had alerted Bersih recently after finding one such flyer portraying supporters of the electoral reform movement as “pengacau” (rabble-rousers) despite two ongoing public inquiries into the chaotic April 28 rally in the capital city.

Orang Yang Paling Takut Saya Jadi Perdana Menteri Ialah Mahathir

Thugs at my doorstep

Ong Kian Ming - The Malaysian Insider

JULY 11 — At approx 4.45pm [yesterday] (July 10), three thugs, in their early to late twenties, tried to break into my house in Petaling Jaya.

Thankfully, they were unsuccessful. Thankfully, I am not hurt. I am immensely grateful at the outpouring of support shown by my friends and family. I am thankful to the police for their quick response in sending three squad cars to my house five minutes after I reported the incident and their follow up on this case.

Many are probably wondering why I think it was politically motivated rather than just a simple attempted break in. I cannot be 100 per cent sure that it was politically motivated but I’m quite sure of it. And here’s why:

The thugs came in a car and they parked directly in front of my house, which is about 200m from the community guard house. It is a simple and spartan double story terrace house. It is not a flashy house. I drive a Toyota Vios.

There are other houses along the same row with Mercedes-Benz and other nicer cars. Some of my neighbours were not at home. It would have been much easier to break into their homes instead of mine (not that I am recommending that they do this). Or a house that is more secluded. Or a house which seems to have more stuff to steal.

My car was in the driveway. The thugs must have considered the possibility that someone was at home. They broke the automatic gates, which create a huge noise, rather than scaling over the gate, which would have been easy to do and much more discreet.

I was in the living room when they broke the automatic gate. I got up immediately and shouted at them, screaming “Police! Police!” They didn’t even break their stride after I got up but kept on coming, which indicated to me that they knew I was at home.

They proceeded to try and kick the door down while I kept on shouting. If it was an opportunistic break in, they would have left knowing that there was someone at home.

They then left even though they could have kicked the door down. On the way out, one of them pointed his finger at me as if to give me a warning. He then used a screwdriver or some metal instrument to make a puncture in the bonnet of my car. If they had really wanted to break in even knowing that there was someone at home, they could have kicked the door down and easily overpowered me.

They were in and out of the place in less than three minutes. Not long enough for the police to come and catch them but long enough to send a message.

I don’t think it is a coincidence this happened a few days before a Bersih event in Malacca on Friday and three Bersih events in Kedah and Penang on Saturday and Sunday, at which I will be speaking. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Ambiga has been targeted as well as Wong Chin Huat.

I am no Ambiga or Chin Huat but I have been publishing a series of highly damaging articles regarding the many problems in the electoral roll that I know that the Election Commission, National Registration Department and even some members of the Cabinet have read and are aware of.

Initially, I said to a Malaysiakini reporter that I thought that this attempted break in could be due to my critique against MCA on the Talam issue, the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and other government policies.

After giving it some thought, I think that it is much more likely that it was due to my Bersih-related activities given the record of how thugs have been deployed to harass and intimidate various people related to the Bersih movement.

Regardless, I won’t allow this incident (if it was indeed an intimidation tactic) to cow me into fear or submission. I will continue to publish my findings on the problems with the electoral roll and share these findings with members of the public.

I will continue to write my critiques as a contributor to Refsa on the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). I will continue to write political commentaries. I will continue to play my own very small part in trying to make this country a better place.

* Ong Kian Ming is an analyst for Research for Social Advancement (Refsa). The note above was originally posted on his Facebook page

‘ISA enhances political careers’

Malay Mail

THE ISA was abolished because it did not help the Barisan Nasional-led government politically, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

“If you put someone under ISA it doesn’t kill them politically, instead it enhances their political career,” he told civil servants in Putrajaya yesterday.

Without naming names, Najib gave the example of some ex-ISA detainees whose political profile he said skyrocketed after being detained.

The prime minister said this while delivering the keynote speech at a dialogue with civil servants by the Razak School of Government, reports Malaysiakini.

He said the Emergency Ordinance (EO) had to be done away with as technological improvements had rendered exile less than useful as a deterrent to crime.

“In the old days, it was easy, if someone was bad, we just catch him and send him to places like Pasir Puteh, or maybe Jerantut.

“But nowadays, it is useless as no matter how far you send them, with their cellphones, they can still do their work (commit crime).”

Najib said the police must now change the way they work. “Now police must train themselves how to look for evidence.”

He said instead of just catching suspects and chucking them into EO detention, police must now provide evidence to charge them in court, adding this was something he wanted the police to do well.

The EO was a preventive law that allowed detention without trial used by police to hold criminals with shaky evidence against them or for time-sensitive cases, though critics said this was misused by cops to just dump in suspects without even opening investigations.

Najib said the challenge to police was one faced by all civil servants as they faced a more competitive global environment and rising public expectations.

He said in the face of this, one important role for civil servants was to work to create wealth so that the extra bounty could then be distributed to the rakyat.

He said it was only the creation of new revenues via higher income tax revenues and from the Customs Department that allowed goodies like the BR1M and other payouts to the rakyat to take place.

The abolishment of the ISA, EO and redistribution of wealth to the rakyat via various handouts are cornerstones in the reforms touted by Najib, but critics had said the payments were just one-off goodies, while pointing that replacement laws were more draconian than the repealed ones.

National Harmony Act Replaces Sedition Act 1948 - Najib

KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak tonight announced that the Sedition Act 1948 will be repealed and replaced with a new act to be known as the National Harmony Act.

The decision to repeal the act was to find a mechanism that could ensure the best balance between the need to guarantee the freedom of speech for every citizen and the need to handle the complexity of plurality existing in the country, he said at the dinner of the Attorney-General's Chambers with the Prime Minister at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here.

"With this new act we would be better equipped to manage our national fault lines. It will also help to strengthen national cohesion by protecting national unity and nurturing religious harmony," he said.

Also present were the Chief Secretary to the Government Datuk Seri Dr Ali Hamsa and Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail.

Najib said that the absence of an ideal balance could suppress the freedom of speech which was guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, hinder one's creativity and innovativeness or promote the spirit of chauvinism and extremism.

He said the balance must be achieved in a more open social environment with access to information which could lead to information overflow, an increasing standard of education and socio-economy and rising expectation.

"The provisions proposed in the National Harmony Act will stress on inculcating the spirit of harmony and mutual respect in the Malaysian society made up of various races and religions," he said.

He said the new bill would be more specific in nature and would enable the government to act against anyone using sensitive issues to break up national solidarity.

The Prime Minister said the government would ensure that the provisions of the new act would not hinder the power to tackle acts that could cause hatred and humiliation or stoke the feelings of disloyalty to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or any Ruler.

It also covered acts that could create enmity between the races and question whatever rights, positions, privileges, sovereignty or prerogative protected in the Constitution.

"Before formulating the National Harmony Bill, the government wants to invite views and opinions from Malaysians, whether individuals or organisations on matters that need to be addressed in drawing up the legislation.

"The Attorney-General's Chambers has been tasked as the agency responsible for getting the opinions of all stakeholders," he said.

Najib said the government was aware that there were groups who considered the Sedition Act as a tool to prevent action or views that were contradictory to the government's stand, but pointed out that this perception was totally unfounded.

