Unesco recommendations also provide that higher education teaching staff should not be hindered as citizens.
FMT
KUALA LUMPUR: Padang Serai Member of Parliament, N. Surendran has warned Universiti Malaya that it cannot, by circular, take away a right enshrined in Article 10(1) of the Federal Constitution.
Unesco recommendations, he added, also provide that higher education teaching staff “should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens”.
“The circular must be withdrawn immediately, and academic freedom upheld and respected,” said Surendran who is also a member of the PKR Political Bureau. “We call upon the UM administration not to make a laughing stock of the university and of higher education in Malaysia.”
“This ban on staff organizing ‘political activities’ is unconstitutional and a serious threat to academic freedom. It is particularly shocking that UM as the premier university in the country has disregarded UN standards and guidelines.”
He was commenting on a Universiti Malaya circular dated 23 December 2014 banning staff from organizing “political activities”.
Higher education teaching and other staff are entitled to exercise their fundamental rights just like any other citizen, he added. “Article 10(1) of the Federal Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and association. Organizing or participating in political activities is thus protected as freedom of association.”
The ban, he charged, goes even further than the restrictive UUCA 1971 which, through amendments passed in 2012, “now allows students to carry out political activities outside campus”.
FMT
KUALA LUMPUR: Padang Serai Member of Parliament, N. Surendran has warned Universiti Malaya that it cannot, by circular, take away a right enshrined in Article 10(1) of the Federal Constitution.
Unesco recommendations, he added, also provide that higher education teaching staff “should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens”.
“The circular must be withdrawn immediately, and academic freedom upheld and respected,” said Surendran who is also a member of the PKR Political Bureau. “We call upon the UM administration not to make a laughing stock of the university and of higher education in Malaysia.”
“This ban on staff organizing ‘political activities’ is unconstitutional and a serious threat to academic freedom. It is particularly shocking that UM as the premier university in the country has disregarded UN standards and guidelines.”
He was commenting on a Universiti Malaya circular dated 23 December 2014 banning staff from organizing “political activities”.
Higher education teaching and other staff are entitled to exercise their fundamental rights just like any other citizen, he added. “Article 10(1) of the Federal Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and association. Organizing or participating in political activities is thus protected as freedom of association.”
The ban, he charged, goes even further than the restrictive UUCA 1971 which, through amendments passed in 2012, “now allows students to carry out political activities outside campus”.
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