(Malaysia Today) – Raja Azman Bin Raja Petra has been admitted into the Sungai Buloh hospital.

Initial reports say that he has swallowed or has been made to swallow razor blades.

Raja Azman was being held in solitary confinement ever since Malaysia Today came out with the story that he was beaten up by the police to make him confess to crimes he says he did not commit.

He was also made to spend a stint in the psychiatric ward after going berserk during one beating session he was subjected to.

The lawyers will try to seek permission to visit Raja Azman the soonest possible to establish what really happened.

Fuck 8 March 2008. Fuck the Federal Court. Fuck that one battle we just lost. Fuck the next few battles we are going to lose as well. Let’s go for the ‘Big One’. Let’s prepare for the next general election. And let’s prepare well, not shoddily like the last time.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Speech by Tunku Zain Al-’Abidin Muhriz With Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as Guest of HonoUr and 4 generations of Bapak Malaysia's family

Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman

“Every Malaysian should be reminded of what he had to go through to get the independence which they now enjoy.”[1]

“Democracy must not exist in the mind only, but in substance, reality and in fact.”[2]

“Malaysia must continue as a secular State with Islam as the official religion.”[3]

Ladies and gentlemen:

These are not the words of a snarky activist.

 These are not the words of an irresponsible user of Twitter.

 These are not the words of a troublemaking blogger.

 No, ladies and gentlemen:

These are the words of a prince born in Istana Pelamin in Alor Setar on this day in 1903.

These are the words of a leader who defended democracy in our country like no other leader before or since.

These are the words of a Muslim who served as the first Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

These are the words of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj.

A man whose legacy we celebrate here today as we launch the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.

We have chosen this day and this venue because ever since our inception as the Malaysia Think Tank London in 2006, we have time and time again turned to him for inspiration when events in our homeland seemed to have taken a turn in the wrong direction: a direction away from the nation he proclaimed as one founded upon the principles of liberty and justice.

And yet, if I were alive in the fifties, I might not have supported the Tunku.  I would likely have voted for Dato’ Onn Jaafar’s multiracial Independence of Malaya Party (IMP) or its successor, Parti Negara.  But Tunku was a pragmatic man who understood that historical events had in time divided communities in Malaya by geography, ethnicity and language and that these divisions mattered.  Yet, in his speech upon taking office as President of UMNO, Tunku said: “We will not forget the other people for the part they have played for the prosperity of Malaya.  The others will know that we are not so selfish or greedy as to disregard them or their interests.  We have lived for 200 years with others, and we have lived at peace with them all.  There has never been any clash between the races in Malaya.”[4]  It is clear that Tunku was a proponent of Malay unity, but it was unity in conjunction with Malayan and Malaysian unity.  Today, so many who champion “Malay unity” do so in opposition to perceived threats, for the purpose of intimidating others or for Machiavellian politics.  I fear that this important distinction has been lost as the term has bandied about by those with divisive agenda.

Some in the older generation often reminisce that those were freer times when people judged each other less, and when unity had a more authentic meaning.  A few months ago I had the opportunity to view archive video footage and photographs for a book I was producing in conjunction with another historical event.  What struck me was how ordinary Malayans of all races seemed perfectly at ease socialising, celebrating and mourning with one another.  Of course, there are those who disagree that those were halcyon days, arguing that images of that time captured only the habits of the elite, and that 13 May 1969 proved that the appearance of multiracial cooperation was an illusion; a false veneer on a troubled country.

Today those troubles are attributed to underlying racial friction, but Tunku had a more nuanced view, taking into account underhanded political tactics and the desperation of the communists.  But now it’s almost as if that narrative have been cast aside for the sake of justifying certain policies.

Well, I wasn’t around in the fifties, but I was around in the aspiring times of the 80s and 90s, and I remember the plethora of slogans employed to cajole the population into productivity and optimism:

Cekap, Bersih, Amanah

Kepimpinan Melalui Teladan

Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang

Mesra, Cepat, Betul

Work With Me, Not For Me

Saya Anti-Rasuah

And now of course we have:

1 Malaysia: People First, Performance Now

To my mind these are all mere reaffirmations of what was an articulate vision for the country from the moment Tunku read out the Proclamation of Independence.  Despite these slogans, the standing of our institutions has withered.  Tunku could never have imagined there to be such cynicism and distrust.

And this is the reason why we are today launching IDEAS: to analyse and debate the ways to rejuvenate and reinvigorate the corridors of power – corridors which for the most part have been occupied by the successors of the party that Tunku once led: the United Malays National Organisation.

I was in Istana Besar in Johor Bahru a couple of weeks ago, and I had a look at the steps where the famous picture of the delegates of the Third Malay Congress in 1946 was taken.  It was also where, sixty years later, Almarhum Sultan Iskandar famously reunited Pak Lah and Dr M at the sixtieth anniversary of UMNO.  Today the party continues to evolve in response to the changing landscapes, but competition amongst Malay politicians is nothing new.  UMNO itself had to contend with Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) before it and Parti Negara, PAS, Semangat 46 and PKR after it.  The big question now is whether the results of the 8 March 2008 general elections are indicative of a new era where party preference is determined not by its ethnic tag, but its actual policy ideas.  Those manifestoes might actually be being read.

But it is worth reiterating that although we are passionately interested in public policy issues, IDEAS is not a political party.  There is so much cynicism about people entering politics these days: it’s about making money and dishing out contracts, and you will get judged and never be safe from smear campaigns.  I’d say that for the most part, seeking political office in Malaysia today is for the suicidal or the deranged – although I can assure you that the MPs and Senators present here today form the sane minority.  No, what IDEAS seeks to continue doing in its new guise is to strengthen those in all the political parties or none who believe in the fundamental precepts of Tunku’s vision.  Sadly, events have shown that there are a few who don’t.  At the crux of our programme is a belief that the challenges of Malaysia can be overcome through the fresh application of the Tunku’s principles, and ideally from a leader as charismatic as the Tunku himself.

And his charisma was perhaps most evident in how he dealt with extremists within his own party.  When ultras within UMNO wanted to burn down the Lake Club for being too “white”, Tunku decided to become the Club’s President instead.  Today there are those who want to burn down places of worship, and here Tunku’s words are visionary.  On the fiftieth anniversary of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, he sent a note of congratulations saying: “All men of goodwill and peace must fight against poverty… I know that St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is doing all it can to spread the message among Malaysians in all corners of this country and I have no doubt it will succeed. May I wish the church in the coming years all success and the blessing of God.”[5]  And when he officially opened a seminar of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism, he said: “One day I hope that a Muslim religious body might join in, as the object of this organisation is very good and farsighted… it is the duty of each and everyone of us, living in this country, to ensure peace for all time.”[6]

These messages are genuine and authentic.  Tunku did not wait for churches to be attacked before approaching them to offer his support.  And Tunku did not celebrate religious festivals for the mere sake of courting votes.  Indeed, later on in the tour of the memorial you will see pictures of Tunku celebrating personal and official events, large and small, with diverse cross-sections of society from before he entered politics right up to his final days.

One of those pictures is him celebrating his 86th Birthday with Tengku Razaleigh and Lim Kit Siang.  We have here today representatives from six political parties.  It is testament to his enduring ability to unite.  While many other so-called national heroes achieved independence through deliberately violent means, Tunku did his best to attain it through negotiation and constitutional means.

He was largely successful, but of course he had to contend with communist terrorists intent on destroying the new nation.  On this, Tunku mused: “How many people in this country subscribe to the communist doctrine and ideology?  We have seen that many countries are suffering from communist tyranny… The three main races that had built up Malaya... felt confident that they were able to run this country themselves, and they have chosen a way of life which is most acceptable and congenial to them, a way of life that they like best.  It’s called democracy.”[7]

And it was precisely this adherence to parliamentary democracy within a federal context that encouraged Sabah and Sarawak to help form the new federation of Malaysia.  Again, there were objections, and again, Tunku was prepared to fight for the democratic federation.  On Malaysia Day Tunku proudly declared “people of many races in all the States of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah now join hands in freedom and unity. We do so because we know that we have come together through our own free will and desire in the true spirit of brotherhood and love of freedom.”[8]

That word – freedom – is one so rarely used by politicians today, but Tunku used it again and again.  Even his personal crest which you can see downstairs features the word “dibebaskan”.  It is, I suggest, because the word has disappeared from our political vocabulary that we have taken it for granted, and enabled numerous intrusions into our lives which would not have been tolerated in the atmosphere of Merdeka.  In Tunku’s time there 13 Cabinet Ministers; today there are 30.  This increase in the size of government has been accompanied by a casual authoritarianism, and it is in such times that we find ourselves asking again and again what the Tunku would have said.

What would the founder of the Muslim Welfare Organisation – PERKIM – have said about the use of the word “Allah”?

What would the founder of a traditional Malay dance troupe – the Penari Diraja – have said about the deliberate eradication of Malay culture by self-proclaimed puritans?

What would the architect of the Federation of Malaysia spanning the South China Sea have said about the condition of federal-state relations?

What would the first protem Chairman of the National Human Rights Society – HAKAM – have said about the continual use of the Internal Security Act?

As Sharyn suggested, he would be blogging about these issues with a courage and consistency unseen today, and he would certainly be talking about freedom.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We are extremely privileged to have the support of three generations of Tunku’s descendants. Sharyn, your presentation highlighted the personal charisma and honesty of Tunku – qualities which are lacking in so many leaders today; qualities which enabled Tunku to win over so many sceptics and opponents.

52 years ago your great-grandfather raised his hand to the heavens to proclaim our Merdeka, with the support, approval and concurrence of my great-grandfather and his brother Rulers.

Your Tok Tam recalled that 30 years after he and my Nyang served on the committee of the Malay Association of Great Britain, they shared a podium as first Prime Minister and first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of independent Malaya.  Both were great believers in parliamentary democracy, and Tunku once summarised the role of the monarchy thus: “For us Malaysians, the throne has been looked upon as a guarantee of our freedom.  Freedom to worship, freedom to socialise and freedom to practice our political rights.”[9]

And your Tok Tam also mentioned my Nyang Wan, Tunku Puan Besar Kurshiah, as one of the ladies who “showered him with money and jewellery” for the London mission to negotiate Merdeka.  Those were miserly times, brought to painful reality by the writings of Tan Sri Mubin Sheppard and lately, the drawings of Mr E. Yu. 

But thankfully, he was able to retain some luxurious tastes from his time in England, and I’m pleased to say that after the tour, we will be tucking into some roast beef and Yorkshire pudding – one of his favourite dishes which he himself cooked.

But before that, I would like to thank all those who made today’s event possible.

Firstly, my two colleagues Wan Saiful and Wan Firdaus – we have gone a long way since our meeting in that dank room in 2006.

Secondly, the advisors, fellows, staff, associates and interns who have helped us to get where we are today.

Thirdly, the generous donors without whom none of the above could have carried out their work.

Fourthly, the director of the National Archives Dato’ Haji Sidek , and all the staff of Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman, for allowing us to use this fine venue.

Fifthly, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah – the man whom Tunku entrusted to continue the legacy of the Spirit of 1946 – for agreeing to speak today.  Tunku once observed: “Tengku Razaleigh is another member of the royal family who had been derided as an unwanted Tunku.  But if one remembers his work in Kelantan, one cannot help but admire him for what he did for UMNO… Whether a person is a Tunku, a Syed or a Wan, he is the son of this country.  His rank or title should not be used to belittle his efforts in the service of the country.”[10]

And finally, I would like to thank the family of Almarhum Tunku for gracing this event today.  He described himself as “the happiest Prime Minister in the world leading the happiest people in the world,” and I hope that today is a happy occasion of remembrance and celebration.  He was a prince I am proud to call: Ayahanda Merdeka.

Thank you for your attention.

[1] ‘The Struggle for Independence’ in Lest We Forget, pg. 33

[2] ‘We Must Uphold Democracy’ in Challenging Times, pg. 83

[3] The Star, 9 February 1983

[4] ‘The Search for a New Leader’ in Political Awakening, pg. 31

[5] St Andrew’s Presbytarian Church

[6] ‘Peace for All Time’ in Challenging Times, pg. 128

[7] ‘The Talks with Chin Peng’ in Political Awakening, pg. 63

[8] Tunku Abdul Rahman’s speech on Malaysia Day, 16 September 1963

[9] ‘Silver Jubilee of the Kedah Sultan’ in Challenging Times, pg. 10

[10] ‘Tunku or Commoner, it makes no Difference’ in Something to Remember, pgs. 33-5

Wong Choon Mei, Harakah Daily    

Two enormous cases – both widely followed locally and overseas – shared center stage on Wednesday, and both reflected the sorry state that Malaysia has degenerated into following the ascension of Prime Minister Najib Razak into the country's top job last April.

One involves Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and the other the deposed Mentri Besar of Perak Nizar Jamaluddin. Pushed to the brink by the roughshod tactics of Najib’s Umno-BN coalition, both leaders had turned to the courts for 'justice'.

In the administrative capital of Putrajaya, the Federal Court shamed itself and the country with a decision that Malaysians had expected, but had still dared to hope against hope that their judiciary was not so bad after all. Surely when the crunch came, their judges would stand up for them. But it was not to be.

“It is a black day for justice in Malaysia,” DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang twittered back, announcing a 5-0 decision against the popular Nizar.

“We were already told, ‘don’t even dream Nizar can win this case, look at the people involved’. But although they may have won Perak, they have lost Malaysia,” Hanipa Maidin, PAS’s legal advisor, told Harakahdaily.

If this can happen to Nizar, what hopes for Anwar

Tens of thousands had watched the nail-biting proceedings at the Federal Court live on the Internet, where a five-man bench unanimously upheld a much challenged Appellate Court decision and declared Umno leader Zambry Kadir the rightful chief minister of Perak.

On the same morning, in the Kuala Lumpur High Court, a once-bitten-twice-shy Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was taking no chances. Justice had been hijacked by trial judges during his first sodomy case in 1998, and now in 2010, he wants to pre-empt the same sort of kangaroo court and bias by disqualifying the presiding judge.

According to a member of his legal team, the sodomy trial has been adjourned to Wednesday because the prosecution objected to Anwar’s request. "Because of this, we need to file an affidavit to support our application,” the lawyer told Harakahdaily.

"Frankly, by now the people are demoralised by all the judicial shenanigans. There will be a big backlash against Umno and Najib in particular," Dr Syed Azman, head of PAS's international bureau, told Harakahdaily. 

"In their minds, people are thinking if the Federal Court can do this to Nizar in full view of the whole country and the world, what more Anwar as he is the No. 1 threat to Najib. For Umno-BN to maintain their political hegemony, Anwar must be taken down one way or another. This is what has become of Malaysia and how far we have fallen."

Najib's diabolical plot

But while Anwar can still soldier on, the curtains may have come down on Nizar, his Pakatan Rakyat compatriort who had sued Zambry for illegally usurping his position following an effort by Najib and the Sultan of Perak that culminated in his ouster.

A year ago, Najib's diabolical plot toppled Nizar’s state government, allowing the PM to install Zambry, the Pangkor MP, as the new Mentri Besar.

Nizar's team led by Philip Koh had argued that both the country and the state’s constitution do not allow a Ruler to sack the chief minister, without the backing of a no-confidence vote taken by other lawmakers in the state assembly.

“The implication from the Federal Court’s decision is that Rulers can sack an MB without reference to the House and forces outside the House can influence the Ruler to decide who should be the MB or even the Prime Minister’s job itself,” said lawyer Edmund Bon.

“How can this be right if it means one day a leader can wake up and find himself no longer the MB or PM after his rival meets up with the Ruler in the Palace?”

Nizar urges supporters to stay calm

But Malaysia’s apex court is unfazed by the hail of public criticism. Even Nizar knew he was facing an uphill battle and had requested for the maximum 11-man bench. 

But despite the importance of the case to Perak, the country’s second largest state with a population of more than 2 million, his request was flatly rejected in what observers had warned was a harbinger of the bad news to come.

Indeed, a poll conducted last week to size up the feelings of Perakians a year after the unpopular coup d’etat showed that 74 percent of the people have not forgiven Najib and still want fresh polls.

Meanwhile, Nizar and other Perak Pakatan leaders have has called for calm. They have the same number of 28 seats as the Umno-BN in the 59-seat state assembly. However, three Independents – whose statuses are still being questioned in the courts – have pledged allegiance to Umno-BN.

More than 2,000 supporters, who thronged the court, this morning took the news of Nizar's defeat badly. Shouting “Zambry pengecut” (Zambry coward), “Tipu” (cheating) and “Rasuah” (Corruption), they urged Umno to do the right thing and allow the people of Perak to choose their own leaders.

“We now challenge Zambry to dissolve the state assembly,” said Hanipa. “He should not hide behind Najib. If he is as popular as he insists, if the people want his government to stay in power as he claims, then call for snap elections. Let the people decide.” 

Tun Salleh mendedahkan perkara ini sewaktu diwawancara Harakah, bagi menjelaskan kemelut isu royalti petroliam yang membabitkan tuntutan Kelantan terhadap Kerajaan Pusat dewasa ini. 

"Petronas pula telah melakukan pecah amanah terhadap perjanjian dengan kerajaan negeri Terengganu kerana tidak membayar royalti atau bayaran tunai seperti mana yang termaktub dalam perjanjian dengan Terengganu," tegas beliau.

Beliau menegaskan, bayaran tunai (cash payment) di bawah Akta Pembangunan Petroliam 1974 adalah bayaran yang ‘wajib’ dibuat oleh Petronas walau atas nama apa sekali pun, Royalti, Wang Ihsan atau Dana Khas.

"Wang tersebut tetap kepunyaan kerajaan negeri Terengganu kerana ia wajib dibayar di bawah Akta tersebut," tambah beliau yang juga bekas exco Terengganu sewaktu PAS memerintah Terengganu.

READ MORE HERE 

Sambil mendedahkan surat perjanjian Petronas itu kepada media, Tengku Razaleigh tetap mempertahankan bahawa hanya ada satu perjanjian sahaja dan Petronas seharusnya mengikut syarat perjanjian itu iaitu memberi royalti kepada kerajaan negeri Kelantan.

Bekas menteri kewangan dan pengasas Petronas itu berkata,  “kita ada perjanjian, kita ada undang-undang.  Jadi kita kena ikut undang-undang yang terpakai.  Kita tidak boleh ikut selera kita sahaja, undang-undang ini Parlimen yang luluskan.”

“Bukan perkara ini kita ambil tepi jalan, perjanjian ini Petronas dengan kerajaan negeri yang mewakili rakyat.  Bukan perkara kecil. Tidak boleh hendak main-mainkan,” tegas beliau.

Beliau juga menegaskan bahawa Umno berhak untuk memecat beliau jika berhasrat untuk berbuat demikian berhubung pendiriannya dalam isu pertikaian Kelantan untuk mendapatkan royalti minyak.

READ MORE HERE 

In the meantime, his party is beset by infighting in several state assemblies, particularly Penang and Selangor, with a growing number of restive lawmakers threatening to leave the opposition coalition and return to the Barisan. Three have been brought before a disciplinary committee of the opposition coalition seeking answers to questions over their use of personal expense accounts.

Asia Sentinel

Any indication that Malaysia's courts were becoming independent of the government disappeared from view again Tuesday when the five-member Federal Court ruled that United Malays National Organization stalwart Zambry Abdul Kadir is the rightful chief minister of the state of Perak, the country's second biggest and one of its richest.

The state has been caught a constitutional crisis since May of 2009, with the government paralyzed by the controversy over who was actually in charge. Perak had been controlled by the national opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat as a result of the March 2008 national election, with Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as chief minister. However, then-Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak engineered the defection of three lawmakers, bringing the government to a halt in a 28-28 tie. Upon their defection, Sultan Raja Azlan Shah immediately ordered Nizar to vacate his position and installed Zambry in his place.

That kicked off a melee in which 65 people were arrested. Ahead of Tuesday's decision, Rais yatim, the the Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, was quoted by the state-owned national wire service Bernama as calling on the people to be calm. 

"We should respect the decision irrespective of whether it favors A or B. We are confident in our judicial system and in the way the law is administered," Bernama quoted him as saying.

Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Abdul Aziz Rahim ruled on May 11 that the sultan lacked the authority to remove Nizar without a vote of confidence in the statehouse, only to have the appellate court put his decision in abeyance a few hours later. The case – and the Perak state government – have been stalled as the Federal Court, the country's highest, took up the decision in November and has chewed on it ever since.

The ruling, led by Court of Appeal president Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, was built on the premise that the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national coalition, controls 31 votes in the Perak statehouse although no vote has ever been taken, and while the three defectors are said to be leaning towards the Barisan, they have given no official indication that they would cross the aisle. The Election Commission refused a letter proclaiming the realignment of their loyalty, setting the stage for the constitutional crisis.

When Nizar refused to go, instead of waiting for Judge Abdul Aziz's original ruling, elite federal Field Reserve Unit police invaded the Ipoh statehouse on May 7 to drag opposition Speaker V. Sivakumar out of the chambers amid flying furniture and protests that resulted in the arrest of 65 people. As far as can be determined, it is the first time in Malaysian history that federal police had ever entered a legislature.

The ruling appears unlikely to end the continuing political uncertainty in either Perak or the government. Political analysts in Kuala Lumpur say the logical solution to the stalemate – a state popular by-election to determine the makeup of the statehouse – is unlikely because Najib and the Barisan do not believe they could win it.

