The problem, however, they told me, is that I write in English while the readers who had made police reports against me do not understand English that well. So, because of their poor command of English, they have misunderstood what I had written and thought that I had insulted Islam.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
DAP chairman Karpal Singh was cleared of sedition today without his defence being called.
The Bukit Gelugor MP was charged with sedition last year for saying the Sultan of Perak could be taken to court over the removal of Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin as the mentri besar.
The High Court here found the prosecution had failed to prove it had a case against him.
In his decision today, judge Azman Abdullah noted that the news reporters, key witnesses and police involved did not understand English and the meaning of sedition. -- The Malaysian Insider
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No, today I am not going to write my usual long analysis or opinion piece about my trials and detentions. What I want to focus on today is the poor standard of English in Malaysia and how that resulted in me getting detained, arrested and charged many times.
I have, in fact, already written about this issue many times before. But maybe many thought that was merely my excuse in why I faced the wrong end of the law. Well, today, a judge acquitted Karpal Singh without his defence being called because, according to the judge, the news reporters, key witnesses and police involved did not understand English and the meaning of sedition.
And this is also what I faced.
During my Internal Security Act detention, the all-Malay seven-member interrogation team from the Special Branch went through all the articles I had written, one-by-one, to ‘prove’ to me that I had ‘insulted Islam’. My articles, of course, were all written in English.
I then re-read what I had written and translated each word into Bahasa Malaysia. I then asked them, based on the Bahasa Malaysia translation of what I had written, in what way had I insulted Islam. Only when I had translated my articles, word-by-word, into Bahasa Malaysia did these Special Branch officers understand what I had written.
This session took an entire day and at the end of the session they admitted that what I had written was actually not insulting to Islam at all. The problem, however, they told me, is that I write in English while the readers who had made police reports against me do not understand English that well. So, because of their poor command of English, they have misunderstood what I had written and thought that I had insulted Islam.
The solution to this, they told me, is that maybe I should write in Bahasa Malaysia instead of English.
I then asked them: do you mean I am being detained not because I had insulted Islam but because my Malay-educated readers do not understand English that well?
They just shrugged their shoulders and did not offer any response.
The same thing happened during my sedition trial. The police officer who had made a police report against me (yes, it was a police officer and not a member of the public who made a police report against me) was Superintendent Gan, the head of Interpol in Malaysia. You would expect that since he is head of Interpol then he would have en extremely high command of English.
In that police report which Superintendent Gan made, he marked seven paragraphs that he considered as 'seditious’. However, when my lawyer, Gobind Singh Deo, cross-examined him, it was revealed that he did not understand what I had written. He thought I had been seditious because he had interpreted what I had written according to his understanding of English. But when Gobind debated with him what I had written, Superintendent Gan could offer no reply. He was literally speechless.
On my Statutory Declaration, again, both the IGP and AG do not appear to understand English that well. If I had committed a crime of criminal defamation, as they say I had, then it would not have been against Rosmah Mansor but against the number two of the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence who I allege had told me what I had declared.
So, if they still want to charge me for criminal defamation, they should charge me for defaming the number two of the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence and not for defaming Rosmah. I had alleged that he had said all these things which I had stated in my Statutory Declaration. So it is him who I had defamed, if I truly had defamed anyone. I never defamed Rosmah. I defamed another person who I allege had said all these things about Rosmah.
Yes, since Malaysia’s education system was ‘reformed’, we have many people educated in Bahasa Malaysia who are pretending that they have a perfect command of English and are making fools of themselves. Dahlah bodoh, pura-pura pandai pulak. That, in Bahasa Malaysia, is called bodoh sombong!
Bangang!
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