"As such, the new provisions will not prevent the people from criticising the government and the administration of justice. Any act that is in contempt of court will be handled by the judiciary itself through the existing provisions in the existing Rules of Court," he said. Meanwhile, Najib also said the government decided to enforce immediately all new laws and amendments to the existing laws which were announced in the Political Transformation Plan including the Security Offences Act (Special Measures); Printing Presses and Publications Act; and the Universities and University Colleges Act.

"Through the abolition and formulation of the ongoing bills, the government wants to ensure that adequate democratic space is provided for differences of opinion and competing ideas.

"Basically, we want to create one Malaysia where the principles of human rights is upheld, the individual's liberty to express opinions openly is welcomed, and the interest of the individuals and the community is balanced," he said.

The Prime Minister also said that the Attorney-General's Chambers could be likened to a compass that showed the direction to ensure that the principles of the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law were always upheld.

"I take great pride that the staff of the Attorney-General's Chambers have never been complacent with the adulation and praise accorded and never over-reacted to any allegation or slander made against the agency," he said.

31 arrested outside Pahang MB’s office (updated)

Update (3.30pm, 11 July): The detainees will be released on police bail. Little Edwina is delighted to be going home today, says Jehan. She is pictured here with Zela, a volunteer in the defence team.

Credit to the multi-ethnic legal defence team led by Pahang Bar Chairman Hon Kai Peng for a job well done.

Update (3.00pm, 11 July): A defence lawyer Jehan Bakar tweets to say the atmosphere in the courtroom is very casual now as the accused continue to wait. The detainees will finally be released on police bail.

Update (1.35pm, 11 July): Three more detainees – Muniamah, Revathy and Lattha – are taken to hospital. This is not looking good.

Update (1.15pm, 11 July): The detainees have now been brought into the court room. A group of people are protesting outside court, according to a tweet from Suaram.
Update (1.00pm, 11 July): Three detainees carry another detainee out of the lock-up area after she fainted. She has been sent to hospital.


The rest are being moved to Magistrates Court 1. One more detainee suffering from diabetes needs dressing for his wound. Medical personnel tend to him.

Two more detainees are feeling unwell and Dr Jeyakumar examines them. After much protest, the women detainees are taken to a more comfortable place.

Update (noon, 11 July): Suaram reports that lawers were told that police are waiting for a decision from the AG as the Kuantan DPP cannot decide. Meanwhile, Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj and a colleague are heading to meet the Pahang CPO to demand the release of the residents.
Update (11.30am, 11 July): 12 lawyers, four chambering lawyers and four attachment students are now on hand to assist the residents in court.

Update (10.30am, 11 July): The group could be charged under sec 90 of the Police Act for shouting indecencies. But the group maintains they only shouted “Hidup Rakyat!” A team of eight lawyers from the Kuantan Legal Aid Centre and other volunteers lawyers have come out to assist the residents’ defence.
Update (midnight, 10 July): The group is being remanded overnight and expected to be produced in the Kuantan Court tomorrow. (So much for transformasi!) About half a dozen lawyers are expected to be on the defence team.
Thirty one people from Cameron Highlands were detained outside the Pahang Mentri Besar’s office, where they had turned up to insist on an appointment.

They refused to leave when asked to disperse.
The group is now being held at the Kuantan District Police Headquarters. The 31 comprises 13 men, 12 women and six children.
Their problems range from lack of even temporary titles to the land they have been toiling on, to worries over landslides to issues related to applications for stalls.
PSM sources claimed the Pahang MB had said he would visit the villagers in Cameron Highlands to try and resolve their problem. But after two months, the residents had not succeeded in getting an appointment with him.
So they decided to go to the MB and insist on an appointment.
Meanwhile Bukit Jalil estate workers are asking for four acres for 41 families after staying at the estate for four generation. Prime Minister Najib agreed to meet three of their representatives today.
At the meeting, the PM said he needed more time to study the issue. The workers said they hope he had the political will to resolve the issue.

Debate Malaysia - Tamil political debate

MIC lost relevance 38 years ago, says Niat chief

Nato prepared to hunt Taliban fighters who executed woman for adultery

General John Allen, commander of American and Nato forces, said: "Let's be clear, this wasn't justice, this was murder, and an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty." Photo: Reuters

Nato troops were prepared to join a manhunt for the Taliban fighters who publicly executed a young woman for adultery in an incident that has drawn worldwide condemnation.

Footage of the execution of 22-year-old Najiba showed men cheering as she was shot several times in the back and head.

The incident in the Shinwari area of Parwan province recalled similar public executions which were commonplace during the Taliban's government of the 1990s.

General John Allen, commander of American and Nato forces, said: "Let's be clear, this wasn't justice, this was murder, and an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty.

"The Taliban's continued brutality toward innocent civilians, particularly women, must be condemned in the strongest terms." He added that his troops were "ready to assist the Afghan security forces in tracking down and holding accountable the perpetrators of this heinous act".

The killing reportedly took place late last month after the woman was accused of being married to one Taliban figure and having an affair with another.

Troops and police had been sent to the area, the governor of Parwan said, but the killers had escaped, perhaps by wearing women's burkas.

His spokesman said the manhunt would be hampered by mountainous terrain in the area. Parwan province has long been considered relatively safe, but security has slid in the past two years.

A spokesman for Nato forces in Kabul said they had not yet been called on by the Afghans for help with the search.

Hamid Karzai ordered his security officials to police to "not to spare any efforts in arresting and punishing the perpetrators".

He added: "The murder of a woman who has had no voice to raise for her self-defence against the weapon and brutality of a number of criminals is a clear symbol of the cowardice and wickedness of her murderers".

In the mobile phone footage, a man is seen reading verses from the Koran condemning adultery, before saying: "We cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her. Juma Khan, her husband, has the right to kill her."

As the young woman squats, huddled in a burka facing away from the camera, a man walks up behind her to within a few feet and opens fire with his assault rifle.

The first two shots miss her, but on the third she collapses and he continues to fire into her motionless body.

A crowd of around 100, looking on from a hill, cheer her death, shouting "Long live Islam", "Long live Mujahideen (holy warriors)".

MIC lost relevance 38 years ago, says Niat chief

 (Malaysiakini) INTERVIEW The MIC lost its relevance in politics and to the Indian community as far back as 1974, said National Indian Rights Action Team (Niat) chairperson Thasleem Mohd Ibrahim.

"It started becoming irrelevant much earlier, but (former MIC president) S Samy Vellu had his own way of making the party appear relevant," Thasleem told Malaysiakini in an interview last week.

His statement contrasts with the popular view that S Samy Vellu, who assumed office in 1979, was the cause of MIC's downfall, culminating in the 2007 Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) rally, which brought some 30,000 protesters onto the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Thasleem, a long-time Tamil education activist, claimed that the MIC in 1974 forwarded a memorandum to the Cabinet Committee on Education, but its proposals got nowhere.

The memorandum, he said, called for the upgrading of Tamil schools and syllabi, better teacher training and residential schools to be set up to "enable Indian students to overcome the debilitating effects of their socio-economic environment."

"If the cabinet committee did not agree to this, why didn't (then MIC president) V Manickavasagam walk out of the Alliance Party?" he asked, adding that the time then was ripe because MIC had no competition for Indian support.

Answering his own question, Thasleem said the MIC kept silent and stayed on with the Alliance - all for the survival of its leadership.

"They thought that it was more important that they are okay and their families are okay," he said.