The state, long a tin mining center, has an extremely large Chinese and Indian population and the Chinese have largely abandoned the Barisan because of the collapse into scandal of the Malaysian Chinese Association, which is embroiled in infighting over the disappearance of billions of dollars in the attempt to turn Port Klang, 60 km. west of Kuala Lumpur, into a multimodal port.

The Barisan instead appears to be counting on time to bring the voters, particularly disaffected ethnic Malays who have abandoned UMNO for the fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia and Anwar Ibrahim's Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People's Justice Party, because of a long series of scandals and outright crimes.

However, Anwar is on trial in Kuala Lumpur in what has been widely billed as Sodomy 2, on charges of sodomizing a former aide in a trial that to everybody but the government itself appears to be built on dubious allegations that were laid to derail the first realistic challenge to the ruling national coalition since the country was formed.

In the meantime, his party is beset by infighting in several state assemblies, particularly Penang and Selangor, with a growing number of restive lawmakers threatening to leave the opposition coalition and return to the Barisan. Three have been brought before a disciplinary committee of the opposition coalition seeking answers to questions over their use of personal expense accounts.

The coalition that Anwar cobbled together has been an unlikely one from the start, with the Islamic, largely rural and fundamentalist PAS on one side and the ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party on the other, with Anwar's moderate, urban Malays in the middle. Zulkifli Nordin, a member of Anwar's Parti Keadilan Rakyat, was quoted publicly earlier this week as predicting mass resignations over the next two to three weeks over tensions with the DAP and PKR's difficulty in dealing with them.

"The problem was that Anwar rounded up a bunch of incompetents to run in 2008, and disillusionment was so great with UMNO that a lot of people got voted into office who should never have been voted into office," said a businessman in Kuala Lumpur. The opposition coalition, he said, has thus never been able to capitalize on its gains by actually paying attention to governing. At the same time, the opposition has been harried by Najib's use of law enforcement powers including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and others to bring opposition lawmakers in on charges that many observers believe are superfluous.

Nonetheless, the court's decision appears certain to reinforce popular opinion that Malaysia's judiciary is thoroughly in the pockets of UMNO. That isn't helped by the case against Anwar, who is charged with having consensual sex with the former aide, a charge that is extremely rare in Malaysia and especially Kuala Lumpur, where gay bars abound and homosexuality isn't particularly condemned despite the fact that it is nominally against the law. An examination of the evidence against him in similar charges in 1998 leads to the overwhelming conclusion that it was concocted to derail his political career.

The case has been put on temporary hold as Anwar's lead counsel, Karpal Singh, seeks to disqualify the presiding judge, Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah.

This effectively means Pakatan Rakyat has lost in their appeal to reinstate Nizar as Perak MB.

The five-man panel of judges comprised Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria and Justices Datuk Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin, Datuk Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff, and Datuk Abdull Hamid Embong.

The judgement is still being read out in court.

Nizar, 53, had challenged Zambry's appointment and won at the High Court, which noted that there was a loophole in the Perak Constitution to allow for another to be sworn in as mentri besar (MB) when the incumbent had not resigned.

In his decision on May 9 last year, High Court judge Abdul Aziz Rahim ruled that the Sultan was not constitutionally empowered to sack the MB, and that Nizar had always been the lawful head of the state government.

The judge added that the only way for the MB to be dismissed when he refused to resign was through a vote of no-confidence by his peers inside the state legislative assembly.

But the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal later that month. The appeals court said the High Court judge's reading of the law was wrong and the latter had confused the issue of how the MB had lost the majority confidence with whether the ruler had the power to dismiss the head of government.

Nizar who is the PAS assemblyman for Pasir Panjang was chosen to head the state executive council (exco) after his Islamist party won the groundbreaking March 2008 general elections and formed an alliance with two other federal opposition groups, the secular DAP and popular pro-reform party PKR.

He was ousted 11 months later when four Pakatan Rakyat (PR) assemblymen left the fledgling alliance to swear loyalty to BN.

Bota assemblyman Datuk Nasharuddin Hashim who had earlier crossed from Umno to PKR, rejoined his old party. The assemblymen for Behrang, Jamaluddin Mohd. Radzi; Changkat Jering Osman Jailu; and Jelapang, Hee Yit Foong declared themselves as Independents friendly to the BN.

Their defections meant PR only had the support of 28 representatives in the 59-seat state assembly while the BN had 28 members plus the support of the three Independents.

The Election Commission refused to accept the three resignation letters forwarded by the pro-PR state assembly speaker which would have barred the votes of Jamaluddin, Osman and Hee from being counted.

Nizar was granted an audience with the Sultan of Perak but failed to convince the ruler to dissolve the assembly and pave the way for state-wide elections, ending what he saw as a political impasse.

Instead, the Perak sultan ordered him to resign and subsequently appointed Zambry as Nizar's replacement.

http://themalaysianinsider.com/

Malaysians have matured, in a way. Only the civil servants and those employed and caressed to obedience by the ruling regime have not fully matured in terms of civil libertarianism. Understandably one cannot bite the hands that feed, as the iron hands will pound violently once bitten.

A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE

Azly Rahman 

AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW! 

Among the claims that Bala made in his statutory declaration was that Altantuya told him several things about her relationship with Abdul Razak, including meeting him with (then deputy minister) Najib Abdul Razak in Singapore. She later met them at a dinner in Paris.

S D Idid, Malaysian Mirror

When private investigator P Balasubramaniam made his statutory declaration in connection with the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder, he mentioned ‘a man in a blue Proton Saga.’

The police claimed the man was just another resident in the Damansara Heights neighbourhood who happened to be driving pass the home of defence analyst Abdul Razak Baginda at that time, which was a day before Altantuya was reported missing on Oct 19, 2006.

Fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, however, has alleged that the ‘mystery man’ was none other than Nasir Safar, the special advisor to the Prime Minister who recently caused a storm with his offensive remarks about the early Indian and Chinese  immigrants who left their home shores to come to work and settle in Malaysia.

“Nasir  has been asked to resign for calling the early Indian immigrants beggars and the Chinese prostitutes. But that is not the icing on the cake.

“The icing on the cake is that Nasir was the man mentioned in item 30 of PI Bala’s statutory declaration,” Raja Petra said in his column, The Corridors of Power in the Malaysia Today news portal.

The paragraph concerned reads:

“Azilah asked me whether the woman was Aminah and I said ‘Yes’. He then walked off and made a few calls on his handphone. After 10 minutes another vehicle, a blue Proton Saga, driven by a Malay man, passed by slowly. The driver’s window had been wound down and the driver was looking at us.”

'Aminah' was Altantuya

To recap, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri was one of the two policemen who were tried for the murder of Altantuya, a Mongolian woman who allegedly had an affair with Abdul Razak, a defence analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre.

The other cop was Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar.

‘Aminah’ was a name used by Altantuya when she came to Malaysia to look for Abdul Razak, allegedly to demand her commission for assisting in a submarine deal in Paris. The sum she had reportedly asked for was US$500,000.

Among the claims that Bala made in his statutory declaration was that Altantuya told him several things about her relationship with Abdul Razak, including meeting him with (then deputy minister) Najib Abdul Razak in Singapore. She later met them at a dinner in Paris.

Bala claimed that the Mongolian woman also told him she was promised US$500,000 as commission for assisting in the submarine deal.

She allegedly told Bala about a house that Abdul Razak bought for her and about her mother who was sick and needed money for treatment.

She had allegedly also told the private investigator that she and Abdul Razak had married in Korea.

Bala further claimed: “After talking to Aminah for about 15 minutes, a red Proton Aeroback arrived with a woman and two men.

“I now know the woman to be L/Cpl Rohaniza and the men, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azahar. They were all in plain clothes. Azilah walked towards me while the other two stayed in the car.

“ Azilah asked me whether the woman was Aminah and I said ‘Yes’. He then walked off and made a few calls on his handphone. After 10 minutes another vehicle, a blue Proton Saga, driven by a Malay man, passed by slowly. The driver’s window had been wound down and the driver was looking at us.

“ Azilah then informed me they would be taking Aminah away. I informed Aminah they were arresting her. The other two persons then got out of the red Proton and exchanged seats so that L/Cpl Rohaniza and Aminah were in the back while the two men were in the front. They drove off and that is the last I ever saw of Aminah.”

'Yes, that man was Nasir'

Raja Petra is convinced the man driving the blue car was Nasir.

“Yes, that man in the blue Proton Saga was Nasir Safar.

“But the police, who took Bala’s statement, denied it and said that it was a resident from that area and not Nasir.

“How did the police know this immediately without any further investigation and without taking Nasir’s statement?

“Now, why would the Prime Minister’s special officer be at the scene of the crime? Was it to see for himself that Altantuya is arrested and quickly disposed off?” he asked.

“Yes, the plot thickens. First it was Najib’s ADC, Musa Safri. Then it was Rosmah’s ADC, Norhayati Hassan, and her husband, Abdul Aziz Buyong.

“And now we have Nasir Safar, who drove past Razak Baginda’s house very slowly, possibly to ensure that Altantuya, who was making a nuisance of herself, is picked up.”

Raja Petra asked: “Would Najib like to challenge us on this?

“He can if he so wishes. Then, Bala’s lawyer can arrange for the witness to testify to the MACC (Malaysian AntiCorruption Commission) in London, as what they (Bala and lawyer) offered to d.

She worked as a translator

According to testimony in the trial of Abdul Razak, the murdered woman accompanied him to Paris at a time when Malaysia's Defence ministry was negotiating through a Malaysian company to buy two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government under a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris.

Altantuya had reportedly worked as Abdul Razak’s translator when he was brokering for the Malaysian government

She went missing on Oct 19, 2006 and a report was lodged by her cousin,who also sought help from the Mongolian embassy in Bangkok.

The Malaysian police found fragments of bone, later verified as Altantuya’s, in forested land near the Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam.

Police investigation of her remains revealed that she was shot twice before C-4 explosives were used on her remains, although there has been later suggestion that the C-4 explosives may have killed her.

When her remains were found their identity could only be confirmed with DNA testing. The provenance of the C-4 remains unclear.

On Oct 31, 2008 the High Court acquitted Abdul Razak of abetment in the murder of Altantuya, with the prosecution saying they would appeal the acquittal.

However the Attorney General's office had decided not to file an appeal against Razak’s acquittal.

Verdict after 159-day trial

On 14 Sept, 2009 Altantuya's father, Dr Shaariibuu Setev, withdrew his bid to force the A-G to appeal against Abdul Razak’s acquittal, after being advised that it would be a long, costly and difficult affair.

Wrapping up the 159-day trial on April 9, 2009, High Court Judge Zaki Yasin ruled that Azilah and Sirul  both guilty of murdering Altantuya and sentenced them to death.

In a  statutory declaration in his sedition trial in June 2008, Raja Petra accused the PM’s wife, Rosmah Mansor of being one of three individuals who were present at the crime scene when Altantuya was murdered.

The two others allegedly present were her aide-de-camp Norhayati Hassan and her husband, Col Aziz Buyong.

Both the husband and wife are suing Raja Petra for defamation. His current whereabouts is unknown but he is believed to be abroad. 

(Free Malaysia Today) - Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (picture), Umno’s most vocal dissident,  yesterday fired some of his most devastating salvos in recent weeks, at one point using the word “deranged” to describe the country’s leadership.

According to The Malaysian Insider, he appeared to have singled out Umno and former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad for the loss of democracy in Malaysia and thus the betrayal of what Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Malaysia’s founding prime minister, stood for.

IDEAS is dedicated to the memory of the Tunku and its mission is to promote liberty and justice.

Razaleigh said Malaysia had been “left it to the deranged for too long. To expect change from the incumbents is to expect, in the Malay saying, the mice to repair the gourd, bagai tikus baiki labu.”

Tunku Abdul Rahman, he said, “brought together a Malaysia … ‘through our own free will and desire in the true spirit of brotherhood and love of freedom,’ in a union arrived at ‘by mutual consent by debate and discussion … through friendly argument and compromise,’ and ‘in the spirit of co-operation and concord.’

“That basis has been replaced by something alien to it. His memory has been suppressed, and our history revised.”

READ MORE HERE 

READ MORE HERE 

READ THE CHINESE TRANSLATION HERE

Bernama

While observers on both sides of the political divide are eagerly awaiting the verdict on who is the legitimate Menteri Besar of Perak tomorrow, the question remains whether both sides will accept the decision and put to rest the issue.

Perak has been caught in a political limbo, with Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir and Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin both claiming to be the rightful menteri besar.

Political analysts are of the opinion that, regardless of the decision, the ongoing tussle between the current state government under Barisan Nasional (BN) and the PAS-DAP-PKR coalition known as Pakatan rakyat (PR) will still drag on, at least until the next polls.

“If Zambry is declared as the rightful MB, somehow PR would continue to be dissatisfied. It would question the judiciary’s independence while at the same time harp on BN as being a temporary government,” said political analyst Dr Sivamurugan Pandian.

But if Nizar was declared as the legitimate menteri besar, he said the PAS politician may seek a fresh mandate but this would depend whether the state assembly could be dissolved or not.

The decision by the Federal Court is unlikely to satisfy everyone. If the decision is not in favour of Nizar, the Opposition will continue to question the legality of the BN state government.

“If Zambry wins, he has about two years to prove that his government is a legitimate government. Will the Opposition accept that in the next state sitting or will they continue to create chaos? Perak will continue to be in an uncertain situation unless both sides compromise after the court decision,”  said Dr Sivamurugan, adding that both parties needed to understand that there was no need to prolong the dilemma.

“If Zambry wins, he might consider to reconcile. If Nizar loses, can he accept the legitimate state government until the next election?” asked Dr Siva. According to findings released by the Merdeka Centre, an opinion research firm, last Friday, the first anniversary of the BN ruling Perak after the 2008 general election, 46 per cent of those polled backed Nizar while Zambry trailed closely with 44 per cent.

Nizar had a significant edge over Zambry when it came to the Chinese community (59 per cent for Nizar vs 16 per cent for Zambry) but Zambry led the race when it came to Malay support, securing 67 per cent as opposed to Nizar’s 35 per cent.

Perak state executive council member Dr Mah Hang Soon said BN realised that support from the people was still very much divided.

“But things are improving for us, the people are not as hostile as before. We believe that if we can continue to work hard and prove our economic plan, they will support us. The only thing is that we got to work hard, move forward and show that we can be a better government,” he said.

For the Opposition, it still regards the ultimate solution for the impasse is through a fresh poll.

“Nothing will change unless there is a fresh poll. I don’t see there is any other way out. Whatever the outcome of the court decision, it will not change public sentiment,” said DAP strategist and MP for Bukit Bendera, Liew Chin Tong.  

READ MORE HERE 

By LIM SUE GOAN/ Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/ Sin Chew Daily

History is irony. After the 2008 general elections, opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had kept mentioning about the 916 regime change and today, it is said that PKR elected representatives are going to switch party, allowing BN to regain its two-thirds majority.

There are a variety of factors that causes the current difficulties of PKR and Pakatan Rakyat. But the main two factors are, management failure and media hype.

Anwar has been over believing in his personal charisma. He is laisser-faire and always sweep problems under the carpet. Such a poor leadership style has eventually caused him, PKR and Pakatan Rakyat a price to pay.

Before facing the second sodomy allegation, Anwar had enough of time to do something to the party's discipline and organisation. He has no talent in leading. He allowed one after another political rebel to succeed and he said that actions would be taken on them, but nothing have been done so far.

There must be a reason for Anwar to not taking actions on trouble makers in the party. And now, he has to be in court everyday, how would he still have time to curb discipline problems? He can only leave it.

The second factor is, Pakatan Rakyat is facing an overwhelming pressure of public opinion. After political rebels have attacked Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Pakatan Rakyat leaders, the mainstream media have taken the opportunity to extensively cover the news and even a little man who quitted party had become a cover page story.

Over 100 demonstrators burned Lim's effigy at Komtar to protest against the demolition of illegal hawker stalls on 5 Feb. It has become an issue used by BN leaders to attack the Penang government.

It seems to be a crisis for Pakatan Rakyat, PKR and Anwar. Even if there is a by-election for Perak, will BN win for sure? Malaysia Today news editor Raja Petra Kamarudin predicted that eight MPs will hop to BN, together with the support of Pasir Mas MP Datuk Ibrahim Ali, there is an opportunity for BN to regain the two-thirds majority (148 seats). By then, BN may redraw constituency according to its political needs.

The political situation seems to be very favourable to BN, but it is not necessarily so. Take the 8 March general elections as an example, Pakatan Rakyat was not yet been formed at that time and there were still a lot of contradictions between DAP and PAS. But voters voted based on their sentiments. Hunger breeds discontent and the public will be lack of confidence as long as the economy is not yet recovered.

There must be investments in order to revive economy. Too many of political games and racial issues will cause them to lose the people's confidence and capital even faster. It will also be impossible to revive economy.

In addition, in order to build credibility, BN must curb corruption, improve public delivery system efficiency and reduce crimes.

Secondly, excessive political battles may bring negative effects, including the people's sympathy for Pakatan Rakyat may lead to a rebound when the space is overly compressed, just like the tight control on campus elections has caused some university students to demonstrate and protest.

Instead of playing up issues involving Pakatan Rakyat leaders and state governments, it would be better to focus on revitalising economy and improving executive ability. Voters will sure support them when everyone is happy, isn't it? BN leaders must get a clear understanding of the fact.

There must be a foresighted thinking in order to have new prospects for politics. How are they going to transform as they keep fighting with each other within a small frame? 

Your mission, ASP Suresh, if you decide to accept it, will be to try and locate private investigator Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal somewhere in Chennai, India, whereby you will attempt to silence him by whatever means necessary. If you are captured or detected, the government of Malaysia will deny having any arrangements with you. This DVD will self-destruct in ten seconds.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

READ THE CHINESE TRANSLATION HERE

This was written as a commentary in response to an article by Datuk Shagul Hamid Abdullah, Director-General of Biro Tatanegara that recently appeared in a national daily. 

Since the paper has declined to publish it, we are making the commentary available to other media outlets in the hope that it will be widely read and the subject of the racial composition of the Malaysian civil service is given the serious analysis and policy attention that it deserves. We consider this issue of paramount importance to our future as a united country.  

The article ‘Emphasis on raising standards’ by Shagul in The Star (Jan 30, 2010) seems to be aimed at ensuring that the situation of Malay dominance in the civil service should remain unchanged and unchallenged.

The Director-General’s analysis fails to point out some very important reasons why a representative and multi-racial civil service should remain a key national priority, especially in the context of building 1Malaysia.

One crucial reason is that the second prong of the New Economic Policy (from 1970) – the reduction in the identification of economic function with ethnicity – was intended to apply to both the private and public sectors. This second prong has been deemed to be so vital to the cause of national unity that the restructuring of the private sector continues until today (nearly 20 years after the NEP was supposed to have ended in 1990).

What has happened to the restructuring of the civil service that was part of the original NEP?

Although great strides have taken place towards a more multiracial private sector, the reverse has happened in the civil service.

According to available statistics for the year 2005, the proportion of Malays in the civil service had grown from 60% to 77% from 1970 to 2005 whilst the Perkhidmatan Tadbir dan Diplomatik (PTD) had 85% Malays in its staffing, or six Malays for one every non-Malay.

The situation of Malay dominance of the civil service, especially for the higher level service groups, is likely to have been enhanced since.

It is not simply the issue of Chinese under-representation mentioned by the DG that is of concern. Representation of other communities and the East Malaysia native communities in the civil service at all levels is of as much concern.

Data absent

Official statistics such as racial and regional breakdown of civil service staffing by ministries, agencies and departments and categorized according to top management group, management and professional group and support group and other key variables can provide us a better understanding of the representational issue. From it we can draw related racial, regional and other ramifications and implications.

Though easy to collate, analyze and make publicly available, these data are conspicuously unavailable.

Many government leaders have acknowledged that we need more transparency in government to raise public confidence. Should these data and the relevant analysis be made publicly available, we are confident that they will agree with the concerns of many Malaysians that current Malay over-dominance of the civil service is unhealthy and undesirable and that it adversely affects national unity, social cohesion and economic competitiveness.

Another important reason why the civil service in Malaysia needs to be made fully representative of the country’s racial make-up is that in all modern governments, civil servants are fully engaged in formulating and implementing public policies on behalf of, and in the interests of, all the communities.

Democratic norms call for a representative, impartial and neutral bureaucracy, not only to ensure that public policies are responsive to the legitimate needs of all citizens in a fair and equitable fashion but also to ensure that there is an absence of racial bias in the individual or collective manner that the civil servants formulate policies and conduct their work. 

In February 2006, a study titled “Towards a representative and world class civil service” was presented to the Government as part of the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) proposals for the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

The study contained a full set of arguments as to why the civil service needs to pursue an appropriate and racially diverse representation policy in its staffing. 

It also provided practical suggestions on how this policy could be implemented in the form of a quota system in recruitment and career advancement. The quota system would be similar to the quota systems long used by the government in sectors such as education and commerce to bring about Malay advancement.

The civil service quota system – in this case specifically used as a temporary affirmative action tool to increase non-Malay numbers and reduce marginalization – could be formulated in such a way as to meet with the constitutional provisions providing for the special position of the Malays and bumiputera groups of Sabah and Sarawak.

This 60-40 recruitment system would be relatively easy and painless to implement. It would ensure Malay dominance but not over-dominance by helping bring a gradual increase in the number and proportion of non-Malay civil servants in the country.

Since that CPPS study aforementioned, the growing number of racial profiling allegations aimed at the police and various other ministries and agencies is a clear danger sign that changes in recruitment of new staffing and racial composition at the higher levels are urgently needed if these allegations are not to spiral out of control.

