Every day should be Human Rights day.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted in response to the atrocities of World War II but we have nonetheless seen these atrocities repeated time and again since then.
Everyday we read of various acts of inhumanity perpetrated by man upon man. Genocide is at one end of the scale. Along the scale are many other acts of torture and cruelty. Unfortunately many are state-sanctioned. The death penalty, whipping, detention without trial, the torture of prisoners.&anbsp; These are but some. And unfortunately they exist in Malaysia.
The ideal we seek and that we must seek is that every citizen in every nation enjoys all of the rights enshrined in the Declaration. The Declaration has been described as the moral compass of the world. Its value lies in the inspiration that it has provided to human rights movements around the world. That inspiration is what has brought us here in a timely debate on where we are today in terms of human rights.
Ultimately human rights are about respecting human dignity and valuing life.
Desmond Tutu said :-
“Despite all the ghastliness that is around, human beings are made for goodness. The ones who ought to be held in high regard are not the ones who are militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They are the one who have a commitment to try and make the world a better place.”
In Malaysia, we should understand human rights. In our aide memoire seeking candidature on the Human Rights Council in 2006, Malaysia spoke of her commitment to human rights. We said “Malaysia believes that the new Human Rights Council has an important role to play in the universal promotion and protection of human rights and in ensuring the effective enjoyment by all of all human rights. In order to achieve these lofty goals, the Human Rights Council needs to be made strong, fair, effective and efficient, and free of acrimony and undue politicisation. Our aide memoire goes on to describe SUHAKAM, our Human Rights Commission, although we failed to mention that the SUHAKAM report is never debated in Parliament. And then we pledged to work on the HRC to promote its objectives internationally. We were then voted in as a member of the Human Rights Council in May 2006.
One would be forgiven for thinking that with this, the approach of our leaders to such things as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression would have changed. You would have thought that the ISA would be repealed or seriously modified. That we would be too embarrassed to use the Sedition Act, to shut down debate on issues, to maintain the death penalty and other form of corporal punishment like whipping. That we would have rushed to resolve indigenous rights, rights of migrant workers and other refugees and to curb all abuses of power and corruption. Alas, we are not rushing to do any of this.
The 13th of December 2008 will mark one year since 4 members of the Bar namely P Uthayakumar, M. Manoharan, V. Ganabatirau, R. Kengadharan and one other K. Vasantha Kumar were arrested under the ISA for their purported involvement in a cause called Hindraf.
This year also saw the arrests of a blogger, a member of Parliament and a journalist under the ISA. They have since been released. Last week we heard of a further 13 or so people who have been released. We are pleased the Government has taken these steps and we commend their release but according to Suaram, there are approximately 46 left to be released. Not to mention the 2,000 or so who are presently held under other preventive detention laws.
Three days ago, another tragedy struck. You would have all read of the devastation at Bukit Antarabangsa. People were killed when a landslide destroyed their homes. Some describe this as a natural disaster. There is nothing natural about it. It was a direct result of the folly of men. Men who have failed to do all that they must to keep their fellow human beings safe. What has this got to do with human rights? Everything! Article 3 of the Declaration provides that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Protection of the environment is the protection of the human right to life. The Rio Declaration restates the need to keep our environment safe. Principle 4 states :-
“In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.”
I started by saying that everyday must be human rights day. You can see why I say that. There are human rights violations occurring on a daily basis around the world.
Our question in Malaysia is why there is such a disconnect between what the authorities do here and what we say internationally. Perhaps it is a question of being better informed. To this end, I call on each and every Member of Parliament to visit the place of detention where a person arrested under the ISA is held during their initial period of detention and observe their treatment. They should visit Kamunting, they should observe a whipping and an execution, look at our detention camps, see how we treat immigrants, go and see the orang asli and see how some of them live without potable water and electricity. This is just an initial list. I am sure we can all put together a more comprehensive one. Only then will there be a true appreciation of what human rights really means. Maybe then, just maybe, we will see real change.
Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan
President
Malaysian Bar
9 December 2008
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