He added that of the many opportunities MIC had to "put its foot down" for the Malaysian Indian community, this was the greatest.

MIC member for three decades

Thasleem is best known for spearheading the opposition against the controversial book Interlok until its withdrawal from the Malay literature syllabus last year.

Back then, Niat stood for ‘National Interlok Action Team', but was changed to National Indian Rights Action Team after the government withdrew Interlok, so that the organisation can continue to campaign on other educational issues for the community.

A long-time MIC member - he was in the party from 1974 until 2007 - Thasleem praised Samy Vellu as a leader who did the best under his circumstances, but said the former MIC chief had a fatal flaw.

"He did a lot of good things. He started the (MIC education arm) Maju Institute for Educational Development (MIED), sort of started the Tafe (Technical) College, and all those things.

"The only problem with Samy Vellu was he didn't want to keep good people with him. All the intelligent ones around him - unless you are a yes-man - you can't survive!" Thasleem said.

He attributed the former works minister's fall from grace in 2010 entirely to his poor selection of advisers.

Asked about the current MIC president's leadership, he said, "G Palanivel is a good man - there are no two ways about it. But I don't think he is an effective leader."

Pressed further, Thasleem said no BN leader was truly concerned about the respective community he claimed to represent.

Asked about Hindraf's place in the Indian community, Thasleem appealed to the movement to give Pakatan Rakyat a chance.

Five years after its mammoth rally of November 2007, the movement has since splintered into groups like the pro-BN Malaysian Makkal Sakhti Party (MMSP) and the anti-BN Human Rights Party (HRP).

Hindraf de facto leader P Uthayakumar has decried Pakatan's failure to address the needs of the Indian poor and intends to contest in a number of its seats, creating the possibility of three-cornered fights in the coming general election.

Hindraf has since distanced itself from Uthayakumar's statement, saying that it was his 'personal view'.

'I share Hindraf's pain'

Thasleem said: "My appeal to my friends in Hindraf is: I share all the pain. I share all the trouble and whatever they have gone through.

"Like what Pakatan is saying - if they go to Putrajaya now, the whole scenario would be different.

"Another four or five years is not going to bury the community for good. We have already gone through this for 55 years. I have lost hope that BN would ever, ever look at the Indian issues genuinely."

Thasleem also said Hindraf should be given due credit for catalysing for what would become known as the 2008 political tsunami.

"Of course, the Chinese votes did matter. There was a lot of change within the Malay community also.

"But to me, I think Hindraf played a very, very, prominent role because everybody was going around campaigning using the term ‘makkal sakthi' (people power).

"Right from (PKR de facto leader) Anwar Ibrahim all the way through Pakatan to DAP, PKR and even PAS were saying ‘makkal sakthi', which was basically Hindraf," he said.

However, Thasleem is of the opinion that the rally would have been an even bigger success if it had championed Indian Muslim issues as well.

"Why should you call it as ‘Hindu rights'? Why can't you call it ‘Indian rights', where people like us... I have said that even Indian Muslims have problems!"

He added that were Indian Muslims who ‘quietly' turned up at the Hindraf rally, wearing their songkok so that they could be identified.

However, more Muslims would have come if the rally's cause was not confined to Hindu issues, Thasleem said.

MIC moots CM and wife to undergo lie detector

An MIC leader has suggested that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, his wife Betty Chew Gek Cheng and Lim's former employee Ng Phaik Kheng subject themselves to a lie detector test to end the controversy linked to them.

MIC welfare and social bureau deputy chairperson Ramanan Ramakrishnan said the test would be the best way for the three of them to clear their name in the wake of the controversy.

"The three of them should undergo a lie detector test to prove to the people that no scandal had occurred (between Lim and Ng)," he said when contacted.

The controversy involving Lim, Betty Chew and Ng erupted last week in the Malacca state assembly sitting after Duyong state assemblyperson Gan Tian Loo asked Betty Chew (DAP-Kota Laksamana) whether she knew Ng.

At a news conference last Saturday, Betty Chew denied that her husband, Lim, had had an affair with Ng, who had been an employee at the Penang Chief Minister's Office.

Ramanan asked why Ng had opted to remain silent and not comment on the matter.

- Bernama

Zamir Ibrahim janji dedah video Anwar

PKR’s Surendran gets SMS acid splash threat

The PKR vice-president puts the blame squarely on MIC and say that they are behind the SMS.

PETALING JAYA: PKR vice-president N Surendran received an SMS, threatening that his face will be splashed with acid.

Surendran claims that MIC is behind the threats and he thinks it is because of him being critical of the party.

Surendran has gone on record as saying that the MIC has not helped stateless Indians to get their MyKad and birth certificates.

“The MIC is furious with my comment about them. I am sure that the MIC is behind the threats, like they attacked us at Putrajaya.”

“This is an act of gangsterism” he said .

Two months ago, there was a scuffle in front of the Prime Minister’s office where Puchong PKR division leader S Murali sustained injuries to his face.

Surendran lodged a police report at the Jalan Travers police station and he was accompanied by PKR vice-president, Nurul Izzah Anwar, who is also the Lembah Pantai MP.

MIC could not be reached for comments.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/10/pkrs-surendran-gets-sms-acid-splash-threat/#ixzz20FPSzPpy

Ambiga furious over ‘hate’ booklets

In the latest twist to the Bersih saga, the electoral watchdog's chairperson sees red over booklets condemning the movement.

PETALING JAYA: Booklets purportedly printed by the Information Department condemning Bersih has got the electoral watchdog chairperson S Ambiga fuming.

“I am very angry. Enough is enough!” she exclaimed.

Ambiga stressed that the government must cease demonising Bersih and peddling lies to the public about the movement and its call for free and fair elections.

“The public must know the truth since public funds are being used in this process of demonisation,” she said, adding that she was alerted about the booklets by several NGOs.

The former Bar Council president said there was a concerted campaign against Bersih and this revealed the disconnect between the country’s leaders and Malaysians.

“I would have no objection if the reporting was fair. But since the Bersih 3.0 rally, all they have shown is a skewed perspective,” she said.

“This is deliberate lying by the government organs with improper motives,” she added.

Ambiga also asked if this was an attempt to influence the government’s own panel tasked to probe the violence during the April 28 rally.

Commenting further, she said the government was behaving as if it was at war with Bersih.

“They must realise that it is then a war with the rakyat.

“From April 28 till now, they have been using the heavy artillery against the unarmed rakyat. Yet I am confident that it is the unarmed rakyat fighting for justice who will prevail,” she added.

Booklet found in taxi

Meanwhile, social activist Adrian Anthony told FMT that he had chanced upon the booklet when he took a taxi from Damansara Utama this morning.

The Youth coordinator for the Catholic Graduates Movement said the booklets were in the pouch behind the front passenger’s seat.

Among others, the booklet depicted scenes of protesters attacking police vehicles during the rally, with the words: “Hidup biar beradap bukan biadap!” and “Bersih 3.0 yang kotor”.

It also called on the public to think carefully and warned them not to support the recalcitrant troublemakers or to be used as their tools.

Despite numerous attempts, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz and Information, Culture and Communications Deputy Minister Maglin D’Cruz could not be reached for comments.