Sidelining non-Malays

The Director-General has emphasized that “there has never been any deliberate and conscious effort to discourage the non-Malays from entering and staying in public service”. 

The veracity of this statement can be questioned. 

If a full and open inquiry is held on the issue of whether or not bias exists in terms of recruitment and promotion in the civil service (and this includes staffing in the public universities and many strategic ministries and agencies), we are sure that many conflicting views – including those based on personal experience – are likely to dominate the proceedings.

Even if we accept as largely true the statement that there are no “deliberate and conscious” attempts to discourage non-Malay participation in the civil service, it does not absolve the government from its responsibility of ensuring a fully representative civil service – a national objective which it has long pledged to pursue but has cynically ignored instead. 

In fact, if only a miniscule fraction of the public resources that has gone into the restructuring of the private sector had been allocated towards the restructuring of the civil service, we would have long ago achieved that goal and arrived at a higher stage of national unity, resilience and competitiveness.

Instead what we have had is a lot of rhetoric, foot dragging, attempts to ‘blame the other side’, and now another garbled attempt at explaining why the status quo in terms of the civil service composition has to remain the same.  

That is why the contrasting statement by the Second Minister of Finance, Ahmad Husni Mohd Hanadzlah, that the civil service should be more multiracial is most welcome.

In order to fulfill this noble aspiration, we hope that Husni and his colleagues in the Barisan Nasional will support the introduction of a quota system reflective of the country’s racial composition and for the system to be introduced as soon as possible for all civil service recruitment and promotion.

It is important for the Government to change its mindset on the issue and not to view the issue of a representative civil service in zero-sum game terms. It is not simply the interests of the non-Malay communities presently under-represented that would be enhanced with more equitable representation. Malay interests would also benefit in many ways.

Implementation of reforms providing for the recruitment and career advancement of non-Malays in the civil service will help ensure that national unity and the goal of 1Malaysia will be more quickly realized.  

Dr Lim Teck Ghee is Director, Center for Policy Initiatives and Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam is former President, Transparency International Malaysia.  

Fed up with the constant allegations hurled against him on sidelining Malays in Penang by various parties, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has vowed not to "play anymore games" with his detractors.

Some Personal Reflections by Boon Kia Meng 

Anniversaries, for better or worse, count for something. They are a part of the human habit of ritualizing and inscribing significant events or experiences into our personal or collective memories. February 6th is no different. On its surface, it is just any other day in the calendar. But due to a series of traumatic and undemocratic turn of events, my home state of Perak was transformed into a pariah state overnight, exactly about a year ago.

I used to be so proud, to be a son of ‘Paloh’, a peaceful, ‘horizontal’ city (due to Ipoh’s lack of high-rise buildings), surrounded by calming, green lime-stone hills and clean air. I used to be proud of the various public institutions, connected to the Kinta Valley’s unique history and culture of public service (remembering the legendary Seenivasagam brothers and how the municipality made Ipoh the cleanest town in the entire country, not to mention, having an ex-Lord President of the Malaysian Judiciary as our Sultan). In spite of Ipoh and Perak’s idyllic and beautiful exterior, morally, my home state is in shambles. The multi-racial social fabric of the state has been torn apart, as evidenced by the latest Merdeka Centre poll, where the races are deeply polarized due to the political imbroglio which has festered for close to a year. It is telling that the Perak constitutional crisis of 2009 did not remain a local issue, in spite of the machinations of the powers-that-be in passing it off, not only as legitimate, but having the cheek to frame the power grab as one where the current Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Dr. Zambry Abd Kadir’s administration is abiding by the legal process, and that what matters to him and his cohorts, is that they are serving the people of Perak well with an agenda of development and order.

What is missing in this great metanarrative of ‘peace and development’ lauded by Datuk Seri Zambry and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak (as the gargantuan billboards depicting the smiling faces of our two leaders welcoming every resident or visitor to the city of Ipoh, symbolizes)? For a start, buried underneath this grand narrative spun by the Barisan Nasional state government, lie countless stories of lives affected and transformed by the power grab of February 6th 2009. Mine is just a small paragraph in the dramatic chapters of ordinary, law-abiding Perakians, moved into action by historical events bigger than ourselves.

I remember, a year ago, I was still working for an international organization based in Kuala Lumpur, when I heard about the impending collapse of the state government, led by Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin. On the day the then Menteri Besar was sacked by the Sultan of Perak, I rushed back to Ipoh after work, with a colleague of mine. We drove directly to the Menteri Besar’s Official Residence and were a part of thousands of Perakians showing support and solidarity with Datuk Seri Nizar. We couldn’t quite understand why his request for the dissolution of the State Assembly was denied or that there was no vote-of-confidence taken as a matter of proper procedure in installing a new state government, if indeed the Barisan Nasional has the majority.

That night I saw a spontaneous reaction of the Perak public, Malays, Chinese and Indians, from all walks of life, coming together, coalescing as a symbolic expression of the people’s sovereignty, in the best sense of the term. For ordinary people like us, all we wanted was justice and our democratic rights respected by the powers-that-be. I felt robbed of the vote that we, the majority of all Perakians, had cast on March 8th 2008. The state government that I elected was now destroyed through a series of events that involved possible corruption and the workings of undemocratic forces.

I was distraught, and angry. I suppose, on hindsight, there may be a silver lining or two, for those who have eyes to see. But at that time, to be honest, I could not believe such a shameful and people-disrespecting act could happen in my beloved state of Perak. In short, I became depressed, and this depression would become progressively worse as democracy in Perak suffered further blows, democracy’s face pummeled to a pulp, such as the illegal obstruction of State Assemblypersons from carrying out their lawful duties on March 3rd, forcing them to hold their sitting under the infamous Tree of Democracy. A few months later, events reached its nadir on May 7th, when the Honourable Speaker of the Perak State Assembly was physically man-handled, assaulted and dragged along the floor by a group of un-identified personnel. Outside the Perak SUK, countless arrests of ordinary people, mostly clad in black, by the police, turned the city of Ipoh into a siege-like battleground.

What on earth is happening to my beloved hometown? Why has law-enforcement degenerated into selective propping-up of an undemocratic regime, albeit via a bloodless coup? On a side-note, I remember coming into close contact with a young man, while running away from the wanton arrests by charging policemen. We were rushing up the stairs to take refuge in the upper floor of an office lot. I have recognized his face before, even though it was just the temporary sharing of a shelter for a matter of hours. In the days to come, this young man’s fate would be deeply embroiled with the moral fabric and soul of our nation. His name is Teoh Beng Hock. I will always remember that his life story is much bigger than his tragic death at Plaza Masalam. Teoh Beng Hock, though hailing from Melaka, was a Malaysian who cared for democracy’s fate in Perak and was in solidarity with us when it mattered most.

The sorry state of affairs is coming to a head this Tuesday, when the Federal Court decides on the case of the two Menteri Besars. A year on, much has happened in our country, but the mood remains one of gloom. I find myself in conversations with friends, trying to amuse ourselves by making predictions about whether the Federal Court will find the case in favour of Datuk Seri Zambry (a Nizar victory unimaginable in our amateur minds) or not, taking ‘bets’ (rest assured, no money is involved here) on the judicial score being 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2, akin to football score punditry. It is a sad reflection of the level of confidence we have in our judiciary when the public thinks that the result is a foregone conclusion. Good, sound, independent judicial decisions should be the ordinary expectation of all Malaysians, but we are made to beg and pray for them when crucial constitutional matters are adjudicated, the present case notwithstanding. So, what are some of the hard lessons we can take from the Perak constitutional crisis, in the midst of the doom and gloom? I would like to offer three such examples.

1)    The inherent fragility of legal constitutions and the unmasking of political war and violence – We all know that for any constitutional arrangement to work at all, this assumes an a priori commitment from all parties to abide by procedural fairness and the reaching of consensus based on democratic deliberation. What has happened in Perak exposed a fundamental reality behind all the legal wrangling and abstract hypocritical references to notions of ‘the rule of law’, ‘separation of powers’, ‘due process’ and what not. That reality is power, the kind of political power that trumps rights and procedural fairness, in spite of all pretensions to abide by the ‘legal process’.

Might has indeed become right in my home state of Perak. It is no wonder that the controversial Nazi Germany law professor, Carl Schmitt, has argued that where power and politics of state is concerned, the notion of ‘the friend’ and ‘the enemy’ is fundamental. One group sees the other as fundamentally a threat to its own interests and survival, and this necessitates an all-out war to vanquish and destroy the other (please read here, UMNO-BN vs Pakatan Rakyat). There is no room for negotiation, compromise or consensus, which all liberal-democratic systems aspire to.

What is particularly illuminating in the Perak constitutional crisis is that this dimension of hidden warfare is now unmasked for all Malaysians to see. Can one deny the brutal exhibition of power and violence when one sees the helpless figure of the legally elected Speaker Sivakumar being graphically tossed out from the august assembly by unidentified individuals who have not been charged till this day?  As far as they’re concerned, Sivakumar is ‘the enemy’ and must be eliminated. (I am not making any assertions that only UMNO-BN functions in this way, as Pakatan Rakyat is capable of the same, if left uncriticised). On hindsight, one should not be surprised when political scientist, Wong Chin Huat, argued that the death of Teoh Beng Hock constitutes the very first political death in our recent history. Perak and his death are both manifestations of the triumph of brute power over laws and constitutions.

2)   The desperate need for ‘Empathy’ in our public culture – In spite of the full blown antagonistic nature of the political realm, which is exposed for all to see in Perak, Schmitt’s argument does not have to be inevitable in Malaysia. We are not and cannot become another Third Reich. We have to begin from a common human condition that accepts and acknowledges our differences, be it racial, religious or political. What we so desperately need in this defining moment of our common history, is for all citizens, and that includes our leaders and politicians, to start exercising one of our God-given abilities, the power of empathy.

We are all suffering from an empathy deficit, the inability or a moral refusal to try to see things from the other person’s perspective, to be in his or her shoes, so to speak. What do I have in common with my Muslim friends? What are the fears of my Christian friends? What does real economic opportunity look like for the Malay, the Indian, the Dayak, the Iban, the Chinese, and all those systematically excluded from the democratic process?  This is the moral dimension that is not captured by fiscal and economic deficits, and we are all the more impoverished by it. The recent poll shows that nearly three in four of all Perakians want to elect a state government of their free choice and consent. Can and will their aspirations be addressed and looked into, no matter what the court decides on Tuesday?

3)   The liberating power of Iconic Symbols for Democracy – The final lesson, or silver lining, I could see or learn from this debacle is that the Perak crisis gave birth to two powerful symbols of democracy. The Tree and the Speaker. One must never underestimate the liberating power of symbols and icons in mobilizing and unleashing forces of democratization around the world. We all remember the Tank Man, who on that bloody day of June 4th 1989, caused the entire world to hush in silence, where for 5 minutes, it felt like time had stood eternally still, when he, armed with just a shopping bag, out of defiance of the unstoppable, crushing military might of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, stood his ground and immobilized an entire line of armoured tanks trying to enter the city of Beijing, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre.

And so in Perak, the year is 2009. The images of the Tree of Democracy, and then the Speaker, Sivakumar, being dragged out, humiliated by an arbitrary display of violence by unaccountable police power. He is our very own Tank Man, reminiscent of that lone, solitary individual, who withstood the might of the Chinese regime. Just as how it was etched in the collective psyche of all freedom and democracy-loving citizens of the world, the physical overpowering of Sivakumar must never be forgotten in the annals of a People’s History of Malaysia, to be written by ordinary Malaysian citizens. These events help form the narrative of the historic struggle between the ‘have-nots’ against the injustices and oppression of the ‘haves’ in maintaining the status quo of elite interests and crony-capitalism.

After all is said and done, after all the emotional roller-coaster that the Perak crisis has put her citizens through, am I still proud of being a Perakian, a son of Ipoh? Perhaps our lives, as with all human history, is necessarily mired in ambiguities and tensions. “You can love your country and be angry at its actions”, a dictum epitomized by the life mission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If this is the truest and wisest expression of wisdom for patriotism, then I’m angry at all that has happened…and yet I dearly love and am proud of my hometown and state.

A year has indeed past. Amidst all the setbacks and the sadness, a sliver of hope remains. I guess, nobody said that democratic change is easy. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people, does not come on a silver platter. We in Perak have to learn it the hard way. But our hope and dream for a People’s Government in Perak shall never die, regardless of Tuesday’s Federal Court judgment.

The Author hails from Ipoh and he is a reader of the Malaysian Insider. He is the Parliamentary Affairs and Research Officer for the Democratic Action Party of Malaysia. These are his personal reflections of the Perak crisis as an ordinary citizen and do not represent the views of his party.

The trial, which Anwar says is a plot to end his political career, began last week with graphic testimony from 24-year-old former aide Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan who accuses Anwar of sodomising him.

Defence lawyers objected Friday when Utusan Malaysia, a Malay-language daily linked to the government, ran photographs of the court's closed-door visit to the upscale apartment where the sexual encounter allegedly took place.

Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah refused a request to admonish the daily over the photograph, as well as an earlier headline that said "Not willing to be sodomised again" which the defence said suggested they had sex more than once.

Anwar, who was jailed on separate sodomy and corruption charges a decade ago in a case widely seen as politically motivated, said in a statement to the High court there was a "real danger of bias" on the part of the judge.

"The local media has condemned me as they did in 1998 without (giving me a) chance to listen to my reply," the 62-year-old opposition leader told reporters. "Clearly it's a political trial."

The judge adjourned the trial until Tuesday when he will hear the application to remove him from the proceedings.

However, the defence has lost several earlier legal manoeuvres including a bid to strike out the case, and to force the prosecution to release evidence including medical reports and closed-circuit TV footage.

"We feel there is an element of bias," defence counsel Sankara Nair told reporters.

"My client is upset about it," he added. "The judge doesn't protect the client so how are we going to run a trial that is going to be fair and free?"

Anwar has said that the charges, which carry a penalty of 20 years imprisonment, are an attempt to end his political career and neutralise the threat he poses to the Barisan Nasional coalition government.

A married father-of-six, he was sacked as deputy prime minister in 1998 amid a power struggle with then-premier Mahathir Mohamad and spent six years in jail before the sex conviction was overturned.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah called Malaysia a democracy which only existed in name only, and said that reforms could not be expected from the incumbents in power, in an apparent attack against Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN).

“To modify Tunku’s words, we now have a democracy existing in name, but grievously compromised in substance, reality and fact,” Tengku Razaleigh said today when launching Ideas, a new think-tank set up to promote democratic ideals, at the Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial today.

Razaleigh appeared to also single out Umno and former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his remarks about the current political situation, and for the attacks against democratic institutions and the judiciary.

He said original founding ideals laid down by Malaysia’s first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman had been warped.

“We have left it to the deranged for too long ...To expect change from the incumbents is to expect, in the Malay saying, the mice to repair the gourd…‘Bagai tikus baiki labu.’ ”

READ MORE HERE: http://themalaysianinsider.com/ 

“We cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others--even when we cause it.” James Carroll

I want to write today about a friend of mine - Anwar Ibrahim. About what he is going through now. About what personal pain he must be feeling in spite of the brave front that he puts for us all to see. About what he is going through as a father and husband. He is again living the nightmare he went through a decade ago. A nightmare that ended only after years of incarceration when he was pronounced innocent of sodomy. But that did not spare him the pain, the embarrassment and the humiliation of going through that first sodomy trial. Mahathir and Mahathir alone perpetuated that suffering. Mahathir is no longer Prime Minister. However God has not given Mahathir the grace to accept that he is no longer Prime Minister. Why God has not done so is for God to know. So maybe Mahathir really is to be pitied rather then reviled. We do know that God did not make UMNO leaders very bright either but even HE outdid HIMSELF when HE threw Najib Tun Razak into our midst.

In UMNO relentless search for power and great wealth we have been privy to many a scenario. The colossal road show pitting Mahathir against the Sultans. The sacking of Tun Salleh Abbas. The very public confirmation by UMNO’s own President of money politics  - invoking damnation and hell to those who practice it – a classic instance of the pot calling the kettle black! And a lot of good that did to UMNO! Huh!

We had to suffer the embarrassment of Mahathir babbling away teary eyed on stage for all to see because he knew  that it was time for him to go. Even he could no longer do anything about money politics in UMNO – so better to leave then be in the predicament that Najib and UMNO are now facing! Say what you like about Mahathir but in hindsight did he not engineer his exit at precisely the right moment? Give credit where credit is due I say!

And now Najib. I am not going to ask him how he sleeps at night after Altantuya. After pushing out Pak Lah. After Teoh Beng Hock. After Kugan. After PKFZ, after the death of the three innocent schoolgirls over the suspension bridge tragedy, even about his own sordid sexual past…..because in the privacy of your house doctors can give you medications - uppers or downers to manage your mental and physical state and still give you a good night sleep. So he sleeps ok at night. I am not going to ask him how he will face his maker when his time comes because hopefully for him, that is still a long way off and he still thinks that there will be time to wash his sins away.

But this I will ask of him. As a Father to Riza Shahriz,  Nooryana Najwa and Norashman how does he deal with his children’s queries about these things that are happening around them. Najib’s children are adults and educated enough to read, digest and think for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Their education, the best that money can buy, should enable them to make their own conclusion as to what Uncle Razak Baginda has done. If they can condone the Ringgit $500 million as commission for “services rendered” to our Nation that Najib has given to Razak’s – what about Razak’s Baginda’s keeping of Alatantuya as his mistress? What about her murder? What about the SMS that Najib send to Razak? What about the involvement of UTK in the murder? What about Bala’s statutory declaration about Najib’s connection with Altantuya? If anything I would like to believe that their education would give them the ability to conclude for themselves what is right and what is wrong. And I would also like to believe that they are educated enough to understand that the swearing by Najib on the Koran that he is innocent of Altantuya’s murder does not, and I repeat, does not, makes their father innocent of that crime. That, as any educated person understands, is for the court to decide.

So Najib, I ask you – have you sat down with Riza Shahriz,  Nooryana Najwa,  and Norashman to explain your part in the whole matter? Or have your family been conditioned to accept that in politics the ends justifies the means? And that is your excuse to them for hounding Anwar through the courts in the sodomy two trial. Your excuse for this disgraceful and shameful act of bringing another Father to disrepute and embarrassment in front of his children? You  know that Anwar is a father. A father with six children. He too, like you, will have need to explain to his children what is happening around them.

But then Anwar’s children know of their Father's commitment to help others less fortunate then him even before he joined UMNO. They have seen their Father imprisoned under ISA before he became the anointed successor to Mahathir. Then from being Deputy Prime Minister they have seen their Father taken away from them, from the sanctuary of their home by balaclava clad armed men and then hounded through a corrupt Judiciary by Mahathir for sodomy. Jailed and then finally vindicated. They have seen their father bashed black and blue by the Inspector General of Police. They have seen their father in Prison again – for a much longer period this time. And while he was in prison they grew up. They have seen their father come back from prison to become leader of the opposition. They have seen more than what any father would want their children to see of themselves in life and yet there is more.

Now Sodomy two. Najib do you think Anwar has to explain anything to them in as far as sodomy two is concern? Or are Anwar’s children already resolute and firm in their belief in the innocence of their Father and prepared for anything that you and your cohorts will throw at him – at them? And I am not even going to start about Azizah. Don’t anybody doubt Azizah’s ability to shoulder more then her share of bringing up that family and defending Anwar!

So again back to your family Najib. How do you deal with Riza Shahriz,  Nooryana Najwa and Norashman? The ends justifies the means? Huh! As for Rosmah I can only quote Bill Cosby who said “Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge”. Camna?  

The Australian

What’s happening with Malaysia? The country has long been viewed in Australia as not only an especially friendly Southeast Asian neighbour — the “recalcitrant” Mahathir Mohammad excepted, though he’s been retired six years — but also a model of middle-class success and tolerance in that region.

Today, however, the country is having a hard time holding things together, in the face of religious and ethnic divides, political battles, and economic challenges.

Michael Danby, who chairs Australia’s foreign affairs subcommittee, told parliament last Tuesday night that “fellow democrats around Asia are flabbergasted at events unfolding in Kuala Lumpur.”

He was referring to the second trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy.

“For the second time,” Danby said, “the Malaysian legal system is being manipulated by supporters of the incumbent government to drive Malaysia’s best-known leader, Anwar Ibrahim, out of national politics.

“For the second time, documents are being forged, witnesses are being coerced, and evidence is being fabricated. This trial, like the first trial, is a disgrace to Malaysia, a country that aspires to democratic norms.”

Danby said it was long past time that Malaysia repealed these British colonial laws, which could not then be used for such political purposes.

“In the second place, everyone in Malaysia, and everyone in the international legal community, knows that Anwar is innocent of these charges.”

The underlying problem is that Anwar, leader of the People’s Justice Party, is the first charismatic Malay opposition politician with sufficient appeal for Malay voters to pose a real threat to Umno’s 52-year hold on power.

This episode indicates that it’s also long past time Umno took a spell in opposition, as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is doing.

Declared a middle-income country by the World Bank several years ago, Malaysia has grown accustomed to patronising its giant neighbour Indonesia — even though it still rankles that Malaysia itself continues to be patronised by its tiny neighbour Singapore.

Now, though, it is Indonesia — the raucous democracy with a rapidly acquired capacity to change leaders and governments peaceably, the world’s largest Muslim country renowned for its moderation and pluralism — that is receiving international praise, with US President Barack Obama flying across the world to visit (with a side-trip to Australia).