The Bersih 3.0 rally drew tens of thousands to the streets but violence erupted when the protesters crashed through the barricades, leading the police to fire tear gas and water cannons.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak later claimed that it was an attempt to topple the government, a charge which both Bersih and the opposition denied.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/10/ambiga-furious-over-hate-booklets/#ixzz20FP5pVwf

Slain assailant paid tribute to Dr M

In his last blog posting, Khalil Afandi Abd Hamid pours scorn on Najib, Anwar, PAS leaders and the Sultan of Selangor.

PETALING JAYA: Khalil Afandi Abd Hamid, who was gunned down when he went on a rampage at the Prime Minister’s Office, had praised Dr Mahathir Mohamad and poured scorn on Najib Tun Razak.

In his last posting, the 47-year-old blogger described the former premier as the “kindest human being” whom he had come across in Malaysia.

(His blog Jaya Negara has since been rendered inaccessible.)

Khalil added that he would “very much agree” if Mahathir wanted to become the prime minister again.

However, he noted that Mahathir might not choose to do so since he was old and frequently fell ill.

He also claimed that Mahathir deliberately moved the sodomy and corruption charges against his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim because the latter would “bring a huge catastrophe” for the nation.

“You can ask Mahathir about this,” he said.

Khalil criticised Anwar for idolising the late Indonesian president Gus Dur, saying that like the latter, “Anwar too was blind in sight and heart”.

In the lengthy June 30 posting in Jaya Negara, Khalil cautioned readers about Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

“…do not follow this man with little hair [on his head]… this old man is a liar,” he wrote.

PAS, Sultan not spared

Not sparing those in PAS, Khalil took a swipe at spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, president Abdul Hadi Awang and Ulama council head Harun Din.

“You have been praying every night, shivering and crying in your prayer. For years, you have been doing this, and I am curious why Allah does not love you?” he asked in reference to the trio.

In another paragraph, he said that Nik Aziz prayed for “the eyes of voters to be blinded and that they be allowed to only see the moon [PAS' official logo]”.

Without mincing his words, Khalil also launched a vitriolic attack on the Sultan of Selangor with regard to him being the protector of Islam in the state.

Apart from this, he also criticised independent preacher Kazim Elias.

“Is it right for him to claim that ‘pencuri Islam’ [Muslim thieves] who do not eat pork have iman [faith]?

“Muslim thieves who do not eat pork can enter heaven whereas Chinese towkays who get robbed but eat pork are cast into hell,” he added.

Khalil also condemned those who criticised Christians and lamented that the Islam practised now had degenerated.

‘We will meet again’

Towards the end of his posting, Khalil said this would be his final meeting with the readers in the form of his writings.

“But it is certain that we will meet again and I promise to end my duties so that I can go [home] without having to return again,” he added.

The posting, titled “Hidup dan Mati… apa yang dipertaruhkan”, had drawn 98 comments from readers, including Khalil’s responses to their questions.

In one particular reply, Khalil had described himself as a person without rules, and that it was difficult to change.

He also alluded to having a problem with managing anger, which prompted him to stop working eight years ago because he was “tired of being angry with others”.

“When fate decrees, let us see if my anger can overcome their pride… I have not been defeated in any battle be it physical or mental…,” he stated.

Khalil and his female accomplice were shot when they whipped out samurai swords, held a policeman hostage and smashed several cars at Complex B of the Prime Minister’s Department yesterday.

Khalil, who was shot twice, succumbed to his injuries while his unidentified accomplice was undergoing treatment at Hospital Putrajaya.

News reports claimed that Khalil considered himself an Imam Mahadi, a Muslim leader who would restore justice and return mankind to the path of God before the End of Time.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/10/slain-assailant-paid-tribute-to-dr-m/#ixzz20FOg1kfG

Backsliding in Burma and Malaysia?

Malaysia and Burma remain poles apart in most aspects of life—religion, ethnicity, and politics—but where they seem more akin in recent times has been in trying to improve relations with the West while introducing much needed reforms at home.

Those reforms have been welcomed by the people of both countries and the international community but it remains a difficult process with Malaysia again raising fears of a revival of media oppression and Burma living up to its past with the detention of  political activists.

Reporters San Frontiers (RSF) said it was disturbed to learn that the well-known Malaysian blogger Syed Abdullah Hussein Al-Attas is being held under the Official Secrets Act following complaints by 30 people about controversial posts which were apparently unflattering about the Sultan of Johor.

Another woman, who was with him, is also being held.

The posts about the Crown Prince of Johor Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim have been described as provocative, insulting and seditious. There were also claims that confidential documents were posted by Syed Abdullah, whose followers say he enjoys paranormal powers.

“Syed Abdullah’s arrest is unacceptable,” RSF said. “Why was the complaint filed by 30 people and not the person targeted in the posts? Why did the authorities think it was necessary to detain two people because of what appears in reality to be nothing more than an ordinary defamation suit?”

In Burma, the arrests came near the 50th anniversary of the July 7, 1962, military crackdown against students, ordered by Gen Ne Win. The generals had seized power four months earlier and on July 8, the army blew up the student union building in Rangoon University.

The final death toll was not known but dozens of students were believed to have perished.
Activists said the detentions over the weekend were proof that the country’s government remains a repressive regime despite the widely praised reforms augmented by President Thein Sein.

The students were freed with authorities saying the arrests followed a “misunderstanding” but this simply indicated they should never have been detained in the first place.

Unfair and wrongful arrests remain an issue across the 10-members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their strictly observed policy of non-interference in a neighbor’s affairs ensures any international response to this type of detention is limited.

But as ASEAN continues to open its borders and markets in anticipation of a fully integrated economic community by 2015 numbering half-a-billion people, such arrests should raise alarm bells across a region that hopes to be seen as genuine force to be respected and reckoned with on the international political stage.

Malaysia Tilts Towards China

Such good friends

(Asia Sentinel) Government prefers to look the other way on Beijing's South China Sea ambitions
The failure of Malaysia to show any solidarity with the Philippines and Vietnam in the face of China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea will come to haunt it. The ruling self-styled defenders of the Malay race, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) are clearly far more concerned with short term advantage, political or pecuniary, than the principles at stake in the sea.

This week the four ASEAN nations facing China’s claims to almost the whole South China Sea – Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei – should be teaming up to confront Beijing, and urging fellow ASEAN members, notably Indonesia, to provide support. But in practice, while the ASEAN nations signed a collective agreement this week to spell out rules governing maritime rights and navigation in the South China Sea, it is likely to be toothless. Malaysia is burying its head in the sand and staying silent on the region’s most important long term issues. An UMNO source told Asia Sentinel recently that the government is determined to quietly tilt towards China, despite the fact that it carries on largely covert joint military training exercises with US Marines.

Nothing of course should surprise observers given the revelations of massive UMNO-linked corruption in the case of the French submarines that should be guarding Malaysian waters but in practice are just port-bound monuments to politicians’ greed. But the South China Sea is a far more serious case than the submarines because of the implications for vast areas of Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the sea as well as its actual possession of some islets in the Spratly group.

Malaysia controls roughly one fifth of the South China Sea coastline, or one sixth if one excludes the southwest portion nearest to Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore which is not, as of now, subject to Chinese claims. China’s overall claim is imprecise because it has never been precisely delineated. It includes all the islets and shoals within the dotted line that constitutes its general claims area.

This line goes at least as close to the shores of Sabah and Sarawak as it does to the Philippines. Thus some of Malaysia’s current as well as future offshore oil and gas production within its EEZ is at least as vulnerable to China’s recent use of force as the Scarborough shoal, which lies just 130 miles off the coast of Luzon, or the waters due east of central Vietnam where China is offering exploration blocks which are clearly well within Vietnam’s EEZ.