In 2008, last year and — as estimated by IMA Asia — this year, Malaysia’s economic growth figures are 4.6 per cent, -2.8 per cent, and 4 per cent. Indonesia’s are 6.1 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 5.6 per cent.

Since taking office last April, Prime Minister Najib Razak has started to dismantle the 40-year-old New Economic Policy, Sydney-based business consulting firm IMA notes.

It says: “While the NEP did little for ordinary Malays, its supposed beneficiaries, it enriched a handful of businessmen and contributed to corruption in Umno.”

Najib also has to tackle the over-reliance on oil money — for more than 40 per cent of government revenues — while just 2.3 million of the 28 million population pay income tax. And he needs to open more sectors of the economy to foreign investors.

That’s hard to do, while at the same time grappling with the plethora of problems resulting from Malaysia’s restrictive religious laws, reflecting Islam’s role as the state religion.

Queensland University political scientist David Martin Jones, currently working in Malaysia, says: “There is now an interesting collection of scandals dating from the first Anwar case in 1998 that coincides with the fragmentation of Umno-controlled politics.”

One such scandal comprised the tragic case of Lina Joy, aged 45, who was born into a Muslim family but began attending a church in 1990 and was baptised in 1998, and naturally wished to marry her Christian fiance. But marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men is forbidden under Malaysian law, and after years of battling the authorities in the courts, in 2007 she was refused permission to convert formally.

This year, Malaysia has seen its simmering religious and racial conflicts boil over after a ruling of the High Court that the Malay language pages of the Catholic Church’s weekly newspaper, the Herald, could use the term “Allah” as a translation for “God”.

Malaysian Christians say they have used “Allah” for God for centuries.

The government is appealing the decision. But in the meantime, it has triggered violent protests from Muslim Malays who comprise 60 per cent of the population, and who claim exclusive rights over the Arabic word “Allah”. Christians comprise just 9 per cent of Malaysians.

Eleven churches, a Sikh temple and two Muslim prayer rooms have been attacked so far, as a result of the row, and the severed heads of three wild boars — considered unclean by Muslims — with their mouths stuffed with bank notes, in plastic bags, were found outside two mosques.

The High Court last April sentenced to death two policemen who were assigned to the office of Najib Razak, the then deputy prime minister and defence minister. They were found guilty of murdering a Mongolian woman who had had a relationship with Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst for a think tank, and had translated for him on a deal to buy submarines from France.

Abdul Razak, arrested for abetting the murder, was acquitted. But the motives for the policemen to have killed Atlantuyaa — by explosives — remain murky.

Martin Jones says: “Malay political scandals and the cynicism they engender, together with the bitter debate over the ‘Allah affair’, are seriously fragmenting the Malay community, whilst minority communities are increasingly rejecting the Umno model of Satu Malaysia (1 Malaysia). I suspect this portends some trouble ahead for the Malay political process.”

Razak has launched a multimedia 1 Malaysia campaign to promote the virtues of “perseverance, a culture of excellence, acceptance, loyalty, education, humility, integrity, and meritocracy.”

This looks to be a hurdle too high for a political establishment whose credibility is too low, for an economy that for two years has suffered net outflows of foreign investment, and for a culture suffering some confusion.

Jones points out: “It’s somewhat ironic that an ostensibly puritanical political culture that won’t contemplate a Beyonce concert seems to lap up details of Anwar’s alleged penetration of his aide.”

Mohd Saiful is expected to be cross examined by counsel Karpal Singh, who is heading the defence team comprising Datuk Param Cumaraswamy, Datuk C.V. Prabhakaran, S.N. Nair, Ram Karpal Singh Deo, Marisa Regina Fernando and Mohd Razlan Jalaluddin.

Mohd Saiful is the first prosecution witness in the trial of Anwar, who is accused of sodomising Mohd Saiful at Unit 11-5-1 Kondominium Desa Damansara, Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara, between 3.01 pm and 4.30 pm on June 26, 2008.

Anwar, 63, who is Parti Keadilan Rakyat advisor and the Member of Parliament for Permatang Pauh, is charged under Section 377B of the Penal Code and could be sentenced up to 20 years in jail and whipping upon conviction.

The case is being heard by High Court Judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah.

Meanwhile, the prosecution led by Solicitor-General II Datuk Mohamed Yusof Zainal Abiden concluded the examination-in-chief of Mohd Saiful, on Friday.

Mohd Yusof is being assisted by deputy public prosecutors Datuk Nordin Hassan, Wong Chiang Kiat, Mohamad Hanafiah Zakaria, Noorin Badaruddin, Farah Azlina Latif, Mira Mirna Musa and Naidatul Athirah Azman.

Mohd Saiful, 25, began his testimony on Wednesday.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in Perak will have to tidy up certain legal issues pertaining to state administration before it calls for a snap poll should the Federal Court decide tomorrow to reinstate Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as the rightful menteri besar.

State assemblyman for Setiawan and Perak DAP chief Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said PR would have to work with legal advisers to determine if such state matters as remuneration and land titles were valid before seeking the ruler’s consent to dissolve the state assembly and pave the way for a new election.

“If reinstated, we will need a few days to sort things out. After that, we will seek dissolution. We will fulfil our promise to Perakians to dissolve the assembly,” he told The Edge Financial Daily.

Ngeh, a senior executive councillor in PR’s Perak government, said the resolutions and state budget passed by the state assembly last year must be ratified or else the legitimate administration would face a situation in which provisions were considered “ultra vires” or not in accordance with proper procedures.

For example, he said, the PR government would have to determine whether the appointment by Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir of three special advisers with executive councillor status was valid and thus they should be accorded such wages.

Ngeh: No witch-hunt if PR restored to power

Following is a chronology of the events which unfolded during the political crisis in Perak after the 12th general election on March 8, 2008, leading up to the ruling tomorrow of the Federal Court on who will be the rightful menteri besar of Perak — the current Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir of the Barisan Nasional (BN) or his predecessor Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin of PAS. 

March 17, 2008: Mohammad Nizar, the state assemblyman for Pasir Panjang, is sworn in as the menteri besar of Perak.

Feb 1, 2009: Perak State Assembly Speaker V Sivakumar announces he has received the resignation letters of Behrang assemblyman Jamaluddin Mat Radzi and Changkat Jering assemblyman Mohd Osman Jailu of PKR. Both assemblymen deny they have resigned.  

Feb 3, 2009: Election Commission (EC) decides Behrang and Changkat Jering seats are not vacated and as such by-elections are not required for the constituencies.

Feb 4, 2009: Then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announces that Perak BN has a simple majority to set up the state government after two PKR assemblymen and one DAP assemblyman (Hee Yit Foong-Jelapang) quit their parties and become independent assemblymen friendly to BN.
Perak BN and Pakatan Rakyat both have 28 seats each in the state assembly while three assemblymen are independents.

Feb 5, 2009: A media statement issued by the office of the Sultan of Perak states that the sultan will not dissolve the state assembly and has asked Mohammad Nizar and the state executive council to resign or their positions will be deemed to have become vacant.

Feb 6, 2009: Zambry is appointed as the 11th menteri besar of Perak, replacing Mohammad Nizar. BN officially takes over the administration of the Perak government.

Feb 13, 2009: Mohammad Nizar initiates legal action, seeking a court declaration that he is still the rightful menteri besar and an injunction prohibiting Zambry from discharging his duties as the menteri besar.

March 6, 2009: High Court Judge Lau Bee Lan refers to the Federal Court for an explanation of constitutional issues in the summons filed by Mohammad Nizar challenging the validity of the appointment of Zambry as the menteri besar of Perak.

March 23, 2009: Federal Court decides that the Mohammad Nizar vs Zambry case be sent back to the High Court.

April 3, 2009: Mohammad Nizar is given the “green light” by the Kuala Lumpur High Court to challenge the validity of appointment of Zambry as the Perak menteri besar following a ruling by Judge Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim that the application filed by Mohammad Nizar in February was not frivolous or vexatious and that there was a prima facie case to be argued in court.

May 11, 2009: High Court declares Mohammad Nizar as the rightful menteri besar of Perak after finding that he had never vacated his post as he had not lost the confidence of the majority of the state assemblymen.

May 12, 2009: Zambry remains as menteri besar until the Court of Appeal hears his appeal against the High Court decision declaring Mohammad Nizar as the rightful menteri besar following Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Ramly Ali’s decision allowing Zambry’s application to stay the execution of the High Court ruling.

May 22, 2009: The decision of the High Court is dismissed by the Court of Appeal which declares Zambry as the rightful menteri besar in accordance with the constitution.

June 19, 2009: Mohammad Nizar files leave application to Federal Court to challenge Court of Appeal decision.

Nov 5, 2009: Five-man bench of Federal Court adjourns decision to Feb 9, 2010 after hearing submissions.

Mohamed Tamin Mohd Yusof, a director of PYBK, accompanied by YBK chairman Datuk Zainal Abidin Sakom, lodged the report at the Shah Alam police headquarters.

Zainal told reporters that the report was lodged following a decision by the Hulu Selangor District Office to return quit rent paid by PYBK in August 2009, amounting to RM1.28 million via a cheque, on Feb 4.

The RM1.28 million quit rent was for 88.4ha of land owned by YBK in Serendah, the site where a proposed development for the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) campus was to take place, he said.

“One of the basic requirements when allocated a land for development is to pay the quit rent,” he said.

He added that the 88.4ha in question had no connection with the RM5.7 million owed by YBK and the RM5.43 million that Yayasan Melaka came forward to pay.

The Selangor state executive council had on Feb 3 directed the Hulu Selangor District Office to return to YBK the payment that was made.

“What is the reason for returning the quit rent paid? This shows an abuse of power,” he said.

Zainal said the government did not have the authority to return quit rent collected from the people because once the money is collected and banked into the government’s account, the money becomes the property of the people while the government becomes a trustee.

“This is certainly not right. Meaning, the government can return the quit rent paid by the owner and say quit rent on the land was not paid,” he said.

Furthermore, YBK also does not know why the money was kept by the government for so long before deciding to return it, he said.

I am surprised that the opposition, in particular the Chinese leaders in the opposition, do not know this very basic and fundamental Art of War. I would have imagined they would have all read Sun Tzu by now. This is called the Principle of Subversion.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Two days ago, the Penang Malay Chamber of Commerce organised a demonstration against the Pakatan Rakyat state government and burned an effigy of its Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng. It appears the protest was led by ‘opposition’ Member of Parliament Ibrahim Ali -- who won a seat in the last general election on a PAS ‘ticket’.

Yesterday, a police report was made against the Chamber for ‘inciting racial hatred’. The fact that PERKASA, meaning Ibrahim Ali, was behind the protest means it is definitely about race. PERKASA was created with only one objective in mind – to defend Malay rights and privileges and to uphold Malay Supremacy or Ketuanan Melayu.

So the Penang incident is undoubtedly a Malay-versus-Chinese affair.

Lim Guan Eng is Chinese and from DAP, a party perceived as ‘Chinese chauvinist’. And the effort the party has been making to erase its Chinese ‘face’ and to attract more non-Chinese, in particular Malays, into the party has thus far not been very successful. It is an uphill battle for DAP to clean up its image of being a ‘Chinese’ party, not that the party is not trying hard enough to do this. It is just that images are not an easy thing to create or change.

On the surface it is being made to look like this is about the Chinese being unfair to the Malays and that the Malays are merely bringing attention to this ‘injustice’. It is, after all, the business of PERKASA and the Malay Chamber of Commerce to look after Malay interests.

But if you look beyond the race issue you can see that it is not actually about race per se. Race is the whipping boy. It is the Red Herring. Race is used as the issue because race and religion are the two most potent issues in any conflict.

Are not all wars throughout history about race, religion and riches? Societies and nations go to war because of race, religion or domination. And domination could mean land, control over the oil business, trade supremacy, and whatnot. Wars are never about upholding justice or about doing the right thing. It is always about power -- power over race, religion, land, trade, natural resources, and all those things material.

There is no such thing as religious wars. Religion is the excuse to go to war. It gives legitimacy to the cause. Race or nationalities is also a non-starter. Political boundaries change through the ages. What was once the Greek, Roman or Ottoman Empires are today many countries. And what was once one empire are today many countries at war with one another.

So there is no reason to go to war. There are just excuses. And any excuse is good enough if what you really want to do is to go to war. You just need to create a good excuse, give it legitimacy, and call it a reason.

What is the beef against DAP, the Penang state government or Lim Guan Eng? Is it really about the unfair treatment the Malays are getting at the hands of the Chinese? Or is it something else altogether?

The excuse (or ‘reason’) that triggered the Penang protest two days ago is that the Chinese government of Penang demolished the illegal stalls of the Malay hawkers. Yes, that’s right. That was the reason given. The state government demolished the illegal stalls of the Malay hawkers.

Now, note this very important point offered by the protestors. First is that the hawkers are all Malays. Next is that they had set up illegal stalls. And the state government demolished these stalls.

The Malay Chamber admits that these stalls are illegal. But they protest the demolishing of these stalls because they are Malay owned. Does this mean if they are not Malay owned but Chinese owned then it is okay to demolish them? Does this also mean since they are Malay owned then the state should allow them to continue although they are illegal?

Anyway, that is not the crucial issue here. What is more important is that the state did not order the destruction of these stalls. And PAS, what could be considered a ‘Malay’ party, has come out to say so. PAS has come out in defence of DAP and Lim Guan Eng.

But someone did demolish those illegal Malay owned stalls. There is no denying this. And if it was not the state government then who did?

It was the local council of course. It is the local council’s job to demolish illegal stalls and to take action against any illegal activities in their area. But does not the local councils come under the state and carry out the orders of the state? In theory, yes. In practice, no. And this not only applies to local councils but to all other state agencies as well such as the state religious authorities and whatnot. They do what they want and not what the state orders them to do.

Remember the recent case where the Shah Alam Local Council in Selangor confiscated beer that was being sold in establishments that did not have a liquor licence? The thing is, beer is not classified as liquor so you do not need a liquor licence to sell beer. Therefore, technically, no crime has been committed. But the local council still acted on those selling beer without a liquor licence although no licence is required to sell beer.

What is going on here? In all the states ruled by Pakatan Rakyat the state agencies and local councils are not working in tandem with the state government. They appear to be working against the state government. The right hand does not seem to know what the left hand is doing.

It is really quite simple and you do not need to be a genius to figure it out. The state government is Pakatan Rakyat. But the state agencies like the local councils, religious department, district offices, land offices, the state economic development corporation, etc., are all staffed by Malays who are still loyal to Umno and working for Umno.

The Malays call this kepala tak serupa dengan badan (the head is not the same as the body). So the head thinks one way while the body moves in the opposite direction. That was how Terengganu was brought down in 1999 when the state agencies worked against Umno and the state fell to the opposition. And the same thing happened in Perak last year when the state agencies, including the State Secretary, worked against Pakatan Rakyat and in support of Umno.

I am surprised that the opposition, in particular the Chinese leaders in the opposition, do not know this very basic and fundamental Art of War. I would have imagined they would have all read Sun Tzu by now. This is called the Principle of Subversion.

The name of the game is to subvert the government. Sabotage it all the way. Do things that will make the government very unpopular with the voters. Sabotage, sabotage, sabotage!

But to do this you have to get behind enemy lines, as they would say in the Special Forces of the military. You need to get in there and sabotage from the inside. Then the government will fall.

And this is exactly what is happening in the Pakatan Rakyat states. But the Chief Ministers and their EXCO Members are slumbering away and enjoying the victory of the 8 March 2008 general election. And while they ‘rule’ the states, those in the lower levels of the state government set up bombs and booby traps.

Sun Tzu wrote his ‘thesis’ called The Art of War thousands of years ago. It is so simple and so basic. But then do not most of us get caught on the simple and basic things? Islam says most people will go to hell not because of their big sins but because of an accumulation of many small sins.

Yes, Islam knows we shall always be conscious of avoiding big sins. But we are never aware of the small sins we commit. And because we commit so many small sins, the accumulation of all these small sins is more damaging than the big sin, which we avoided so carefully.

So, the Pakatan Rakyat state government may have avoided making big mistakes. They are very careful so as to not make big blunders. But it is these little things and the accumulation of these many little things that will bring down the government.

Umno does not need to launch an all out frontal attack. That would be too costly and too apparent. All Umno needs to do is to activate its many sleepers in the state government agencies and get them to commit these ‘blunders’ -- which are not really blunders but intentional acts of sabotage.

The impression given to most people is that the opposition is in a mess. Actually, Barisan Nasional and Umno are in a bigger mess. But Barisan Nasional and Umno have very cleverly engineered it in such a way that all these many small issues affecting the opposition translate into one big mess.

The best and most effective way of bringing down the government is from the inside. And this is how they are trying to bring down Pakatan Rakyat -- with minor issues such as beer being confiscated and illegal Malay hawker stalls being demolished, which at the end of the day are made too look like one massive shit hole.

Have we not learned anything from history where the most impregnable wall can be breached with the use of the Trojan Horse?

SHAMSUL AKMAR, New Straits Times

McCARTHYISM, chauvinism, dictatorial, communist-minded, little Pharaohs are some of the unsavoury labels levelled at the DAP-led Pakatan Rakyat state government in Penang as well as Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Name-calling or labelling is common in politics for various reasons but generally associated with extreme emotions be they anger, frustration or even jealousy.

Sometimes when politicians resort to this, it is mostly from their ineptitude and inability to present well-reasoned arguments to undermine their opponents.

As such, name-calling may be brushed aside as outburst which, in time, is swept by the ebb and flow of the political landscape.

However, in this instance, it is different. For one, the outburst stems not from DAP's or Guan Eng's opponents but their allies.

These are not opponents from Barisan Nasional or individuals and institutions associated with the ruling coalition. The allies are those from Pakatan Rakyat.

With these damning labels levelled at the DAP and Guan Eng by Parti Keadilan Rakyat's elected representatives, one can say their allies have turned against them.

To minimise the impact, DAP and Guan Eng can downplay it by pointing out that the outbursts were from some disgruntled or frustrated members and do not reflect the sentiments in PKR.

Turning the tables on detractors, they have labelled the "friendly enemies" as Umno or BN stooges who, from the start, had their heart on the other side, or the dark side, the term preferred by Pakatan supporters of anyone who does not share their political views.

To add salt to the wound, cast doubt on the detractors' character and make sure to expose their wealth as disreputable and put a price to their names.

Then, wind up the episode with accusations backed by no substance and trot out the favourite bogeyman -- the "unseen hands" behind the crisis.

Having done that, the crisis or clash between PKR and DAP is dismissed as growing pains, the outbursts as coming from disgruntled individuals who have been stirred by dark forces and fuelled by the optimism that Pakatan is on track to take over Putrajaya at the next general election.

At the same time, issue a gag order on the elected representatives who had exercised their freedom of expression or for doing it in a manner deemed against the accepted Pakatan way.

Make their life in PR untenable and if they decide to leave, it will then be deemed as good riddance to bad rubbish for BN to collect.

The plot is almost perfect in which the blame will always lie on BN and all their opponents; whatever goes wrong is never their fault but everyone else's.

But the strategy is going stale, having been executed once too often.

For example, when PKR adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that he would take over the Federal Government from BN on Sept 16, 2008, its supporters and allies gleefully strutted around claiming Putrajaya as theirs.

Though there was some dissent internally, especially those who felt that gaining power through crossovers was immoral, the dissenting voices were drowned by the cheerleaders.

It is quite comical now to reflect on PKR's Tian Chua, Elizabeth Wong and Saifuddin Nasution (then a Pas MP and now PKR secretary-general) leading several party leaders to Taiwan to ensure the "capture" of BN parliamentary representatives.

It was equally comical to see the BN representatives being sent to Taiwan to avoid Pakatan's "trap".

The point is had the Barisan MPs crossed over, they would have been hailed as heroes, courageous politicians, leaders of the people and showered with other accolades.

This is not an exaggeration. Take BN's assemblyman for Bota, Nasaruddin Hashim's decision to cross over to PKR on Jan 25 last year. Then Pakatan Perak menteri besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Nizar Jamaluddin described Nasaruddin as "beriman, berilmu dan berpengalaman" (religious, knowledgeable and experienced).

At the press conference to announce Nasaruddin's defection, Anwar was caught on camera looking smug. He described the event as a paradigm shift and a new beginning for Pakatan. The crossover, was by and large, celebrated by Pakatan supporters and if there was any dissent, it was muted.

Of course, BN and Umno protested vociferously against Nasaruddin, questioning his ethics and accusing him of cheating voters.

Ten days later, Nasaruddin returned to Umno's fold and not only that, three other Pakatan state assembly representatives quit their parties, becoming independents "friendly" to BN, ensuring the fall of the Pakatan state government.

The protests and condemnations from Pakatan, if documented, could have filled libraries and are ongoing. The condemnations centre on the crossovers as going against the wishes of the people and hence questioning the legitimacy of the state government.

By then, and now, the planned Sept 16, 2008 take-over of the Federal Government had fallen by the wayside.

But to point this out, too, risks being labelled -- as Umno apologists, hacks, running dogs or other convenient tags to discredit the naysayers.

So PKR (Wangsa Maju) member of parliament Wee Choo Keong, PKR (Bayan Baru) MP Datuk Seri Zahrain Mohamed Hashim, PKR (Nibong Tebal) MP Tan Tee Beng and PKR (Kulim Bandar Baru) MP Zulkifli Noordin look set to fall from grace from heroes to zeros. They would surely be prepared to be gotten rid off as bad rubbish.

But they are not cowed. They are speaking out because of the stench emanating from the rubbish in Pakatan. So who's the rubbish?

A rubbish lorry is one clue.

Then they discovered another ‘small’ problem. Azizan had stated that he was never sodomised after 1992 and that it all happened – if indeed it had happened at all – before May 1992 (later he changed his story to ‘September 1992’).

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Anwar’s alibi is as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar

The Kuala Lumpur Appeal Court was told that under Section 402A of the Criminal Procedure Code, the alibi of the accused as to where he was at the time of the alleged crime needs to be investigated by the police and established.

Anwar Ibrahim and his Indonesian-born adopted brother, Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja, were originally charged with sodomising Azizan Abu Bakar sometime in the month of May 1992 in the Tivoli Villa.

Anwar then successfully proved his alibi. And his alibi was that the Tivoli Villa was still under construction and was not completed yet in May 1992. Therefore it could not have happened.

When the defence filed its Notice of Alibi and the prosecution discovered its mistake, it quickly amended the date on the charge to read one day in ‘May 1994’.

The defence protested this most unorthodox move and the trial judge had the gall to say that the defence should have kept quiet. The defence should have allowed the case to go on and let the prosecution complete its case, then, at the end of the trial, the defence should have sprung a surprise on the prosecution and demolish its case.

The defence, in all sincerity, had pointed out this major flaw in the charge, but the judge, instead of throwing out the case, allowed this eleventh hour amendment to be made and laughed at the defence for not being devious enough.

Only a man with a devious mind who suggests such a devious strategy - and it has now been proven that that ‘devious’ is too mild a word to use on this judge.

Then they discovered another ‘small’ problem. Azizan had stated that he was never sodomised after 1992 and that it all happened – if indeed it had happened at all – before May 1992 (later he changed his story to ‘September 1992’).

So ‘May 1994’ was also now out and they had to amend the date on the charge yet again. But they could not move it back to 1992. So they chose ‘one day at 7.45pm from 1 January 1993 to 31 March 1993’ as the new date of the charge. And Azizan would now need to change his testimony and contradict his earlier statement to make this new date possible.

‘Never sodomised after September 1992’ was no longer a statement that would be possible. ‘If I was asked specifically, then I would have said it still happened from 1 January 1993 to 31 March 1993’ was the new statement he would have to make though this contradicted everything he had said earlier.

And the trial judge allowed it to ensure the prosecution’s case would not be demolished and he refused to impeach Azizan and cite him for perjury, saying that, “Azizan’s testimony is as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar and that Azizan has satisfactorily explained the contradictions.

But the original alibi that the defence raised was only in respect of the ‘May 1992’ charge. This alibi would no longer be applicable to the new date on the charge, ‘one day at 7.45pm from 1 January 1993 to 31 March 1993’.

So the defence asked for a postponement to enable it to file a new Notice of Alibi as required under Section 402A of the Criminal Procedure Code.

“The judge knew what he was doing when he denied the request for a postponement to file a new Notice of Alibi under Section 402A,” said Gobind Singh Deo, Anwar’s counsel.

“Judges are bound to comply to this mandatory ruling and they have no discretion in the matter.”

“This Appeal Court is obligated to comply to this ruling and acquit both Anwar and Sukma of the conviction.”

“The Attorney-General (then), Tan Sri Mohtar (Abdullah) said the 90 days alibi the defence raised was a ‘sham defence’. He said this without a clue as to what evidence the defence had and who the witnesses were going to be.”

“The AG wanted blood. He acted Mala Fide. He did now know and did not care when he changed the date on the charge ‘from January to March 1993’.”

“The judge convicted Anwar and Sukma for an offence that happened between January and March 1993 ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ whereas the alibi proved that the entire 90 days Dato Seri Anwar was never near Tivoli Villa.”

“The AG tried to oppress Dato Seri Anwar. He knew Dato Seri Anwar and Sukma were not in Tivoli Villa, yet he purposely fixed these dates to frustrate the defence.”

“The AG’s conduct should be condemned.”

“It is shocking, shocking, shocking!”

“The AG said he had all the evidence of Dato Seri Anwar’s whereabouts both in and out of the country those entire 90 days. The AG said they had kept a diary of Dato Seri Anwar’s whereabouts.”

At this point the AG stood up to say that he did not have the diary and had never seen one.

Anwar then told the court that the diary in question was the police dairy that logged his detailed movements which the police confiscated and has since disappeared.

The court was then told, nevertheless, the defence managed to account for the entire 90 days between 1 January 1993 and 31 March 1993 and that this was never challenged or rebutted by the prosecution.

The judge, however, declared that the defence failed to provide an alibi for one of those 90 days; and that was 19 February 1993, which was Friday.

“Only the judge rejected it to secure a conviction.”

Gobind then took the court through the testimonies of the earlier trial to show that Friday, 19 February 1993, was also accounted for as Azizan has testified he had prayed his Zohor prayers at home that day so it could not have been a Friday since he would have gone to the mosque to pray.

“Even the trial judge said that Friday prayers are only preformed in the mosque and not at home.”

Friday, 19 February 1993, therefore, would have completed the alibi for the entire 90 days and Anwar and Sukma could not have sodomised Azizan between 1 January 1993 and 31 March 1993.

Anwar and Sukma, however, were convicted for a sodomy act that occurred ‘one day at 7.45pm between 1 January 1993 and 31 March 1993’ though it was proven beyond any shadow of doubt they were both nowhere near Tivoli Villa and could account for their whereabouts the entire 90 days. And the prosecution never denied or rebutted this.

HARI 5 - 1 April 2003 (Bahagian 2)

Kemudian, mereka mendapati bahawa ada satu lagi masalah 'kecil'. Azizan menyatakan bahawa dia tidak pernah diliwat tahun 1992 dan bahawa semua kejadian liwat berlaku - jika ia memang benar-benar berlaku - sebelum Mei 1992 (kemudian, dia mengubah pula tarikh itu kepada 'September 1992').

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Alibi Anwar adalah sekuat Rock of Gibraltar.

Mahkamah Rayuan Kuala Lumpur diberitahu bahawa menurut Seksyen 402A Kanun Acara Jenayah, alibi tertuduh berkenaan kedudukannya ketika jenayah didakwa dilakukan perlu disiasat dan ditentukan oleh polis.

Pada mulanya, Anwar Ibrahim dan adik angkatnya dari Indonesia, Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja didakwa meliwat Azizan Abu Bakar sekitar Mei 1992 di Tivoli Villa.

Anwar kemudiannya berjaya membuktikan alibinya. Alibinya adalah bahawa Tivoli Villa masih dalam proses pembinaan dan belum pun siap pada Mei 1992. Jadi, kejadian itu tidak mungkin berlaku.

Apabila Pembelaan memfailkan Notis Alibi, dan Pendakwa menyedari kesilapan mereka, mereka terus meminda tarikh dalam pertuduhan kepada satu hari dalam 'Mei 1994'.

Pembelaan membantah tindakan yang tidak ortodoks itu, dan Hakim ‘berani’ pula mengatakan bahawa Pembelaan sepatutnya berdiam diri. Menurutnya, Pembelaan sepatutnya membiarkan Pendakwa meneruskan hujah dan membuat kejutan pada akhir perbicaraan, yang mana ia dapat memusnahkan kes Pendakwa.

Pembelaan dengan ikhlas mendedahkan kesilapan besar ini (pertukaran tarikh), tetapi jangankan dia membuang kes itu, malah Hakim membenarkan pindaan saat akhir itu, dan mentertawakan Pembelaan kerana tidak cukup licik.

Ya, hanya seorang yang licik yang akan menyarankan strategi licik seperti itu – kini terbuktilah bahawa perkataan 'licik' terlalu sopan bagi menggelarkan hakim berkenaan.

Kemudian, mereka mendapati bahawa ada satu lagi masalah 'kecil'. Azizan menyatakan bahawa dia tidak pernah diliwat tahun 1992 dan bahawa semua kejadian liwat berlaku - jika ia memang benar-benar berlaku - sebelum Mei 1992 (kemudian, dia mengubah pula tarikh itu kepada 'September 1992').

Jadi, kini, 'Mei 1994' juga tidak dapat digunakan dan mereka sekali lagi terpaksa meminda tarikh dalam pertuduhan. Namun mereka tidak boleh memindanya kepada 1992. Jadi, mereka memilih 'satu hari pada 7:45 malam dari 1 Januari 1993 hingga 31 Mac 1993' sebagai tarikh baru. Bagi mengesahkan tarikh baru itu, Azizan terpaksa mengubah keterangannya dan mencanggahi keterangannya sebelum itu.

Jadi, kenyataan 'Tidak pernah diliwat selepas September 1992' tidak lagi boleh digunakan. Meskipun ia bercanggah dengan semua keterangannya sebelum ini, keterangan baru yang perlu diberikannya adalah, “Jika saya ditanya secara spesifik, maka saya akan mengatakan bahawa ia masih berlaku dari 1 Januari 1993 hingga 31 Mac 1993’.

Hakim membenarkannya bagi memastikan kes Pendakwa terus kukuh, dan enggan mendakwa Azizan atas kesalahan sumpah bohong, dengan mengatakan bahawa, "Keterangan Azizan adalah sekuat Rock of Gibraltar dan bahawa Azizan telah menjelaskan segala percanggahan itu dengan baik.”

Tapi alibi asal yang dikemukakan oleh Pembelaan hanya berhubung dengan pertuduhan 'Mei 1992'. Alibi itu tidak dapat digunakan bagi tarikh baru, iaitu 'satu hari pada 7:45 malam dari 1 Januari 1993 hingga 31 Mac 1993'.

Jadi, Pembelaan memohon penangguhan bagi membolehkan mereka mengajukan Notis Alibi yang baru, sebagaimana yang dikehendaki di bawah Seksyen 402A Kanun Acara Jenayah.

"Hakim tahu (implikasi) tindakannya apabila dia menolak permohonan penangguhan bagi mengemukakan Notis Alibi yang baru di bawah Seksyen 402A," kata peguam Anwar, Gobind Singh Deo.

"Sebenarnya, Hakim perlu mematuhi peraturan mandatori itu dan dalam hal ini, hakim tidak dibenarkan menggunakan budi bicara.”

"Mahkamah Rayuan berkewajipan mematuhi peraturan itu dan membebaskan kedua-dua Anwar dan Sukma dari sabitan tersebut."

"Peguam Negara (pada ketika itu), Tan Sri Mohtar (Abdullah) berkata bahawa alibi 90 hari yang diajukan oleh Pembelaan adalah 'pembelaan yang palsu '. Dia mengatakan sedemikian tanpa mengetahui tentang bukti dan saksi yang akan dikemukakan oleh Pembelaan."

"Peguam Negara dahagakan darah. Dia bertindak secara Mala Fide. Dia tidak tahu dan tidak peduli ketika dia menukar tarikh dalam pertuduhan 'dari Januari hingga Mac 1993'."

"Hakim menyabitkan Anwar dan Sukma 'melampaui keraguan munasabah' bagi jenayah yang berlaku antara bulan Januari dan Mac 1993, sedangkan alibi (Anwar) membuktikan bahawa Dato’ Seri Anwar tidak pernah berada di Tivoli Villa selama tempoh 90 hari terbabit."

"Peguam Negara cuba menindas Dato’ Seri Anwar. Walaupun dia tahu bahawa (ketika itu), Dato’ Seri Anwar dan Sukma tidak berada di Tivoli Villa, namun dia sengaja menetapkan tarikh-tarikh tersebut bagi menggagalkan usaha Pembelaan."

"Tindakannya itu patut dikutuk."

"Ia mengejutkan, mengejutkan, mengejutkan!"

"Peguam Negara mengatakan bahawa dia mempunyai bukti tentang kedudukan dalam mahupun luar negara Dato’ Seri Anwar selama tempoh 90 hari itu. Dia menyatakan bahawa mereka menyimpan diari berkenaan kedudukan Dato’ Seri Anwar."

Peguam Negara terus berdiri dan mengatakan bahawa dia tidak mempunyai diari yang dimaksudkan itu, malah tidak pernah pun melihatnya.

Anwar kemudiannya memberitahu mahkamah bahawa “diari” yang dinyatakan merujuk kepada diari polis yang mana segala pergerakannya tercatat secara terperinci. Polis merampas diari itu dan sejak itu, ia tidak lagi dapat dikesan.

Walau bagaimanapun, mahkamah kemudiannya diberitahu bahawa Pembelaan berjaya mengesahkan kedudukan Anwar sepanjang 90 hari terbabit, yakni antara 1 Januari 1993 dan 31 Mac 1993, dan bahawa ini tidak pernah dicabar ataupun dibantah oleh Pendakwa.

Meskipun demikian, Hakim menyatakan bahawa Pembelaan gagal memberikan alibi bagi salah satu antara 90 hari itu, iaitu 19 Februari 1993, yang merupakan hari Jumaat.

"Hakim menolaknya demi mendapatkan sabitan.”

Seterusnya, Gobind menyatakan bahawa Jumaat, 19 Februari 1993 juga konsisten dengan alibi kerana menurut keterangan Azizan dalam perbicaraan sebelum itu, dia bersolat Zohor di rumah pada hari itu. Jadi, hari itu tidak mungkin hari Jumaat kerana jika ya, maka sudah tentu dia pergi ke masjid untuk bersolat (Jumaat).

"Hakim perbicaraan sendiri mengatakan bahawa solat Jumaat hanya ditunaikan di masjid dan bukannya di rumah."

Dengan demikian, Jumaat, 19 Februari 1993 melengkapkan alibi bagi keseluruhan 90 hari terbabit, dan Anwar dan Sukma tidak mungkin meliwat Azizan antara 1 Januari 1993 dan 31 Mac 1993.

Sungguhpun Pembelaan membuktikan ‘melampaui semua keraguan’ bahawa Anwar dan Sukma tidak pernah pun berada di Tivoli Villa dan dapat menjelaskan mengenai kedudukan mereka bagi keseluruhan 90 hari terbabit, mereka berdua masih didapati bersalah atas jenayah liwat yang berlaku 'satu hari pada 7:45 malam dari 1 Januari 1993 hingga 31 Mac 1993'. Malah Pendakwa sendiri tidak pernah menyanggah ataupun membantah hakikat ini (alibi Anwar).

"Isu ini (kalimah Allah) bukan menentukan agama siapa benar dan agama siapa yang salah. Ini adalah hak yang diiktiraf oleh suatu agama pada suatu agama yang lain," jelas beliau dalam Forum Kalimah Allah di sebuh hotel di sini, malam tadi.

"Ini bukan dialog teologi atau perbandingan agama, sejauh mana kadar untuk mereka (bukan Islam) dibenarkan menggunakan kalimah  'Allah'."

Beliau yang juga pensyarah Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) turut mempersoal tindak-tanduk Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais) kerana melarang masyarakat bukan Islam di Selangor dari menyebut nama 'Allah'.

"Jais gantung kain-kain rentang nama Allah untuk orang Islam sahaja, tetapi lagu negeri Selangor pun disebut nama Allah, takkan Jais nak tangkap orang bukan Islam yang menyanyikan lagu negeri dengan menyebut nama 'Allah'," ujarnya.

Jelasnya, pada logo polis pun terdapat kalimah Allah sedangkan logo tersebut turut dipakai oleh anggota-anggota polis yang bukan beragama Islam.

"Sepatutnya polis bersama-sama Jais tak boleh tahan masyarakat bukan Islam yang menyebut (kalimah) Allah, mereka kena tahan mereka dulu yang masuk Selangor kerana Selangor melarang orang bukan Islam (dari) menyebut  'Allah'," jelasnya.

Beliau yang juga pakar hadis mendedahkan suatu hadis sahih daripada Imam Bukhari sendiri pun merakamkan bahawa Raja Rom bernama Hercules turut diriwayatkan menyebut kalimah  'Allah'.

"Hercules bertanya dia (Abu Sufian) banyak soalan, antara yang diriwayatkan Imam Bukhari: Sebelum dia (Nabi Muhammad s.a.w) diutuskan menjadi seorang rasul, pernahkah kamu menuduh dia sebagai pembohong," jelasnya.

Menurut beliau, Abu Sufian yang ketika masih tidak memeluk Islam berkata  'tidak', lalu Hercules berkata bahawa mustahil Muhammad itu berbohong menggunakan nama 'Allah'.

"Lalu Hercules berkata: Kalau Muhammad ini kepada manusia pun tidak berbohong, maka fahamlah aku bahawa mustahil dia berbohong atas nama  'Allah'."

"Hercules sebut nama Allah (walaupun) dia Raja Rom, dia Kristian...terjemahan Abu Sufian adalah dia (Hercules) menyebut nama 'Allah' dan terjemahan itu ada di dalam Sahih Bukhari," jelasnya.

Bekas Menteri Kesihatan, Datuk Seri Chua Jui Meng kemudiannya mendedahkan bahawa Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN) mula bergiat menghalang penerbitan akhbar mingguan The Herald terbitan Katholik bukan disebabkan akhbar itu memohon menggunakan kalimah 'Allah' dalam penerbitan mereka.

Sebaliknya, menurut dakwaan Chua, KDN berasa tidak selesa apabila mendapati kandungan The Herald cenderung menyokong parti-parti pembangkang ketika menjelang Pilihan Raya Umum ke-12 (PRU12) lalu.

"Sewaktu Bersih (Gabungan Menuntut Pilihan Raya Bersih dan Adil) mengadakan demontrasi besar-besaran di ibu negara, The Herald Katholik menerbitkan di muka hadapan majalah itu gambar-gambar dan tulisan-tulisan menyokong Bersih," jelasnya.

"Apabila KDN yang dimiliki oleh Umno menyedari tentang itu, Umno mendapati Kristian di negara ini banyak menyokong pembangkang khususnya PAS, di samping PKR dan DAP yang boleh menjejas Umno (dalam) PRU12, mereka mula mengharamkan The Herald."

Katanya lagi, usaha mengharamkan penerbitan The Herald bukan disebabkan faktor agama, tetapi demi menjaga kepentingan Umno.

Ekoran itu, menurut beliau, pihak Gereja Katholik terpaksa menggunakan  'jalan Mahkamah' dengan memohon menggunakan kalimah 'Allah' dalam penerbitan The Herald demi mencegah konspirasi Umno tersebut.

Sebelum itu, Ketua Pemuda PAS Pusat, Nasruddin Hassan at-Tantawi menjelaskan bahawa rasa bimbang yang bersarang di kalangan umat Islam disebabkan tidak rela kalimah 'Allah' digunakan secara yang salah.

Pun begitu, menurut beliau, umat Islam tidak berhak melarang masyarakat bukan Islam dari menggunakan kalimah 'Allah' itu.

"Kita tak ada hak melarang mereka (bukan Islam) nak guna kalimah Allah, tapi jika mereka guna secara salah dan inilah menjadi asas kebimbangan umat Islam dalam negara kita," jelasnya.

Bercakap di depan lebih 500 hadirin dari pelbagai agama, beliau secara peribadi melahirkan rasa bimbang sekiranya kalimah  'Allah' itu diletakkan di restoran-restoran yang menjual produk atau makan tidak halal, yang akhirnya mengelirukan umat Islam.

Disebabkan kebimbangan tersebut, beliau menggesa pihak berwajib supaya menjelaskan  'kadar’ menggunakan kalimah Allah di kalangan masyarakat Islam secara undang-undang yang praktikal.

Dalam forum tersebut, beliau turut mengulangi ketetapan PAS iaitu masyarakat bukan Islam dibenarkan menggunakan kalimah Allah, tetapi tidak boleh digunakan pada tempat yang salah serta bertujuan menyampaikan dakyah ke atas umat Islam sendiri.

Forum anjuran Lajnah Penerangan Pemuda PAS Pusat itu turut menampilkan ketuanya, Suhaizan Kayat selaku moderator.

My dear friend Chris responded to my comment about her. She said my articles are still too cheong hei. I told her that Kay likes them long. Chris replied that when it comes to sex she likes it long. But she prefers the articles to be short and sweet. So, for Chris, this is my article dedicated to you, a dear friend I shall always remember as a pendatang to Malaysia.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Umno never rejects talks with PAS

Umno has never rejected discussions with any opposition parties on Islamic issues, according to two top Umno leaders.

Umno vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said if the PAS leaders showed such political maturity, Umno would welcome them but not if they were politically emotional.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also the member of parliament for Bagan Datoh, said this to reporters after launching the 'Program Juara Rakyat' for the constituency today.

He was commenting on the suggestion by PAS spiritual leader and Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat yesterday that Umno and PAS should sit together to discuss issues on Islamic religion instead of wasting time quarrelling on politics.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also the defence minister, hoped that the open attitude of Nik Aziz would continue and that his followers would emulate him by not issuing statements that could divide the ummah.

Meanwhile, Umno information chief Ahmad Maslan said the PAS' suggestion to cooperate with Umno would be left to the party leadership to consider.

Ahmad, who is also a deputy minister in the prime minister's department, said the suggestion was not the first time made by the opposition party concerned, but they usually failed to achieve the desired decision.

"It's up to the top leadership of Umno and the BN to consider the suggestion.

"But if there is any hope of solidarity and spirit of friendship between the two largest Malay party, then the benefit would be enjoyed by all Malaysians," he said in his SMS to Bernama.

He said that in the past, PAS had proposed a solidarity government which was welcomed by Umno president Najib Abdul Razak and deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin.

"But when the matter was brought up for discussion with the DAP and PKR, they certainly did not agree. So, it's better that PAS discusses with Umno and BN.