China however is relatively smart. It may have upset some of its neighbors with its aggressive stance – a stance seemingly the result of domestic politics in China at a time of leadership transition and when the PLA is flexing its nationalist muscles. But it is not going to upset Malaysia just yet. It is easier to knock off the smaller but closer claimants one by one meanwhile taking full advantage of the greed and gullibility of Malay politicians.

Malaysia is trying hard to be on all sides at once. It is cosying up to China in the hope of investment and tourism but also in part reflecting the Mahathir-era preference for any country opposing western influence in the region.

Aside from the possibility of China buying influence along the French submarine lines, Malaysian policy seems influenced by two factors. Firstly, concerns that standing up to China on the South China Sea would encourage Beijing to interfere in domestic politics in support of the ethnic Chinese community. So a defense of narrow UMNO political interests is taking precedence over Malaysia’s national patrimony, which should belong to all its races and religions. And secondly, and perhaps not even consciously, the assumption that the waters off Sabah and Sarawak are somehow less part of the nation than those off the peninsula, the centre of political power and of Muslim supremacy. In turn that may reflect the inability of ethnic Malay Muslims to identify with the wider ethnic Malay world of predominantly Christian Philippines and even with predominantly Muslim but proudly multi-religious Indonesia.

The Malaysian Malay assumption that all Malays are Muslims and cannot be otherwise stands in the way of recognition of Malaysia’s pre-Islamic past. This was a past which left numerous now-ignored Hindu and Buddhist monuments as well as cultural symbols. As in neighbors Indonesia and Thailand, Indian script was applied to the local language. It was also a past of navigators who sailed the South China Sea and Indian Ocean before the Chinese.

But do not imagine that Malaysia’s current leaders care a toss about either the Malay past or the Malay future. They are content to focus on staying in office, lining their pockets and imposing Islamic intolerance at home.

=========================================================

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Return of Mahathirism triumphant

Last week, Tun Mahathir asked why I hated him so much. Yesterday, he asked why I am so afraid of him.

It is neither. As I had said on Saturday, “like three former Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Hussein and Tun Abdullah and the majority of Malaysians in 2012, I am opposed to Mahathirism and its return to Malaysian politics in the 13th general election”.

Mahathir is in his cynical best.

Tongue-in-cheek, he made the grandiloquent announcement that “Mahathirism” is dead, that it “died” when Tun Abdullah took over from him as Prime Minister in 2003.

In actual fact, “Mahathirism” is not only alive and thriving, the return of Mahathirism is enjoying its most triumphant phase since the unceremonious exit of Abdullah as Prime Minister and his replacement by Datuk Seri Najib Razak 39 months ago.

This is most evident by the almost ceaseless spouting of “Mahathirism” recently, viz:

• Mahathir’s Sunday interview with Mingguan Malaysia where he castigated Malay “kebodohan” (stupidity) resulting in a major ethnic group bowing down to demands of minority groups, which included the government recognition of certificates by Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC), and claiming that the community had failed to “exploit its majority since Independence to consolidate power”;

• his speech in Penang last night that if Barisan Nasional is rejected in the 13th General Election, the Opposition will destroy the country;

• his recent stoking of racial fears among the Malays with his warnings and baseless allegations that (i) Malay will lose power if Umno loses next general election; (ii) that Najib is a weak Prime Minister and reforms could spark unrest; (iii) that the 13GE will be about race and that the Chinese voters are the kingmakers for the 13GE and will decide who forms the government.

The question at issue is whether the forces representing the “Return of Mahathirism Triumphant” is at the core of the massive anti-national conspiracy of lies and falsehoods to create racial distrust, suspicion, panic and fear particularly among the Malays in the 13GE, totally in utter disregard of their destructive effects on 54-years of nation building, including the Bangsa Malaysia concept of Vision 2020 as well as Najib’s 1Malaysia concept.

Yesterday provided a classic example of such dangerous, racist, anti-national and treacherous campaign tactics when the UMNO publication, Utusan Malaysia plumbed a new depth of dishonest and unethical journalism and front-paged the lie that DAP would contest 90 of the 222 parliamentary seats in the 13GE to dominate Pakatan Rakyat and appoint the Prime Minister.

Although DAP and Pakatan Rakyat leaders had yesterday itself denied and debunked the Utusan report as “utterly wild and baseless”, and I said in my media statement that although final seat allocations between Pakatan Rakyat parties have still to be fully completed, “DAP is not contemplating contesting more than 60 parliamentary seats or less than 28 per cent of the total 222 parliamentary seats”, Utusan Malaysia completely ignored these denials and today continued to publish reports and articles on the basis that its lies about “DAP to contest 90 seats” are true!

This is one example of “Return of Mahathirism Triumphant” at its worst and most irresponsible!

It will be interesting to find out how many Malaysians believe Mahathir or agree with him that “Mahathirism” died when Abdullah took over as Prime Minister.

Mahathir charged that Abdullah “changed UMNO, the BN and the Government so much that they no longer resemble the institutions I used to know” and he had to resign from UMNO.

Abdullah’s greatest tragedy is his failure to dismantle the Mahathirish architecture of racism, authoritarianism, corruption and cronyism to make the return of Mahathirism (as distinct from the return of Mahathir) an impossible agenda.

This is now among the issues that have to be resolved in the 13GE – for a new start in Malaysia that could put the Mahathirish past of abuses of power, corruption and cronyism completely behind the country, where Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class, region, gender or age could come together in a common national endeavour as on Bersih 3.0 on April 28 to build a united, harmonious, democratic, just, competitive, progressive and clean Malaysian nation.

PM: ISA scrapped as it gave no political benefit

The Malaysian Insider
By Lisa J. Ariffin

PUTRAJAYA, July 9 — The Internal Security Act (ISA) was repealed because it no longer provided a political edge to the government of the day, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today.

“We abolished ISA because it doesn’t help us politically. You don’t kill anyone politically by putting them in ISA,” Najib said today during the opening of a dialogue with public service personnel here.

“It only enhances them by putting them in ISA,” he added.

Najib stressed, however, that “all the (existing) ISA detainees’ positions still remain”.

The premier also said he had decided to remove the Emergency Ordinance (EO), which had allowed for indefinite detention without trial, as it has been rendered irrelevant by technology.

“Previously, when someone commits an offence, we would catch them and send them far away,” he said.

“Now, there is no use for that because when that person is away, he can use his cell phone to continue his work. That’s why we got rid of EO,” he added.

On September 15 last year, Najib had announced his plan to repeal the ISA and the three Emergency Declarations in his Malaysia Day address to the nation.

The ISA was originally drafted to address the communist insurgency of its day, but was later said to have been subverted into a tool for the government to stifle political dissent.

It developed notoriety when it was used during the 1987 political crackdown known as “Ops Lalang”, when over a hundred people — primarily opposition leaders and activists — were arrested under the law.

Following Najib’s announcement, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government admitted to having used the ISA in the past for “wrongful reasons” but urged their detractors to look forward instead of dwelling on history.

Najib came to power in April 2009 with the promise of reviewing the ISA but decided on doing away with the security law that critics say has been abused by Barisan Nasional (BN) for political purposes.