"Previously, the door for dialogue was again opened when Nik Aziz agreed that the Kelantan government established good relations with the federal government, but later disagreed.

"We became confused, and is PAS merely playing politics," he said.

Ahmad said the suggestion would crop up each time the opposition pact appeared to be heading for a split. – Bernama

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There are four races in Malaysia. We have Malays, Chinese, Indians, and then we have ‘others’, in that order of priority. Malays own this land, so we call them the sons of the soil or Bumiputera. Some, of course, are sons of the night soil because of the shit they carry around.

The Chinese are the pendatang (immigrants) who came to this country as prostitutes, according to the Prime Minister’s special officer in the blue Proton Saga. The Indians, in turn, came to Malaysia as beggars, according to the man who was at the scene the day Sirul and Azilah kidnapped Altantuya and subsequently murdered her.

Then we have the lain-lain or ‘others’ who do not fit into the main three racial groupings. The Indians of the Muslim faith are not Indians but Bumiputeras. They are, in fact, the powerbase of Umno, the main component member of the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional. They fight for Malay rights, burn effigies of Chinese opposition leaders, and threaten all those who question the supremacy of the Malays, Ketuanan Melayu, with another May 13, the infamous race riots of 1969.

The Prime Minister’s special officer is actually not entirely wrong in saying that the Chinese are prostitutes -- at least those Chinese in Barisan Nasional. They serve their Malay masters in Umno and allow Umno not only to rule but also to sodomise the voters and taxpayers.

Do you know about 20 years or so ago, for a brief period, there was no Umno in Barisan Nasional? Umno had actually been declared illegal and was wound up by the Registrar of Societies.

So this made MCA, a Chinese party, the largest and main component member of Barisan Nasional. And the President of the largest and main component member of Barisan Nasional, MCA, was of course also the Chairman of Barisan Nasional. And this, therefore, effectively made him the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

But the President of MCA, who was also the new Chairman of Barisan Nasional, did not take over as Prime Minister of Malaysia, as he should have. Instead, he allowed an independent Member of Parliament, who was now without any party, to continue as Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister did not command the confidence of the majority in Parliament. In fact, he had no party whatsoever. He was just one man, a lone ranger. He was an independent Member of Parliament. Yet he was the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the whim and fancy of MCA, the Chinese party that was the largest and main component member of Barisan Nasional.

Then this Chinese invited a new Malay party that was formed barely a few days earlier to become the newest member of Barisan Nasional. And then the MCA President vacated his position as Chairman of Barisan Nasional and handed over power to the President of the new Malay party that did not win any elections and was not voted into office and was formed but a few days earlier.

So, yes, in that sense, the Chinese, at least those in Barisan Nasional, are prostitutes, as what the special officer to the Prime Minister said. And in the true nature of prostitutes, they allow their Malay masters to scold them, insult them, threaten them, screw them, and tell them to go back to China.

And the Indians in Barisan Nasional, who no longer have any political strength and should instead be kicked out of the coalition, beg to be allowed to stay. And they beg for one or two seats to contest the elections. And even after they have been scolded and told to leave Barisan Nasional and to go back to India if they start demanding seats to contest, they still stay and still keep begging for seats.

So, is the special officer to the Prime Minister wrong in saying that the Indians are beggars? Have they not been chased away and asked to leave if they want to ask for seats? And do they not continue to stay and beg?

Umno is still asking PAS to go to bed with them. Your husband is inviting another woman to go to bed with him. The woman is of course already married to someone else. But your husband is still trying to seduce this woman into jumping into bed with him.

The woman has said no. The woman has asked your husband to go screw himself. But your husband is persistent and is still begging this woman to drop her panties and to jump into bed with him.

And what do you do? You keep quiet and continue to stay married to him even after he scolded you and asked you to get out and leave this country. And openly, in front of you, he insults you, disgraces you, and appeals to this other woman to leave her husband and jump into bed with him.

Yes, the Chinese and Indians have no maruah (dignity). I would not call them prostitutes because it is an insult to prostitutes. I would not call them beggars because Islam asks us to look after the interests of poor and destitute people by paying zakat (tithe). Prostitutes and beggars is too good a word to use on these Chinese and Indians. They are worse than prostitutes and beggars.

Translated into Chinese at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_07.html

I was recently asked ten questions on various issues concerning Malaysia. One of the questions was what would be the first thing I would do if I were the Prime Minister of Malaysia. I would like to share these views with you, which is mostly what I have already said before anyway.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

1. What is your general opinion on freedom of speech in Malaysia? As we all know, not everyone knows your stand on this issue.  Are these restrictions really necessary?

I always joke that Malaysia allows freedom of speech. There are no restrictions on freedom of speech. It is freedom AFTER speech that we don’t have. You are free to speech but you will go to jail and will not be free after you do.

Freedom of speech is subjective and varies from country to country. For example, in the west, like in the US or UK, racial slurs are not allowed and are punishable by law. Some complain that the west is a bit too ‘politically correct’ and they classify even ‘genuine’ complaints as racial slurs. They feel freedom of speech in the west is being stifled in the interest of being politically correct.

So, one man’s freedom of speech is another man’s racial slur and one man’s political correctness is another man’s stifling of freedom of speech. It all depends on which side of the fence you are standing.

Malaysia has laws such as the Sedition Act, just to name but one, which is used against those who speak out. It does not matter whether what you say is true or false. Even if what you say is true you can still be arrested and charged for sedition.

But then who determines what constitutes sedition? If someone makes a police report against you and accuses you of sedition, then the police will launch an investigation and haul you in for interrogation. Sometimes it is the police themselves who make that police report against you.

The police will then establish whether you did or did not make that statement or write that article that they regard as seditious. But was your act really seditious, never mind whether you did or did not commit it? Who decides if you have acted with seditious tendencies? To you this may be freedom of speech. To the government it is seditious.

Just one man, the police officer interrogating you, will decide on the matter. And if in his or her opinion you did act in a seditious manner, then they will send the investigation papers to the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the AG will decide whether to charge you or not.

The truth of the matter is not material to the charge. Even if you told the truth you are still guilty. The issue here is whether the truth you told will ‘hurt somebody’s feelings’ or not. That is what will constitute your crime.

For example, let’s say you read in the newspapers that so-and-so lost ten million Ringgit while gambling in a casino in another country. And this so-and-so happens to be a ‘big shot’. You then repeat what you read in the newspapers. Because what you said involves a ‘big shot’ and what you said might (not sure if it will but ‘might’ is good enough) make Malaysians hate that ‘big shot’, then you have committed sedition.

But you just repeated what was in the newspapers and what the newspapers reported was true. You did not lie or create that story. It was a story reported by a newspaper. Nevertheless, if the government is of the view that by repeating that factual report it tantamount to sedition, then they can charge you if they can prove that you did in fact repeat the story.

So, in that sense, the Sedition Act stifles free speech. The truth does not set you free, as the popular saying goes. The truth can get you sent to jail. And whether it is seditious or not would merely be the personal opinion of just one man who is investigating your alleged ‘crime’. Even if the judge feels you made a harmless statement and in fact did not lie but told the truth, it is still the judge’s duty to send you to jail, as long as the prosecutor can prove you did say or write what they accuse you of. The judge has no business looking beyond that even if he or she feels your act wasn’t really damaging at all.

Are these restrictions necessary, as you asked? I would say no!

2. How have these restrictions on freedom of speech affected you?

I think that has already been answered in the many trials I am facing plus the Internal Security Act that has been used against me twice so far. Furthermore, the police have raided my house at least five or six times and have confiscated documents, books, CDs and my computers each time. I have also been summoned to the police station so many times that I have lost count how many times it was.

It is no longer possible for me to surface and write, both at the same time. If I wish to continue writing then I must go ‘underground’, as what I am now doing. I can, of course, make a deal with the government by declaring that I shall stop writing. Then they will leave me alone. But I choose to write over being able to resurface.

3. Knowing how much power the government wields in controlling the people’s freedom and you, yourself who has also been a victim of the ISA. Will you still continue voicing out your views ‘no holds barred’ like what is stated on your Blog? Are you going to still be a strong advocate of this issue despite what has been done to you by the government?

I suppose this question needs no reply since I am still writing right up to now, and with ‘no holds barred’ on top of that.

4. What made you start such a controversial Blog?

I have already written about this in my book ‘The Silent Roar’. Malaysia is a country with first world infrastructure but third world mentality. For Malaysia to come into the ‘first world’ there must first be freedom to express oneself. Malaysia Today is propagating open and lively debate with no holds barred. There should be no sacred cows. And Malaysians must learn how to tolerate criticism, even against race and religion, without taking to the streets and killing each other like on 13 May 1969.

If you don’t agree with what has been said then reply and rebut in an intelligent and matured manner. But don’t stop the other person from talking or by resorting to violence as a form of retaliation. If someone criticises your race or religion then debate them in defence of your race and religion. And if you are not capable of doing this then maybe the other person has a point.

5. Do you think that you are serving the people by publishing such content on the web?

I suppose if Malaysia Today can help develop a new generation of tolerant Malaysians who do not fear criticism and are matured enough to either ignore criticism or reply to it intelligently then we would have served the country.

I always use this example. A TV show in the US did a satire where people were asked whether America is ready for a black president. This was in the run-up to Obama’s campaign. The reply was: no, because then the White House would have to change its name to the Black House.

Everyone, even African-Americans, thought that was hilarious. In Malaysia, such jokes would not be tolerated and you might even find yourself in trouble with the law.

Can Malaysia become like that? And can Malaysia Today assist in teaching Malaysians to be more tolerant? If I can then I would say I have served the people.

6. How do you see Malaysia’s stand on democracy after ten years? Will there be any improvement?

Malaysians do not really understand what democracy means, even Cabinet Ministers. They argue that Malaysia is already a democracy because we have elections once every five years. To them, holding elections every five years means Malaysia has already achieved the status of a democracy. So, until Malaysians fully understand the meaning of the word, how do we strive to become more democratic?

They must first allow freedom for students to get involved in politics. Currently, the law does not allow this. They must abolish the requirement for publication permits. Anyone who wishes to publish a newspaper, magazine or periodical should be allowed to do so without first having to apply for a permit.

More importantly, they must abolish the Official Secrets Act and replace it with a Freedom of Information Act, except for matters involving defence and national security -- but only in cases where the nation’s defence and security would be compromised though.

For example, how much the military pays to buy Maggie Mee should not be an ‘official secret’. If the taxpayers were told how their money is being spent on Maggie Mee at five times the cost on the open market this will certainly not threaten and compromise the security of this country.

The Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, must go. The Federal Constitution of Malaysia, in fact, forbids detention without trial -- as anyone who is detained must be told his or her crime, must be allowed legal representation, and must be brought before a court of law within 24 hours. The ISA waives all these requirements, which is a constitutional right of all Malaysians.

Malaysia has a long way to go before it can declare itself a democratic country.

7. What is your advice to the public to help with the current situation (media & press) in Malaysia? Because, obviously, these restrictions (Article 149, ISA, OSA, PPPA, etc.) are barriers for our country’s progression.

I think I have already replied to most of this. The only thing left to do is for all Malaysians who are eligible to vote to register as voters. Currently, only about two-thirds of eligible voters are registered to vote. Next, they must all come out to vote. Normally, only about 75% of registered voters come out to vote.

This means, in a nutshell, only half the people who are eligible to vote actually vote. So how are we going to see changes when only 8 million out of 27-28 million Malaysian vote whereas 15 million or so should be voting?

We complain about this and that but we do not do anything about it other than complain. If we want to see changes then we must vote for change. Then, when the government of the day sees that the people are clamouring for change, they will introduce changes.

My advice is simple. Vote for change.

8. How do you think your views are impacting the younger generation?

I really don’t know. The fact that many young people don’t vote or don’t register as a voter means we have a long way to go. Probably the younger generation has other things on their minds. But until they realise that the destiny of this country is in their hands then we would have failed in our objective.

9. Your name is synonymous with “democracy” and “freedom of speech” in Malaysia. What do you think about this statement?

I don’t think it is me alone. There are many Bloggers as well as those in the civil society movements who are doing their bit for the country. I am just one of the so many.

10. If you were the new Prime Minister of Malaysia, what would you do first?

Again, I always joke that my first duty as Prime Minister would be to ban same race marriages. If you want to get married then you must marry someone from another race. Within 20 years Malaysians would become one ‘race’ and will no longer look at each other as Malays, Chinese, Indians or whatnot.

But the truth is, we can’t legislate conduct. People will be racists whatever you may do. As long as racial based parties exist that is how long racism will prevail in Malaysia.

I suppose my first act as Prime Minister would be to set up an Ombudsman with very wide powers. It would even have the power to summon the Prime Minister to answer to whatever charges made against him. And the Ombudsman would have executive powers. It would be able to refer cases for prosecution. Even the Attorney-General will have to listen to it and act accordingly.

From there will emerge the Police Force Commission, Judicial Commission, Parliamentary Commission, Public Interest Commission, and so on, which decides on appointments and promotions, listen to grievances and grouses of the public and taxpayers, and whatnot. These Commissions should be set up through Acts of Parliament but must be independent of Parliament.

Then we need to redraw the electoral boundaries. For example, a parliament constituency must have, say, 60,000 voters, while a state constituency, say, 20,000 voters. Then the variation between constituencies should not be more than 20%.

This would eliminate the current gerrymandering in the Malaysian election system. And of course, the army/police postal voting system has to go -- except for Malaysians overseas who will be allowed to vote at the Malaysian Embassies or High Commissions in whatever country they happen to be in. But this will have to be properly managed and monitored to avoid fraud.

There are of course much more that needs to be done -- such as local council elections must be reintroduced -- but this would be a good start for any Prime Minister on the first few days he takes office. Nevertheless, I have absolutely no interest in holding political office, let alone that of the Prime Minister.

Dzulfikar Mashoor, Harakah Daily   

Belum pun reda isu Pegawai Khas Perdana Menteri, Datuk Nasir Safar menggelarkan imigran awal berbangsa Cina dan India di Malaya sebagai ‘pelacur’ dan ‘pengemis’ beberapa hari lalu, pengendali blog Malaysia-Today, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) semalam seolah-olah mendakwa Nasir terbabit dalam kes pembunuhan gadis Mongolia, Altantuya Shaariibuu.

“Ya, lelaki di dalam Proton Saga biru itu adalah Nasir Safar. Namun pihak polis yang mengambil keterangan Bala menafikannya dan mengatakan bahawa lelaki berkenaan adalah penduduk kawasan itu dan bukannya Nasir Safar.

"Bagaimanakah polis tahu akan perkara ini tanpa melakukan siasatan lanjut dan tanpa mengambil keterangan daripada Nasir Safar?" dipetik dari tulisan RPK yang berjudul Nasir Safar, si 'Lelaki Misteri' pada hari Altantuya meninggal dunia.

Dakwaan RPK itu merujuk pada Perkara 30 dari teks Akuan Bersumpah oleh Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal iaitu Penyiasat Peribadi bagi kes pembunuhan mendiang Altantuya.

"Azilah bertanya kepada saya adakah wanita itu Aminah dan saya menjawab, 'Ya'. Dia kemudiannya beredar dan membuat beberapa panggilan dengan menggunakan telefon bimbitnya. Sepuluh minit kemudian, sebuah Proton Saga biru yang dipandu oleh seorang lelaki Melayu melalui kawasan itu dengan perlahan-lahan. Tingkap bahagian pemandu terbuka dan pemandu itu memandang ke arah kami," dipetik dari blog RPK.

Sehubungan itu, RPK turut mempersoalkan keterlibatan bekas Pegawai Khas bagi Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak di tempat mendiang Altantuya Shaariibuu diletupkan dengan menggunakan C4.

Pendedahan tersebut, menurut dakwaan RPK sekaligus menjawab dakwaannya sebelum ini; salah seorang daripada dua bekas pembantu peribadi  atau aide-de-camp (ADC) kepada Najib, iaitu Musa Safri terbabit membunuh Altantuya.

"Dengan pendedahan ini, maka dua daripada kakitangan Najib terlibat dalam pembunuhan Altantuya, yang mana seorang lagi adalah ADC-nya, Musa Safri yang tidak tidak pernah dipanggil untuk memberikan keterangan semasa perbicaraan pembunuhan Altantuya," dipetik dari tulisan RPK.

Menurut dakwaan RPK lagi, pendedahan tersebut juga sekaligus menjawab dakwaannya sebelum ini berhubung posisi sebenar ADC kepada isteri Perdana Menteri Datin Seri Rosmah Mansur; iaitu Norhayati Hassan.

"Anda masih ingat pada Norhayati Hassan, iaitu ADC Rosmah? Bukankah dia dan suaminya, Abdul Aziz Buyong juga terlibat dalam pembunuhan itu? Pegawai senior mereka dalam angkatan tentera mengesahkan bahawa dia telah melatih pasangan suami isteri itu tentang cara mengendalikan C4. Adakah itu suatu kebetulan, bukti berdasarkan keadaan (circumstantial), ataupun mungkin hanya pembohongan yang diuar-uarkan oleh RPK dan Malaysia Today?" soal RPK.

Dalam tulisan RPK, beliau tidak menolak kemungkinan bahawa tujuan Nasir memandu kereta perlahan-lahan di tempat kejadian sekadar mahu memastikan Altantuyaa ditangkap sahaja.

"Mula-mula sekali, nama ADC Najib, Musa Safri muncul. Selepas tu, timbul pula nama ADC Rosmah, Norhayati Hassan dan suaminya, Abdul Aziz Buyong. Nah, sekarang pula, nama Nasir Safar pula disebut-sebut sebagai orang yang memandu kereta secara perlahan-lahan di depan rumah Razak Baginda. Mungkin dia nak pastikan bahawa Altantuya, ‘si pengacau’ tu, ditangkap," jelas.

Bagaimana pun, dilaporkan Nasir sehingga hari ini tidak dipanggil untuk membantu siasatan dan mengenal pasti pembunuh sebenar mendiang Altantuya Shaariibuu.

By R. Shan (Human Being)

However, in this century and at the current crossroads, they are not so akin to religious but more so what is needed for Malaysian humanity to survive. The UMNO/BN government led by Dr M gave them false hopes and his nepotism and cronyism spearheaded a few elite Malays who continue to hold his influence over them similar to what MCA or MIC had in the past.

Today in this generation, it is totally a different ball game. The Malays have assimilated with the Chinese, Indians and lain-lain and all of us are now Malaysians; not some religious or dogmatic principle that those politicans in UMNO/BN have been elucidating.

Let me relate a story. I met MGG Pillai before his demise and spent a considerable time talking to him – an icon of journalism. His biggest hope for change in the country laid in the faith that he had in the Malay youths. He did not worry too much about the Chinese or the Indians but he was very concerned about the Malays as the government had failed to nurture them to the right path. He was always in touch with the grassroots Malays and saw in them the aspiration beyond $$$ for what is good for the multicultural society and nation.

Looking back at some of the things he had said, I think a lot holds true about the Malays. They are faithful, loyal and compassionate towards their fellow beings without malice - bar a few who drives this society away from the non-Malays for their own agendas.

The Non-Malays, ie Chinese, Indians & lain-lain (minus the unfortunate Sarawakians and Sabahans are forever in the twilight zone) think that they are better than the Malays as the system and policies are afforded for the benefit of the Malays. Maybe that is the case, but what the fuck have these politicians done other than using Malay agenda as a platform for their own enrichment? The few elite Malays have used their political muscle to enhance themselves but the heartland Malays are no better than other heartland non-Malays. The few elite Malays have exercised their political power to use religion as a tool by usurping other Muslims from neighboring countries to enhance their cause but just go and ask a heartland Malay. They would rather deal with the Non-Malays/Non-Muslims than those who had just migrated for UMNO/BN to maintain its hegemony.

The fault lies with the Non-Malays as we continue to sway according to the tide without regards to our Malay brothers and sisters in creating the balance in Malaysia. You want an example, look at Reformasi and how Barisan Alternatif fared in the 1999 election. The Malays were split but the Non-Malays were unsure and handed the mandate to UMNO/BN.

Now look at 2008. HINDRAF, along with our Malay brothers and sisters, created such a tsunami for what is the conscience and the reality that they were able to deprive UMNO/BN of the two-third parliamentary seats.

The gist of this article is, we the Non-Malays, irrespective of our origin must have faith in our Malay brothers and sisters as they an integral part of the Malaysian society. We must not bring religion, beliefs, creed or origin for humanity to sustain and survive in Malaysia to overcome UMNO/BN.

By Fahri Azzat

No less than the special officer for our 1PM (1Prime Minister) of 1Malaysia (that’s right people, it’s not Malaysia anymore, you’re in 1Malaysia now), had the gall to remark “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially the women came to sell their bodies“, in public, at an event ironically titled, ‘Rapat 1 Malaysia‘ held in Malacca on 2 February 2010. This, of course, during the 1PM’s no doubt expensive marketing campaign that is 1Malaysia, which personally is humourous, because the use of the number 1 implies that there is also a 2 and 3 then 4 and so forth. So we are actually being sold a 1Malaysia whilst we actually remain stuck around the 4Malaysia mark.

So now Datuk Safir Nasar has purportedly apologised for his remarks.

Before we consider that, it needs no pointing out that for 1PM to have something like a 1RacialBigotz as his special officer begs the question of firstly how racial bigots like him could work in such high office is startling. Secondly, that he has the audacity to declare his closely held views so nakedly at a public event is disturbing. You can bet his mouths off far more offensive remarks in private. Thirdly, you cannot help but wonder how many more of Datuk Nasir Safar’s ilk are there working in 1PM’s 1Office. This instance should provide sufficient reason for a witch hunt to be carried out in his 1Office of such rebels to the 1Malaysia marketing campaign.