But his administration replaced the ISA with the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, which has since come under similar criticism.

31 hauled up outside Pahang MB’s office

Update: The group is expected to be charged tomorrow in court under the Peaceful Assembly Act for failing to notify the police of the gathering. (So much for transformasi!) About half a dozen lawyers are expected to be on the defence team.

Thirty one people from Cameron Highlands were detained outside the Pahang Mentri Besar’s office, where they had turned up to insist on an appointment.

They refused to leave when asked to disperse. 

The group is now being held at the Kuantan District Police Headquarters. The 31 comprises 13 men, 12 women and six children.

Their problems range from lack of even temporary titles to the land they have been toiling on, to worries over landslides to issues related to applications for stalls.

PSM sources claimed the Pahang MB had said he would visit the villagers in Cameron Highlands to try and resolve their problem. But after two months, the residents had not succeeded in getting an appointment with him.

So they decided to go to the MB and insist on an appointment.

Meanwhile Bukit Jalil estate workers are asking 4 acres for 41 families after staying for four generation in the estates. Prime Minister Najib has agreed to meet three of their representatives today.

At the meeting, the PM said he needed more time to study the issue. The workers said they hope he had the political will to resolve the issue.

Upanishads to fire Sunita Williams’ spiritual odyssey in space

The Indian American astronaut — who will spend six months in space from July 14 — is carrying with her an English translation of one of the most important Hindu scriptures.

AHMEDABAD: When Sunita Williams is thousands of miles above the earth taking a bird's eye view of the universe from her space shuttle window, she will try to understand universal truths of the Upanishads. The Indian American astronaut — who will spend six months in space from July 14 — is carrying with her an English translation of one of the most important Hindu scriptures.

Her father, Deepak Pandya, is hoping that the farther she goes from earth, the closer she will come to understanding her Indian roots. It was his idea that she carry a copy of the Upanishads with her.

"The last time she went into space, I had given her a copy of the Bhagavad Gita," Pandya told TOI. "She was full of questions when she came back. She wanted to know why it became necessary for Krishna to narrate the Gita, what were its eternal teachings, was it not possible to gain similar knowledge from other works, and many such questions. I feel that she will find some of the answers in the Upanishads."

Pandya, himself a Shiv bhakt, says that up in space his daughter will perhaps be able to better chart her spiritual journey with the Upanishads assisting her.

"All the same, we don't discuss space when she calls amid her preparations," Pandya adds. "We have normal father-daughter conversations."

The astronaut is all set to go into quarantine ahead of her second space odyssey after which it will become increasingly difficult for the family to stay in touch with her. Williams last worked aboard the International Space Station for six months in 2006. She will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two other astronauts, a Russian and a Japanese.

Violence, threats rise as Malaysia election nears

ANALYSIS A Malaysian ruling party politician suggests that an electoral reform activist should be hanged. Mock funeral rites are held outside the home of an opposition state leader. Eggs and rocks rain down on a political rally.

Malaysia is no stranger to political mud-slinging and scandal. But a ratcheting-up of inflammatory language and violence - much of it directed at the political opposition - has shocked even seasoned observers as the country heads for its most contentious and closest election by next April.

“I worry that the election will be the dirtiest. All indications also point to the most violent,” said Lim Guan Eng, the ethnic Chinese chief minister of Penang state and a leading figure in Malaysia’s opposition.

Members of Perkasa, a group that champions ethnic Malay rights and has links to the ruling party, placed a flower garland around a photo of Lim outside his home in May, a funeral ritual that his supporters said was akin to a death threat.

The rising political temperature coincides with signs that Malaysia’s ruling coalition, in power since independence in 1957, will struggle to improve on its poor electoral performance in 2008.

That showing, which deprived the Barisan Nasional coalition of a two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time, handed five state governments to the opposition and led to the ouster of then-prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

A source in the dominant United Malays National Organisation (Umno) told Reuters that recent internal polling showed the coalition faced an uphill battle to win back its two-thirds share and was even at risk of losing its simple majority.

The polls showed the coalition risked losing more states and faced a closer than expected race in southern Johor state - long an Umno bastion - due to waning support from ethnic Chinese.

“That will be a slap in the face. So this is why there is a delay in the elections,” said the senior Umno source.

Polls by the independent Merdeka Centre show that while Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak (right in photo) enjoys strong approval ratings around 65 percent, his coalition is much less popular - polling at around 48 percent.

Najib has put off calling the election, which must be held by next April, showing his apparent wavering confidence in improving on 2008's performance.

“Umno knows their hold on power is not a given,” said Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore. “Perhaps for the first time since 1969, there’s a chance change may actually happen so you would expect more desperate moves.”

The South-East Asian country was traumatised by race riots in 1969 following strong election gains by ethnic Chinese. The troubles gave birth to its current system of economic privileges for majority ethnic Malays over Chinese and Indian minorities.
   
‘Relentless’ hate speech

The opposition filed a police report against Umno lawmaker Mohamad Aziz after he asked in parliament last month whether leading electoral reform campaigner Ambiga Sreenevasan should be hanged for treason.

The lawmaker retracted his remark two days, but was not censored by the party leadership.

Ambiga (left in photo), a recipient of an International Woman of Courage award from the United States, says she has received death threats. She has hired a bodyguard and installed security cameras around her Kuala Lumpur home.

The ethnic Indian has faced calls for her Malaysian citizenship to be revoked and even been labelled the “anti-Christ” by the right-wing Perkasa group.

“The hate speech has been relentless,” said Ambiga.

“The leadership could have made a difference but they don’t bother. I’m very disappointed.”   

After Ambiga led thousands of protesters through Kuala Lumpur in April to demand electoral reforms, dozens of former soldiers and market traders camped outside her house to protest what they said was a loss of earnings from the demonstration.   

Some performed daily “exercises” that involved pointing their buttocks toward her house as they bent over.

Those close to Najib describe him as gentleman who has no taste for gutter politics. But the opposition says his failure to speak out more firmly against incidents of violence and intimidation has encouraged extremists.

After the “hanging” comment in parliament, he reminded coalition MPs not to make statements that hurt the feelings of other races or other component parties within the coalition.

Asked on Thursday about the allegations of political intimidation, Malaysia’s Home Minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, told reporters: “It is very real. This year we are living in a very politically charged climate.”

The opposition’s Lim, who spent 18 months from 1986 detained under the now-repealed Internal Security Act and another year in prison for sedition, said the policy had gone beyond “tacit
approval”.

“The acts are supported and condoned by Barisan Nasional,” said Lim, who has complained of several other acts of physical intimidation against him in recent months.

Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition’s leader who was jailed for six years on sodomy and graft charges he says were trumped-up, blamed Umno for an incident in February when a group of youths
threw stones at his car in Johor state.

His daughter, opposition MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, said a rally in her constituency in May was attacked by men throwing rocks, water bottles and eggs, resulting in several injuries. It was
one of several opposition rallies that have been disrupted, sometimes violently, in recent months.

It is unclear who was behind the attacks, but opposition leaders complain the police have failed to arrest perpetrators or quickly respond to the violence.

- Reuters

WHY SHOULD PATRIOTIC PEOPLE NOT TO TAKE ARMS TO CURB AND UPROOT ANTI-INDIAN TERROR FORCE FROM INDIA?

Resurgent Hindu Force and the End of Jihad in India.*

Dr. Babu Suseelan.