Now let’s consider what he said from a legal perspective. The most appropriate act would be the Sedition Act 1948. We can start with section 3(1) of the Act. This provision defines what a ’seditious tendency’ is. The relevant parts are as follows:

3. Seditious tendency.

(1) A “seditious tendency” is a tendency -

…

(d) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or of the Ruler of any State or amongst the inhabitants of Malaysia or of any State;

(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia; or

Does the remark “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially the women came to sell their bodies” satisfy that criteria? Of course, and you don’t need to be as clever as the Attorney General to think so.

Firstly, what he said is according to our own history books completely untrue. What we were taught was that the British brought the Indians to work in the estates, as labour, and in security and the Chinese to work on the tin mines. Secondly, there was no necessity under any circumstance to make such an untrue and offensive remark. It is offensive because it is so blatantly untrue. Third and relatedly, that remark was specifically crafted to denigrate our Malaysian brothers and sisters racial heritage. It is not necessary to press how suitably those remarks fit the criteria of a ’seditious tendency’. It also clearly does not fulfil the exceptions contained in section 3(2) of the Act.

Section 3(3) is of importance to what Datuk Safir Nasir said when he ‘apologized’. Let us listen to his magnanimous apology again:

“I would like to again openly apologise to all Malaysians for the remarks that are seen as racist. I really did not intend it that way..”

I don’t know what other way he could have intended it. As a compliment? As a friendly pat on the back? As a ‘Hey, you my brother forevah?’ As part of fostering closer and harmonious relations? By disparaging against other Malaysian’s racial heritage? Did he have in mind MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) President Dato’ Sri Ong Tee Keat’s Chinese maternal lineage or MIC President Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s Indian heritage when he made those remarks? In what way did Datuk Nasir Safar intend his words to be taken? If he thinks those very words had no racial element, then Datuk Nasir Safar is so racist to the extent he cannot even tell when he is being so. That statement is normal for someone like him and his company. He, of course, does not explain because there can be no other explanation. So is his intention of any relevance?

Read more at: Sometimes Sorry is Irrelevant

By Nat Tan

On my way out to lunch, but a quick point to my latest article. The hyperlinks therein were removed, so I hope no one will mind if I reproduce it here with links intact :)

While writing this piece, I had a random thought perhaps worth noting for later further exploration. What if Najib was secretly egging on the Perkasa factions so as to make himself appear to be the more moderate alternative – an ‘in between’ between conservative Umnoputeras and ‘overly liberal’ opposition? It’d be quite a con.

Ah well, wouldn’t be a political blog without the occasional conspiracy theory right? :P

The Only Game in Town

Why do people with good hearts even bother anymore with politics in Malaysia?

There’s a story about gambler and card sharp Canada Bill Jones, who was one day losing his entire bankroll at a crooked game of Faro. His friend asked, “Hey Bill, why don’t you walk away while you can – don’t you know the game is crooked?” Canada Bill sighed and replied “I know, I know,” and added,  “but it’s the only game in town.”

Sometimes those who work for a better Malaysia can’t help but get the feeling that they’re always playing against a stacked deck, and I can’t blame them.

This was brought home to me in particular last week when I learnt that a book I edited with John may be banned (if I can make a shameless plug, it’s still available for now, but perhaps not for long!) – this despite our efforts to ensure that what we put together was entirely factual, things we are confident would hold up in a fair court of law. Apparently though, any book with pictures of Altantuya, Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan and Anwar on the cover are bound to “threaten public order”.

Of course, much larger problems are happening in the grand scheme of things – many of which remind me of Canada Bill’s game.

Over the last few days and weeks, we have seen a great number of injustices. This last weekend, the police moved to block Khalid Ibrahim from speaking at Batu Caves during Thaipusam – ostensibly because the police felt it wasn’t cool for him to do so given that Najib wanted to speak around the same time.

I couldn’t help but remember scenes from Batu Caves not 3 years ago, where Najib’s same Umno government was firing tear gas at Indians trapped within the same Batu Caves compound.

Of course, Khalid isn’t the only one being prevented from speaking to the rakyat. Anwar met the same fate in Kampung Kerinci that same week, when the Brickfields district police chief came down to drag him off the stage, even preventing Anwar from saying some prayers to prematurely close his speech.

This level of government paranoia is overbearing. In any mature democracy, citizens should be allowed to inspect all the cards in the deck to make their own verifications and judgments, not just the ones the dealer chooses to reveal.

Anwar of course faces bigger challenges this week than being disallowed to say closing prayers. Last week, the Federal Court decided that his defense should not be allowed to examine the prosecution’s evidence ahead of his trial. Sounds a little like they’ll have to fight with one hand tied behind their back.

Elsewhere in less prominent legal cases, police defy court orders to return all of the samples seized from Kugan’s post mortem, and return some in an unusable state. One of the lawyers taking up the case, Teluk Intan MP M. Manogaran is himself being investigated for sedition over comments he made about Umno, the church firebombing and Anwar’s trial.

Students haven’t been spared either, as universities hold e-voting for the first time, raising a great many suspicions about vote rigging.

Through this all, the biggest ace hidden mischievously up a sleeve may be the abuse of the mainstream media.

One of my consistent ‘favourites’ may be The Star, who headlined Zulkifli Nordin two days in a row. This was too rich for me – highlights of the problems of one individual coming from the party who can’t even elect or depose their president and central committee properly.

Even that however, may not have been as dangerously misleading as the opinion piece that was written by Joceline Tan in The Star comparing articles by Najib and Anwar in the Wall Street Journal on the Allah controversy.

Read more at: Rigged Politics – The only game in town

By romerz

GEORGE TOWN: A group of Malay non-governmental organizations staged a protest at Komtar here after Friday prayers to object against what they claimed was discrimination in the demolition of illegal hawker stalls, burning an effigy of Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in the process.

Full story by TheStar Online - Malay NGOs hold protest, burn effigy of Guan Eng

(Image from Malaysiakini)

Read more at: Racial discrimination in Penang?

Emmanuel Joseph,
(A Nearly Nameless,Faceless,Positionless Pakatan Member) DAP Socialist Youth, Klang.

Some of you were luckier than others, and been appointed to important government posts. Some even head entire state governments. Congratulations. Your long wait and tireless efforts paid off. But please do kindly remember, it was not only your efforts alone, but the efforts and will of more than half the Malaysian electorate that put you where you are. You did not win entirely on your own charm, your education level, your profile in your respective fields of expertise or struggle. Frankly, most Malaysians who supported you did not even care who you were or what you did, as long as you were not donning a dark blue cap with a BN logo on it. That is the reason we had aircraft mechanics voted into power in the last General Election.
 
The next time any of you decide to foam in the mouth about lack of funding, lack of resources and other similar grouses, please bear in mind these few facts. Firstly, you stood for the election on your own free will. Nobody put a gun on your foreheads asking you to run for elections, nobody begged you to contest. Out of your own reasons, rightly or wrongly, you stood representing the people. And because of that, the people rallied behind you and riding on this, you were catapulted into where you now are.

Secondly, others have had far less than you, suffered much more than you and been doing it for far longer. Take a look at the likes of YB Dr Tan Seng Giaw, YB Fong Kui Loon, YB Dr Wan Azizah, YB Mustafa Ali, YB Nasharuddin Mat Isa and many more. What more YBs Karpal, Kit Siang and Nik Aziz? Who was there to fund them? Who supported their families when some of them were thrown into ISA? Most of you are only first term Yang Berhormats, so why can't you sacrifice less than 5 years of your life if you are sincere in your cause?

Thirdly, regardless of your previous political alignment, you are with Pakatan now. It is the people's alliance, not a cronies' alliance. If money, resources and luxurious allowances are what you crave, then you have the wrong party ... maybe even the wrong country. And if you were in it for those express reasons, please do the honorable thing and resign.
 
Dear Yang Berhormats,
 
The next time you decide to shoot from the hip about party policy, please bear in mind these few facts. Firstly, you are not Pakatan Rakyat, you are a part of Pakatan Rakyat. The policy of Pakatan Rakyat is not your sole prerogative, nor is it yours, your father's or your grandfather's to decide. There is a hierarchy in place and it is there for a reason. You are a single member of Pakatan Rakyat and, as an elected rep, have the trust of the nameless, faceless, positionless Pakatan grassroots to speak on its behalf in explaining the policy to the people, not deciding on the policy for the people.

Secondly, your opinions, however valid you perceive them to be, and your points, however salient you believe them to be, remains just that, yours. Not the party's, not the alliances' and hell, no, not the peoples'! If it is your own opinion, by all means say so. Please don't confuse everyone by muddling and befuddling everything and everyone and turning what is clearly black and white into a giant grey mess.

Thirdly, please remember that the media loves to give you attention even more than you love the attention it gives you. Especially when you shoot yourself in the foot. While you're busy shooting your own feet, the media is amputating the very feet Pakatan stands on, no thanks to the likes of you. If you don't like what Pakatan stands for, then by all means, do resign.
 
The next time you decide to bring out your personal vendetta against any Pakatan colleague due to a long standing feud, a dissatisfaction over your appointments or that of your political followers or just because you just don't like the guy's face, please try doing these steps instead: first, try talking to the person. Nothing clears the air like a good honest conversation. Second muhasabahlah diri . You are nothing near perfect, yet we still voted you in. Isn't that nice? Shouldn't you then be nice to your comrades? Third, remember that every action has a reaction. Call it a law of physics, or political karma, it will come back to haunt you one day! If you feel you are still right and Pakatan is wrong, then don't demand that Pakatan withdraw! Your own withdrawal from office will more than suffice.
 
Dear Yang Berhormats,
 
Please remember, the people who voted you in can as easily vote you out. The people who worked hard to ensure your victory can work as hard with a vengeance to ensure your loss. You carry the aspirations of an entire generation on your shoulders. Please do not snuff out our dreams for a better Malaysia. There are enough elements out there that want Pakatan destroyed, so internal self-destruction is the last thing needed right now. And if you believe you don't need the Malaysian electorate, then, rest assured, the Malaysian electorate needs you even less. Thank you, and have a pleasant (remaining) time in political office.

Not many people are exposed to these words (ummm... ok, me at least). But this will be the catch phrase for 2010. Forget 'sub-prime'. The new lingo is sovereign default. And this 2 big words will bring the entire world down to it's knees.

By Simon Templar

I am a believer that there will be a double dip in the world recession simply because I do not believe that the current pump priming of economies globally is going to be able to pull us out of the on-going financial crisis. Apparently the world economy is on some kind of a rebound now. Green shoots sprouting everywhere. Is it? Personally I don't think so.

The Dubai fiasco had started the double dip. US$50 to $60 billion may seem like chicken feet compared to what the US government had to deal with (read: hundreds of billions). But is the Dubai case isolated? That will be the most important question.

What are the unfolding effects? For starters, we are now being told that a large portion of the Dubai debts is owned by British banks. The Brits are at the end of their wits and this will not go down well with their already very ill economy. And if the Brits get kicked, the Frenchies will get their knickers twisted. And the Germans then hammered. You get what I mean.

And amidst all this, a new form of disaster has emerged. Sovereign debt. The Greeks are, pardon my language; in deep shit. Sort of knee high. So that's quite a lot of shit. Their government is unable to repay their bonds. Sovereign bonds are government bonds which are issued and denominated in foreign currency. So upon maturity, the issuing government will have to repay the bond holders in the denominated foreign currency. If the said government is unable to purchase the said foreign currency for repayment of debt, they are screwed.

And this is what we are facing now. We in Malaysia are not getting a lot of coverage on this, yet. Just like the beginning of the sub-prime crisis in the States. We are after all frogs living under coconut shells.

Read more at: http://saltpepperandalittlekicap.blogspot.com/2010/02/wheres-my-rice.html

By P. Ramakrishnan (President, Aliran)

However, considering Nasir Safar’s ‘special status’, the AG also can’t decide on the matter. The AG will have to ‘seek guidance’ from the Prime Minister as to whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

45 police reports have been made against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s former special officer, Nasir Safar. So the police have no choice but to ‘record his statement’. That is the SOP of the Malaysian police force. If a police report is made against you then they must record your statement.

I remember, last year, IGP Musa Hassan said that they are not able to take any action based on rumours and Internet postings. A police report must first be made before the police can take action. And the action to take would be to record the statement of the one the police report has been made against. Then they will investigate the matter and decide if a crime has been committed.

Allow me to digress a bit here. In my own criminal cases, it was the police who made a police report against me. In other words, no police report was made against me. And since they can’t take action against me unless a police report is first lodged, the police themselves made a police report against me.

So the police do not need anyone to make a police report before they take action against you. If they really want to take action but no police report has been made, the police themselves can make that police report, as what happened to me.

Okay, now back to the issue at hand. If the police -- after the statement has been recorded and an investigation has been completed -- is of the view that a crime has been committed, they still can’t take action yet. Instead, they must refer the matter to the Attorney-General, who will then decide if there is any case to prosecute.

Assuming the AG feels the evidence is not strong enough or they do not quite have a case, then the file will be stamped NFA (No Further Action) and the matter will be closed.

That is how the Malaysian system works.

If I want to write about this matter in greater detail then this article would certainly run into 100 pages. Many of you will for sure not read any piece that is 100 pages long. As it is, I am already receiving complaints from my dear friend Chris that my four- to five-page articles are too cheong hei. Imagine what she will say about a 100-page article.

So, as not to annoy Chris, I will try to keep this piece within five pages or so. After all, this is not a thesis for my law degree. In case you are not already aware, I am practicing law without a law degree just like I write about Islam without first obtaining a degree from the International Islamic University (UIA).

And so that I can keep this article within the required length, I would like to refer to just ONE case. This one case should be sufficient to demonstrate the point I am trying to get across.

In 1999, the Parti Keadilan Nasional Youth Leader, Ezam Mohd Nor, called a press conference to reveal the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA and now called MACC) investigation papers against Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz. The ACA investigation revealed that Rafidah had committed an act of corruption.

Now, we must also remember, around that time Anwar Ibrahim too was indicted for corruption and was found guilty and was sentenced to six years' jail. But Anwar’s ‘crime’ involved no monetary gain. Rafidah’s crime did.

Rafidah never denied the act. She in fact admitted it. But she explained that she sat in the meeting that approved the shares to her own son-in-law because Mahathir’s son’s application for shares was also being decided at the same time. According to Rafidah in her press statement, Mahathir had instructed her to make sure that his son got those shares.

So she sat in the meeting to ensure that the committee did just that, approve the shares for Mahathir’s son. When it came to approving the shares for her own son-in-law, she abstained from voting due to ‘conflict of interest’, although she did not leave the room when they deliberated on the matter.

Rafidah did not need to vote on the matter. All she needed to do was to sit there and no officer would dare vote against her son-in-law. No government officer in his right mind would dare oppose giving millions' worth of shares to his or her own minister’s son-in-law.

If you personally know Rafidah then you will know that she is a very strong-willed woman. She is not known as ‘The Iron Lady’ for nothing. All she needs to do is to stare at you and your balls will shrink (or tits, if you are a woman). She even dared challenge Mahathir and whacked him good and proper.

Anyway, the ACA and AG were both of the view that Rafidah committed a crime by sitting in the meeting that approved the shares to her own son-in-law. And the AG endorsed the ACA investigation papers and recommended that Rafidah be arrested and charged for corruption.

But before any Minister, Deputy Minister, or any ‘big shot’, can be arrested and charged, the AG must first obtain the approval of the Prime Minister. And the Prime Minister then, Dr Mahathir, said no. So the file was closed with a NFA stamp on the front cover.

The ACA said charge. The AG said charge. The PM said no charge. And that is what finally happened. No charge.

And Ezam revealed this entire episode to the public during a press conference in 1999. And he showed the reporters the documents to prove his allegation. Ezam was not lying. He was telling the truth. But the documents he revealed to the media had RAHSIA stamped on them. So Ezam was arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act. He was then put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to two years' jail.

Ezam was actually under Internal Security Act detention in the Kamunting Detention Centre at that time. So all they needed to do was to transfer him from Kamunting to the Kajang Prison to serve out his sentence. He never saw freedom until two years later.

For the government to win its case against Ezam they had to admit that the documents are genuine and are not fakes. Therefore, in that same breath, the government confirmed Ezam’s story about Rafidah. To send Ezam to jail they must admit the authenticity of the documents. If they say Ezam is lying, then how to charge him under the Official Secrets Act?

Okay, the police are now going to record the statement of this Nasir Safar chap. Now, whether the police investigation uncovers any crime committed by Nasir Safar is one thing. But even if they do, they still can’t charge him yet. They need to hand the file over to the AG for him to decide whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.

However, considering Nasir Safar’s ‘special status’, the AG also can’t decide on the matter. The AG will have to ‘seek guidance’ from the Prime Minister as to whether to charge Nasir Safar or not.

Okay, that is one issue. Next would be the recorded statement made by private investigator Bala concerning the Altantuya murder. During his detention and interrogation, Bala told the police that Nasir Safar was there when Sirul and Azilah picked up Altantuya and later murdered her.

A police report was made. The required ‘recorded statement’ was made. Will the police now look into this as well or is this one more case of NFA?

I would place RM1,000 on a bet that BOTH cases will end up with a NFA stamp on them. Want to take this bet? I could certainly do with the money.

Oh, and before I forget, read Raja Nazrin’s statement below: Do Not Mock the Law. Nazrin should be addressing this statement to the police and AG.

Oh, and one more thing, the Malacca CPO, Senior Assistant Commissioner (I) Datuk Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof, mentioned in the Star news report below, is the police officer who met Saiful in the Concorde Hotel two days BEFORE Anwar was alleged to have sodomised him. Rodwan was also accused of fabricating evidence during the Sodomy 1 trail as well.

********************************************

Cops to take statement from Nasir

Police will record a statement from the Prime Minister’s former special officer Datuk Nasir Safar over his alleged racist remarks during a 1Malaysia seminar here on Tuesday.

The statement is expected to be taken from Nasir, who is being investigated under the Sedition Act, in Kuala Lumpur some time on Friday.

Malacca CPO Senior Assistant Commissioner (I) Datuk Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof said police have almost wrapped up their investigation.

“We are speeding up the investigation as it involves a case of public interest.

“The investigation is about 85% complete and we have interviewed 30 people so far,” he told reporters here on Friday.

He added that police had received a total of 45 reports against Nasir -- 13 in Perak, nine in Malacca, five in Kedah, four in Penang, Pahang and Selangor, and three in Negri Sembilan and Johor.

He said police are expected to complete their probe by early next week before submitting the investigation papers to the deputy public prosecutor.

It was learned that among those called up for their statement were a state assemblyman, state MIC members, six journalists, officers from the State Special Affairs Department, the venue management and participants of the seminar.

Nasir, who was a speaker at the Rapat 1Malaysia seminar at the Melaka International Trade Centre in Ayer Keroh on Tuesday, caused a furore when he allegedly uttered racist remarks resulting in several local MIC and MCA members walking out of the hall.

He subsequently explained that he did not intend to make any racist remarks and apologised, following which he tendered his resignation. – The Star

********************************************

Raja Nazrin: Do Not Mock the Law

The Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, today reminded legal practitioners not to mock nor smear the country's laws.

He said as legal practitioners, they should not only refer to or value a law when it benefited them, but dismiss or mock it if they felt it did not benefit them.

Raja Nazrin said this was because laws were important in ensuring continuity and credibility of an administration or government.

"Your level of excellence and honour in the legal profession in the public eye in future will depend on your wisdom and disciplined practice from now," he said at the presentation of the Certificate of Legal Practice issued by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board, Malaysia, to 238 recipients, here, today.

Raja Nazrin said if justice failed to be effectively and professionally managed, society and the nation would be heading towards destruction with crime becoming much more rampant.

"The legal enforcement machinery is seen to be getting weaker, perhaps personal interest are above professional interest now. Those who make professional interest their prioroty are a minority, who are sidelined from the main decision-making process in an organisation.

"The highest-level mechanism is also seen as increasingly weak to the extent that the public have come to regard the court as mere drama stage and losing their respect and trust.

"This scenario is no creation, but a precursor to the downfall of many Third World countries. The people suffer while the countries' top leaders flee and become exiles in other countries or hunted down for their wrongdoings."

The Perak Raja Muda said justice could not be administered in society or country if the laws contained elements of oppression and giving privileges to the powerful to dominate the weak and the rich to oppress the poor.

In fact, he said, there would be no justice if the legal machinery was impotent.

"A country's sovereignty depends on its seriousness in honouring its laws mirrored by its firmness and never compromising with practices that disrespect the law, and by its intolerance towards malpractices like misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, power abuse and corruption.

"There is sovereignty of the law if there is a strong spirit to uphold the law and truth as a way of life."

He said sovereignty of the law could also be guaranteed as long as the process of meting justice at the courts was not marred by unethical practices done from outside the courts to influence the decisions.

Raja Nazrin said managing justice required the collective role of various quarters, besides the professional understanding and respect for the ethics of every agency or individual involved.

"If the investigating and prosecuting officers do not produce quality work and show a high level of professionalism, if the defence counsel violate their professional code of ethics and if judges sacrifice the principle of truth, then justice will be compromised," he said. – Malaysian Digest

Translated into BM by Jason:

BERANIKAH polis mengambil tindakan?