Love Jihad, Politico Jihad, Land Grabbing Jihad, Forest Jihad, Economic Jihad, Cyber Jihad and Terror Jihad are hallmarks of Islamists bent on destroying India from within and Without. Strange, our own Hindus are working as agents of Paki inspired Jihad against India from within. Swami Agnivesh and his cohorts are very active in anti Hindu, anti India and pro Jihadi works for few bread crumbs from Paki Agents. Magical Thinking of our political leaders like Nehru, Nitish Kumar, Man Mohan Singh, Sonia Manio and their irrational political belief system is hurting India and promoting our enemies.

It is interesting to study why patriotic Indians refuse to kick out our Jihadi terrorists from our midsts. Indian citizens (Hindus) are the only group in the world where they stand still and act like zombies and behave like addicts as mute spectators while Indian justic system and internal polices are turned into unwise compromise, irrational tolerance, corruption and three monkey syndrome. It can frustrate fairness and reality and truth. Healthy, normal people will not compromise with a burglar coming into our house with a knife to behead us and to steal all we have. Those who are concerned about our society, justice, fairness and human welfare will join together and fight against corruption, injustice and Jihadi terrorism. Our political leaders, media and certain Swamis are the culprits. Instead of arousing Hindus into active participants in keeping our culture and promoting freedom and implementing moral values, they are indoctrinating Our Hindus into zombies and willing participants in their own beheading, surrender and slavery. They are very active in supporting Jihadi terrorism, and active in chipping away at our collective and personal safety and their blow to our nationalism is disasterous. They are willing to walk around with a personal Jihadi tag around their neck. Fir the, forgiving Jihadi terrorists and Paki agents creating social crises is finding freedom.

For these anti National criminals, love for Jihadi terrorism is the most beautiful words, love your terrorist enemy is wonderful. Forgiving beheaders and Jihadi terrorists is love in action. Instead of supporting our army, border security forces, these anti Hindu criminal politicians have a vested interest in promoting Jihadi terrorism. These anti national, criminal politicians ar still promoting anti Hindu behavior and keep Hindus in slavery. How far Kashmir Hindus live in filthy refugee camps in their country?

What is the way out? We need to have a collective sense of Patriotism. A profund sense of an assertive and collective Hindutva will carry us forward in our strategy and actions in achieving social, political, and economic victory over the negative within us. There can be only one objective for us in the current scenario to reconstruct our lives on a Hindutva base enriched with Purusrath (godly spirit along with human might, i.e. Dharma, Arth, Kama & Moksha).

Moral police: Detain couple ‘for not carrying marriage deed’

" The families had not carried out the nikkah ceremony yet as the boy, 

Zafar, himself is a minor. Instead, the two were engaged to each other," A police official.

PASRUR: A case against five people who detained a couple, taking a hiatus on canal bank on their way back home in Pasrur, was dropped after the couple accepted their apology.

A statement Muhammad Waqas, a resident of Faqeerawali village, submitted with Pasrur Saddar police on Saturday said Muhammad Shahid, Najeebullah and Muhammad Hasan and their two other associates had apologised for their misconduct. Therefore, it said, the couple did not want to press charges against them.

The FIR against the five men was registered on Friday night for detaining Waqas and his wife at Shahid’s dera near Basiwala Pul for over four hours.

The complaint said that the men had demanded that the couple, resting by the canal bank on their way to Faqeerawali, produce their marriage deed.

They were taken to the dera for their failure to do so.

They were let go after they called a relative who brought their marriage deed.

The case was registered against them under Section 337 H-2 (Punishment for hurt by rash or negligent act) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Section 337 H-2

Whoever does any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of other, shall be punished with imprisonment of either-description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine, or with both.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8th, 2012.

Cops shoot sword-wielding duo outside PM’s office

KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 — Police opened fire on a sword-wielding duo outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya after the two began menacing security personnel with the weapons, The Star reported on its website today.

The man and woman were hit in the arm and leg, respectively, and were later taken to the Putrajaya Hospital.

Later identified as Khalil Afandi Hamid, the 47-year-old jobless man has since died of his injury.

The woman, reportedly a 28-year-old former International Islamic University student and mother-of-two, is in stable condition.

According to witnesses, the two approached the PM’s Office complex around 2.30pm while brandishing what were described as katanas, commonly called “samurai swords”.

They then began brandishing the katanas in a threatening manner and became increasingly aggressive.

A police team at a nearby location that responded to the couple’s presence then tried to pacify the duo but were later forced to draw their guns and open fire on the two.

“The armed man trained the sword at the neck of the policeman before the duo entered the premises and began slashing the windscreen of two cars belonging to employees of the Prime Minister's Department,” Putrajaya police chief ACP Abdul Razak Abdul Majid said in a press conference today.

“At that juncture, a member of the patrol unit fired three shots which hit Khalil Afandi's right hand and abdomen while the woman sustained a gunshot wound in the right leg,” he said.

Initial investigations revealed that Khalil Afandi, who is survived by a son, had professed to be “Imam Mahdi” — a prophesied “redeemer” whose appearance heralds the coming of Judgment Day.

Police are still gathering further details on the incident. The couple’s motives have also not been ascertained.

Retailers puncture Najib’s tyre aid

Taxi drivers claim that several tyre shops registered under the Bantuan Tayar 1Malaysia scheme hiked up tyre prices after the vouchers were released.

PETALING JAYA: Several tyre shops have increased tyre prices after the government announced the tyre voucher programme to help taxi drivers.

Some 15 taxi drivers from Petaling Jaya 7 (PJS7) made this allegation at a hastily arranged press conference this evening outside a tyre outlet at Bandar Sunway.

Last month, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced the Bantuan Tayar 1Malaysia (BT1M) programme in order to provide assistance to taxi drivers.

Under the programme, taxi drivers would get a voucher worth RM520 to change their car tyres at selected tyre retailers in the country.

D Ragothman, 37, said that a 13-inch Goodyear tyre would usually cost between RM120 and RM130, inclusive of workmanship.

“So even if the tyre is charged at the maximum price, the RM520 voucher is sufficient to purchase all four tyres needed for a taxi,” said Ragothman.

To his surprise, he alleged that the outlet at PJS7demanded an additional RM15 for each tyres.

“When I asked them why, they said that tyre prices had gone up,” claimed Ragothman.

Another taxi driver, P Devan, said that just two months ago, he changed two tyres for his vehicle for just RM110 per unit.

“Now I check with some the registered retailers, and they say the price for the same tyre has shot up to RM140. What is happening?” he asked.

Increase between RM15 and RM40

FMT checked a quotation, claimed to have been given by the outlet which showed the additional charges.

While a 13-inch tyre, normally used for a Proton Saga, is charged an additional RM15, a 14-inch tyre usually used for Proton Waja is charged an additional RM40.

Fellow taxi driver, Alias Hider, urged the government to take action against the errant tyre retailers for hiking prices indiscriminately.

“The prime minister is trying to help taxi drivers but errant retailers are throwing a spanner into his works,” said Alias.

Whether they have tried purchasing tyres from other retailers, Ragothman said that taxi drivers are only allowed to use the vouchers at specified outlets only.

“The outlet code number is indicated in the voucher so we can only go to the specific shop. We can’t even go to its other branches,” he said.

The outlet supervisor, William Soh, left the premises despite FMT’s attempt to get comments on the matter.

‘Some want more talk, others say enough’

The Indian business association wants a debate on Indian issues but the political parties say it would be an exercise in futility.

PETALING JAYA: Some Indians want more talk while others say enough is enough.That’s their take on the penchant to cross verbal swords among political parties.

The Malaysian Indian Business Association president P Sivakumar said there was a real need for debates on Indian issues.

He was referring to yesterday’s MCA-DAP debate, and he wants a debate between Pakatan Rakyat and MIC.

“Such debates will also allow other communities to understand the issues affecting the Indian community,” he said.

He added that such debates would allow Malaysian politics to mature as it would allow healthy exchange of ideas on both sides of the divide.

“As for MIC, they can use the platform to tell the public on programmes mooted by the government for the community and see whether it’s really benefiting the community or otherwise,” he said.

When asked if the Indian community should focus more on national issues such as corruption and abuse of power, Sivakumar dismissed it by saying the community’s issues run at a very basic level.

“Unlike the Chinese who are stronger economically and well-educated, Indians are struggling to even have basic housing. We need to address our socio-economic problems first before going into national issues,” said Sivakumar.

He said that he would love to see MIC president G Palanivel and Penang deputy chief minister P Ramasamy square off on a live debate.

“We can also have MIC secretary-general S Murugesan and Klang MP Charles Santiago on debate as both have vast knowledge on many economic issues,” said Sivakumar.

MIC: Pointless to debate

When contacted, Murugesan said it was pointless for MIC to engage Indian leaders from Pakatan at the moment.

He also said that while Pakatan may have Indian leaders in its component parties, he claimed that the leaders lacked any political clout within their parties to moot any policies for the Indian community.

“We are surprised that while some in Pakatan have called us to steer away from race-based politics, we are pulled into the same thing by pitching one leader against another purely based on his race,” he said.

In a joint statement, PKR vice president N Surendran also rejected calls for a debate with MIC leaders saying race based debates were an unhealthy reflection of the BN’s ‘divide and rule’ politics.

Pakatan: MIC is powerless

He also said that the problems faced by the Indian community were a national issue and debates on the matter must involve all relevant authorities.

“Besides, MIC is powerless and incapable of bringing positive change and development to the Indian community. Any debate with MIC leaders on the future of the Indian community is an exercise in futility,” he said.

The statement was also signed by Subang MP R Sivarasa, Kapar MP S Manickavasagam and Teluk Intan MP M Manogaran

In response, Surendran challenged any Umno ministers to come forward and hold a debate with Pakatan leaders on issues affecting the Indian community.

“This would allow all Malaysians an opportunity to evaluate both parties’ plans and commitment to resolve the problems of the Indian community.

“In view of the urgency and importance of the matter, we call for a response from Umno to our invitation for a public debate within the next 48 hours,” he said.

The right to our bodies

Only Pinki Pramanik has the right to decide what her gender identity is

It is indeed between law and medical science that this case will proceed. The question of "what she is" will supposedly be answered by a "gender test''. In it, Pinki's entire life lived as a woman - her sense of her own gender - will be discounted and reduced to measures of chromosomal and hormonal behaviour that measure biological sex on the assumption that it can be neatly categorised into "male" and "female".

Gautam Bhan, The Times of India

In a case where the "facts" are both complex and yet also the question at hand, let us start with one that should be undisputed: Pinki Pramanik says she is a woman. She has lived as one, competed as one, and identifies as one. She and no other person or institution - particularly the law or medical science - has the right to decide what her gender identity is regardless of her anatomy, her chromosomes or her hormones. As the investigations against her began, her claim to be a woman should have been accepted at face value regardless of whether narrow judgments of her appearance, manner, physicality or dress led some to believe otherwise.

The list of systematic violations of her rights by the police is a long one: being kept initially in a male prison; being handled and then sexually harassed by male police officers; the filming and then leaking of an alleged MMS of her in the hospital undergoing a gender test that, by many accounts, was forced on her as part of the conditions of her bail without an order from a magistrate. It is a welcome first step that the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, the Cyber Crimes Bureau and the Kolkata high court have deman-ded and initiated inquiries into these rights abuses.

Yet we must also stop and ask why these rights abuses occurred. Pinki's case is a marker of a more fundamental struggle that we as a society have with the body. We, as a society, allow bodies thought to be different or of lesser value (at times marked by sexual or gender difference but equally with caste or religion) to be publicly stripped, examined, probed, debated, para-ded, marked and judged. Examples abound: two finger tests to check the sexual character of a woman who has made a rape accusation; repeated cases of sexual assault of hijras with impunity in police custody; dalit women and men who are stripped naked and publicly paraded as punishment in cities and villages across India; or the bodies of young Muslim men suspected of "terror" that are fair game for police torture. These bodies hold no real right to dignity, safety and privacy. The initial question that the country asked of Pinki was not who she is but "what" she is - a public spectacle that reduced her to an object to be classified as per the needs of law.

It is indeed between law and medical science that this case will proceed. The question of "what she is" will supposedly be answered by a "gender test''. In it, Pinki's entire life lived as a woman - her sense of her own gender - will be discounted and reduced to measures of chromosomal and hormonal behaviour that measure biological sex on the assumption that it can be neatly categorised into "male" and "female". Yet even recent scientific writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association describes gender tests as "difficult, expensive, and potentially inaccurate". Hormones and genital development, the study argues, vary significantly within "women" and "men". The science itself, it is important to remember, is far from certain.

Yet from laws to social norms and our own internalised fears, we go to a great deal of effort to police and protect the boundaries that separate "male" and "female" even though the realities of our lives repeatedly show us that biological sex cannot so easilybe tabulated into XX and XY, hormones do not line up to be counted either in the pink or blue line, and biological men and women don't always choose to be either masculine or feminine as per "the rules". Many people are intersex, i.e. biologically both male and female. Even otherwise, our bio-logies can change through sex reassignment just like our hearts can be transplanted or mechanically run. Our understandings of our own gender identities can, as they do with transgender people, be independent of our biological sex. The question we must ask then is this: What kind of answer is Pinki allowed to give to the question of who she is? What ans-wer will we be willing to accept?

We have struggled to accept gender variance and fluidity in our society and it has left us with legal regimes and languages that often violently force all difference into categories we understand. The recent inclusion of "other" gender categories in many state documents is a small beginning that sees the state bend to actual complexities of gender.

We have much to learn from countries like Argentina where citizens can legally choose their gender identity regardless of their biological sex. What would our laws look like if we re-imagined them to reflect more fluid gender identities? Pinki's case reminds us of how far we must go and that, until we get there, it is those presumed "different" - and it is only a presumption since Pinki maintains that she is a woman and neither intersex nor transgendered - that are the most vulnerable.

Pinki faces serious accusations that must, let me say clearly, be fully investigated. Yet what must be on trial are her acts and not her person. In the procedural violations that have already occurred and the trial that she has already been put through, the process of a fair trial for both Pinki and her accuser are delegitimised.

There are critical lessons to be learnt here about due process, the presence of gender variant citizens and their rights, and the role of privacy and dignity to all. As her bail hearing approaches, let us remember the basic question of justice: if Pinki has indeed committed acts of violence, let her be tried for them. Until that moment, however, her right to be judged as an equal with her own understanding of her gender identity must be protected by the state and by all of us.

The writer is a sexuality rights activist.