Tetapi disebabkan 'kedudukan istimewa' Nasir Safar, Peguam Negara tidak boleh membuat keputusan sendiri. Peguam Negara terpaksa ‘mendapatkan nasihat’ daripada Perdana Menteri tentang sama ada Nasir Safar boleh didakwa ataupun tidak.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

45 laporan polis yang telah dibuat terhadap bekas pegawai khas Najib, iaitu Nasir Safar. Jadi, polis tiada pilihan selain 'mengambil keterangannya'. Ini adalah salah satu dari SOP (Prosedur Standard Operasi) polis Malaysia. Ya, jika laporan polis dibuat terhadap anda, maka mereka perlu mengambil keterangan anda.

Saya masih ingat lagi bahawa pada tahun lalu, KPN Musa Hassan berkata bahawa polis tidak boleh mengambil tindakan berdasarkan khabar angin dan laporan di internet. Sebelum polis boleh mengambil tindakan, laporan polis mesti dibuat mengenai perkara berkenaan. Selepas itu, polis akan mengambil keterangan daripada orang yang mana laporan polis dibuat terhadapnya. Kemudian, mereka akan menyiasat dan memutuskan sama ada jenayah telah dilakukan ataupun tidak.

Izinkan saya untuk mengaitkan perkara ini dengan diri saya pula. Dalam kes ‘jenayah’ yang membabitkan saya, polis sendiri mengambil ‘inisiatif’ untuk membuat laporan polis terhadap saya. Dengan kata lain, sebenarnya, tiada laporan polis yang dibuat terhadap saya. Oleh sebab mereka tidak boleh mengambil tindakan terhadap saya kecuali dengan kewujudan laporan polis, maka mereka sendiri membuat laporan polis terhadap saya.

Jadi, kalau ikutkan, polis sebenarnya tidak memerlukan sebarang laporan daripada sesiapa sebelum mereka dapat mengambil tindakan terhadap anda. Jika mereka benar-benar ingin mengambil tindakan namun tiada laporan polis dibuat, maka polis sendiri boleh membuat laporan polis, seperti yang berlaku kepada saya.

Okeylah, mari kita berbalik kepada isu pokok. Meskipun polis berpandangan bahawa jenayah telah dilakukan selepas mengambil keterangan dan menjalankan siasatan, namun mereka masih tidak boleh mengambil tindakan. Sebaliknya, mereka perlu merujuk perkara tersebut kepada Peguam Negara, yang mana Peguam Negara akan memutuskan sama terdapat kes yang dapat didakwa.

Jika Peguam Negara berpendapat bahawa bukti yang berkaitan tidak cukup kuat ataupun kes mereka tidak cukup kukuh, maka fail siasatan kes tersebut akan dicop NFA (No Further Action - Tiada Tindakan Lanjut), dan kes itu akan ditutup.

Inilah cara sistem (pendakwaan) Malaysia berfungsi.

Jika saya ingin menulis tentang perkara ini dengan lebih terperinci, maka artikel ini pasti mencecah 100 halaman. Ramai daripada anda yang takkan membaca artikel setebal 100 halaman. Sekarang pun saya dah menerima rungutan daripada sahabat saya, Chris bahawa artikel 4 – 5 mukasurat saya terlalu cheong hei (panjang lebar). Kalau saya tulis artikel 100 mukasurat, entah apalah yang akan dia kata.

Jadi, bagi tidak menyakitkan hati Chris, saya akan cuba mengehadkan artikel ni kepada lebih kurang lima halaman. Lagipun, saya bukannya nak tulis tesis untuk dapat ijazah undang-undang. Selama ni pun, saya mempraktikkan undang-undang tanpa ijazah undang-undang, sama seperti saya menulis tentang Islam tanpa terlebih dahulu memperoleh ijazah dari Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA).

Jadi, saya hanya akan merujuk kepada SATU kes supaya artikel saya tak terlalu panjang. Kes tu pun dah memadai bagi menerangkan mengenai perkara yang menjadi hujung pangkal artikel ini.

Pada tahun 1999, Ketua Pemuda Parti Keadilan Nasional, Ezam Mohd Nor, mengadakan sidang akhbar bagi mendedahkan kertas siasatan Badan Pencegah Rasuah (BPR; sekarang SPRM) terhadap Menteri Perdagangan dan Industri, Rafidah Aziz. Siasatan BPR mendapati bahawa Rafidah terlibat dalam rasuah.

Suatu perkara yang harus kita ingat adalah sekitar waktu yang sama, Anwar Ibrahim disabitkan atas rasuah dan dijatuhi hukuman penjara enam tahun. Tetapi 'jenayah' Anwar tidak membabitkan sebarang keuntungan kewangan, tidak seperti kes Rafidah.

Rafidah tak pernah menafikan jenayah yang dilakukannya itu. Bahkan dia mengakuinya. Tetapi dia beralasan bahawa dia terlibat dalam mesyuarat yang meluluskan pemberikan saham kepada menantunya kerana mesyuarat yang sama juga sedang menimbangkan permohonan saham daripada anak Mahathir. Dalam kenyataan akhbarnya, Rafidah mengatakan bahawa dia diarah oleh Mahathir bagi memastikan bahawa anaknya mendapat saham tersebut.

Jadi, ‘tujuan’ dia turut sama dalam mesyuarat itu adalah bagi memastikan bahawa jawatankuasa berkenaan meluluskan pemberikan saham kepada anak Mahathir. Walau bagaimanapun, menurutnya, atas sebab ‘percanggahan kepentingan’, dia tidak melibatkan diri apabila jawatankuasa itu mengundi bagi membuat keputusan mengenai pemberikan saham kepada menantunya. Tetapi pada masa yang sama, dia tidak meninggalkan bilik mesyuarat ketika perkara itu dibincangkan.

Sebenarnya, Rafidah tak perlu mengundi pun. Dia hanya perlu berada di dalam bilik mesyuarat ketika perkara itu dibincangkan. Dengan demikian, tak ada siapa yang berani mengundi untuk tidak memberikan saham kepada menantunya. Yalah, pegawai kerajaan mana yang berani menentang pemberian saham bernilai jutaan ringgit kepada menantu menterinya sendiri? Ye tak?

Kalau anda kenal Rafidah secara peribadi, maka anda tahu bahawa dia wanita yang keras hati. Sebab tulah dia dikenali sebagai 'The Iron Lady' (Wanita Besi). Sekali dia menjeling, mesti anda kecut perut. Malah dia juga berani menentang Mahathir.

Pokoknya, BPR dan Peguam Negara berpandangan bahawa Rafidah melakukan jenayah dengan menghadiri mesyuarat yang meluluskan saham kepada menantunya sendiri. Maka Peguam Negara mengesahkan kertas siasatan BPR dan mengusulkan agar Rafidah ditangkap dan didakwa atas jenayah rasuah.

Tetapi sebelum mana-mana menteri, timbalan menteri ataupun 'orang besar' boleh ditangkap dan didakwa, Peguam Negara terpaksa mendapatkan kebenaran daripada Perdana Menteri. Dalam kes ini, Perdana Menteri pada ketika itu, Dr. Mahathir tidak mengizinkannya. Jadi, kes itu ditutup dan dicop “NFA”.

“Dakwa,” kata BPR dan Peguam Negara. Tetapi PM tidak mengizinkannya. Jadi, akhirnya, Rafidah tidak didakwa.

Ezam mendedahkan mengenai keseluruhan episod ini kepada umum semasa sidang akhbarnya pada tahun 1999. Malah dia menunjukkan dokumen-dokumen yang berkaitan kepada para wartawan bagi membuktikan dakwaannya. Ezam sememangnya tidak berbohong. Dia bercakap benar. Namun terdapat cop “RAHSIA” pada dokumen yang didedahkannya kepada media. Jadi, Ezam ditangkap dan didakwa di bawah Akta Rahsia Rasmi. Dia kemudiannya dibicarakan, didapati bersalah dan dihukum penjara dua tahun.

Sebenarnya, pada masa tu, Ezam ditahan di bawah Akta Keselamatan dalam Negeri (ISA) di Kamunting. Jadi, mereka hanya perlu memindahkannya dari Kamunting ke Penjara Kajang bagi menjalani hukuman. Dia hanya dibebaskan dua tahun kemudian.

Bagi memenangi kes terhadap Ezam, kerajaan terpaksa mengakui bahawa dokumen-dokumen itu adalah dokumen yang tulen. Dengan demikian, mereka juga sebenarnya mengesahkan pendedahan Ezam mengenai Rafidah. Ya, bagi memenjarakan Ezam, mereka terpaksa mengakui keaslian dokumen-dokumen itu. Jika mereka menuduh bahawa Ezam berbohong, maka mana mungkin mereka mendakwanya di bawah Akta Rahsia Rasmi.

Okey, sekarang ni, polis akan mengambil keterangan Nasir Safar, dan sama ada siasatan mereka mendapati bahawa Nasir Safar melakukan jenayah ataupun tidak adalah satu hal. Tetapi kalau pun dia didapati melakukan jenayah, mereka masih tidak boleh mendakwanya. Mereka perlu menyerahkan fail siasatan kepada Peguam Negara, yakni bagi Peguam Negara memutuskan sama Nasir Safar akan didakwa ataupun tidak.

Tetapi disebabkan 'kedudukan istimewa' Nasir Safar, Peguam Negara tidak boleh membuat keputusan sendiri. Peguam Negara terpaksa ‘mendapatkan nasihat’ daripada Perdana Menteri tentang sama ada Nasir Safar boleh didakwa ataupun tidak.

Okey, itu lagi satu isu. Isu seterusnya adalah tentang keterangan terakam Bala (penyiasat persendirian) mengenai pembunuhan Altantuya. Semasa ditahan dan disoal siasat, Bala memberitahu polis bahawa Nasir Safar berada di tempat kejadian ketika Sirul dan Azilah menangkap Altantuya dan kemudiannya membunuhnya.

Laporan polis mengenai perkara itu telah dibuat. ‘Keterangan terakam’ yang dikehendaki juga sudah dibuat. Jadi, adakah polis akan menyiasatnya ataupun adakah kes ni akan jadi satu lagi kes NFA?

Saya sanggup bertaruh RM1,000 bahawa KEDUA-DUA kes tu akan berakhir dengan cop NFA pada fail siasatannya. Amacam, ada berani? Saya memang perlukan duit, pun. Mari, mari!

Oh ya, sebelum saya terlupa, bacalah kenyataan Raja Nazrin di bawah ini: Do Not Mock the Law. Nazrin sepatutnya menyampaikan kenyataan ini kepada polis dan Peguam Negara.

Ha, satu perkara lagi, Ketua Polis Melaka, SAC (I) Datuk Mohd Yusof bin Mohd Rodwan yang disebut dalam laporan The Star di bawah ini adalah pegawai polis yang bertemu dengan Saiful di Hotel Concorde dua hari SEBELUM Anwar dikatakan meliwatnya. Sebenarnya, Rodwan juga dituduh memalsukan bukti bagi perbicaraan Liwat I.

The ‘evidence’ is ready. The semen specimen on Saiful’s underwear has been 'confirmed' as Anwar’s. The only problem is if they allow an independent foreign expert to do an audit on the Chemistry Department’s findings, he or she might confirm that the specimen is ten years old and not dated 26 June 2008 as alleged.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It was a great party that night. The Chemistry Department was so pleased they had an airtight case against Anwar Ibrahim they decided to celebrate. And the RM25,000 party was financed by a Good Samaritan who was delighted that this time, unlike last time, they have got Anwar by the balls.

RM25,000 is not a lot to spend on a party if it is a party to celebrate the wedding of the Prime Minister. Last year, when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi got married to the Maid from Putrajaya, they spent millions. RM25,000 is also not a lot to spend on a celebration the day Najib Tun Razak finally takes over as Prime Minister in 2010. Rosmah Mansor spends more than that on a handbag. But RM25,000 is certainly a lot to spend on a party to celebrate the ‘success’ of the Chemistry Department in being able to nail Anwar’s balls to the wall.

Why does the Good Samaritan need to sponsor a RM25,000 party for the Chemistry Department staff? What is there to celebrate? Do they always celebrate with a RM25,000 party whenever they succeed in cracking a case? Or was this a once-in-a-lifetime celebration for successfully coming up with the ‘evidence’ to send Anwar to jail for at least ten years, which will ensure he will never be able to form the new federal government on 16 September 2008?

Hold on awhile though. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that Anwar must volunteer his ‘new’ DNA profile. The 1998 DNA profile that the police have on record is ‘too old’, argued Abdullah. The police, in turn, said that if Anwar refuses to volunteer his ‘new’ DNA profile then they would have to obtain a court order to force him to do so. Hmm…..there appears to be many things wrong with all this.

Firstly, if the Chemistry Department has already wrapped up its case and the airtight ‘evidence’ against Anwar has already been secured then why the need for Anwar’s new DNA profile? DNA profiles never expire. Would the police also need Anwar’s ‘new’ fingerprints because the one they took ten years ago has ‘expired’? Fingerprints never change from the day you were born till the day you die. And the same goes for DNA profiles as well.

If you can remember, they once dug up Napoleon Bonaparte’s grave and did an examination to prove he had died of arsenic poisoning. And Napoleon died on 5 May 1821, which is more than 187 years ago. You mean to say that Anwar’s DNA profile of ten years ago is already basi?

The truth is, the airtight ‘evidence’ that the Chemistry Department recently conjured is based on Anwar’s specimen of 1998. So they need a new specimen dated 2008. If not, if Anwar calls in an independent foreign expert to audit the Chemistry Department’s evidence, he or she might just discover that the so-called ‘evidence’ is actually ten years old and not from the 26 June 2008 ‘sodomy’ incident as alleged by the government.

Yes, that’s right, they not only can tell whether the so-called ‘semen’ on Saiful’s underwear belongs to Anwar, they can also tell whether it is from September 1998 when they first took Anwar’s specimen, or whether it is dated 26 June 2008 as alleged by the government.

The ‘evidence’ is ready. The semen specimen on Saiful’s underwear has been 'confirmed' as Anwar's. The only problem is if they allow an independent foreign expert to do an audit on the Chemistry Department’s findings, he or she might confirm that the specimen is ten years old and not dated 26 June 2008 as alleged.

So they need to exchange the September 1998 specimen with a new one dated July 2008. And that is why Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Syed Hamid Albar, and all those others, have asked Anwar to volunteer his new specimen. They need this new specimen to ‘prove’ that the semen on Saiful’s underwear is dated 26 June 2008 and not September 1998. And Abdullah himself ‘confirmed’ this when he asked Anwar to volunteer his new specimen whereas the old specimen is good enough if it is just required for DNA profiling -- only that it would not pass the test if an independent foreign expert was to audit the Chemistry Department’s ‘evidence’ and then come out with a report that says the specimen is ten years old.

Yes, in September 1998 they already took Anwar’s specimen. But they can’t use it as evidence in this latest sodomy allegation. They need to ‘update’ the evidence and unless they can force Anwar to give them his new specimen then the evidence will be shot full of holes. And that is why the police had to reluctantly release Anwar on police bail one day after his dramatic Hollywood-style arrest. They had to either release him or bring him to court to be charged. But how to charge Anwar when the evidence is defective? And evidence of Anwar’s so-called sodomy crime supported by a specimen from September 1998 will certainly be defective and will not stand up in court. Anwar is alleged to have sodomised Saiful on 26 June 2008, not in September 1998.

Now can you see how the slime-ball AG and scumbag IGP work? And these two slithery creatures are the same slime-balls and scumbags who fabricated evidence in 1998 that resulted in Anwar having to spend six years in jail. And am I committing an act of sedition and criminal defamation in saying this? I certainly hope so. And, while we are at it, why not I commit yet another ‘crime’? I am going to accuse the AG and IGP of fabricating evidence and of intimidating witnesses.

You see, they asked a certain doctor from a certain hospital to conduct an examination on Saiful. The doctor did so and he came out with a report that said there is no evidence Anwar had ever penetrated or sodomised the young man. The police then picked up the doctor and detained him for three days. As much as they tried to force him to change his report to implicate Anwar he refused to do so.

Until today, the doctor stands by his report that there is no evidence Anwar had sodomised Saiful. He knows he is going to be made to pay for this but he doesn’t care. He is not going to change his report and say that Anwar sodomised Saiful whatever they do to him. Exasperated, the police had to release Anwar on personal bond or police bail. The doctor refuses to doctor his report and neither does Anwar want to volunteer his new specimen.

The ‘evidence’ against Anwar is no good. They now need to look for another way to ‘prove’ that Anwar sodomised Saiful. In the meantime, let us see if the AG will be making another police report against me and whether the IGP is going to arrest me and charge me in court for sedition and criminal defamation for this latest allegation of mine.

Hey, I already face four charges of sedition and criminal defamation. What are another two or three charges? The important thing is not whether I get sent to jail or not. What is important is that the world is told that they are attempting, yet again, to fabricate evidence against Anwar Ibrahim. And that is worth going to jail for.

THE ABOVE ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED ON 21 JULY 2008. SOON AFTER THAT I WAS SUMMONED TO BUKIT AMAN BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO 'TAKE MY STATEMENT' ON A CHARGE OF SEDITION. I REFUSED TO GIVE MY STATEMENT AND THE POLICE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO RELEASE ME. THEY THEN RAIDED MY HOUSE TO LOOK FOR THE DOCTOR'S REPORT AND CONFISCATED VARIOUS DOCUMENTS. THEY COULD NOT FIND MY COMPUTER THOUGH ALTHOUGH THEY SEARCHED THE ENTIRE HOUSE. LESS THAN TWO MONTHS LATER I WAS DETAINED UNDER THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT. 

Translated into Chinese at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_5312.html

Translated into BM by Jason:

Bagaimana mereka sekali lagi cuba memalsukan bukti terhadap Anwar

Bukti' sudah tersedia. Spesimen air mani pada seluar dalam Saiful telah 'disahkan' sebagai air mani Anwar. Masalahnya adalah jika mereka membenarkan pakar asing yang bebas bagi mengaudit dapatan Jabatan Kimia itu, maka akan terbuktilah bahawa spesimen itu berusia sepuluh tahun dan bukannya bertarikh 26 Jun 2008, sebagaimana yang didakwa.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Malam tu, mereka berparti sakan. Jabatan Kimia begitu gembira kerana beranggapan bahawa mereka ada kes yang kukuh terhadap Anwar Ibrahim, hinggakan mereka meraikannya. Parti dengan kos RM25,000 tu ditanggung oleh seorang Individu Baik yang gembira bahawa kali ni, tak seperti perbicaraan yang sebelumnya, Anwar berada dalam tangan mereka.

RM25,000 untuk berparti bukannya banyak sangat jika ia adalah bagi meraikan perkahwinan Perdana Menteri. Tahun lalu, berjuta dibelanjakan bagi perkahwinan Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. RM25,000 juga bukannya banyak sangat bagi meraikan pengambil alihan Najib Tun Razak sebagai Perdana Menteri pada tahun 2010. Malah Rosmah Mansor membelanjakan lebih daripada tu untuk membeli beg tangan. Tetapi RM25,000 sememangnya jumlah yang besar bagi merayakan 'kejayaan' Jabatan Kimia menjerat Anwar.

Tetapi mengapakah Individu Baik tu perlu membiayai parti RM25,000 untuk kakitangan Jabatan Kimia? Nak raikan apanya? Adakah mereka akan membelanjakan RM25,000 setiap kali mereka berjaya menyelesaikan sesuatu kes? Atau adakah ini parti ‘sekali seumur hidup’ atas kejayaan mereka menjumpai ‘bukti’ bagi menghantar Anwar ke penjara selama sekurang-kurangnya sepuluh tahun, yang akan memastikan bahawa beliau takkan dapat membentuk kerajaan Persekutuan yang baru pada 16 September 2008?

Eh, tunggu kejap. Perdana Menteri, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi berkata bahawa Anwar perlu memberikan profil DNA ‘barunya’. Menurut Abdullah, profil DNA tahun 1998 yang disimpan polis adalah 'terlalu tua'. Pada masa yang sama, polis pula berkata bahawa jika Anwar menolak untuk memberikan profil DNA ‘barunya’, maka mereka akan mendapatkan perintah mahkamah bagi memaksanya berbuat demikian. Mmm… ada banyak yang tak kena, ni.

Pertama sekali, kalau Jabatan Kimia sudah mempunyai kes yang kukuh terhadap Anwar, maka mengapakah mereka memerlukan profil DNA Anwar yang baru? Kita perlu sedar bahawa profil DNA takkan pernah berubah. Kalau ya, maka adakah polis juga perlu mendapatkan cap jari Anwar yang ‘baru’ kerana cap jarinya dah berubah? Hakikatnya adalah cap jari tak pernah berubah sejak kita dilahirkan sampailah saat kematian kita. Hakikat yang sama terpakai bagi profil DNA.

Jika anda masih ingat, kubur Napoleon Bonaparte pernah digali semula. Mereka kemudiannya menjalankan ujian bagi membuktikan bahawa dia telah meninggal akibat keracunan arsenik. Napoleon meninggal dunia pada 5 Mei 1821, iaitu lebih daripada 187 tahun yang lalu. Jadi, logikkah apabila mereka mengatakan bahawa profil DNA Anwar sepuluh tahun yang lalu sudah basi?

Sebenarnya, 'bukti' kukuh yang diperoleh Jabatan Kimia baru-baru ini adalah berdasarkan spesimen Anwar pada tahun 1998. Jadi, mereka memerlukan spesimen baru yang bertarikh 2008. Jika tidak, jika Anwar memohon supaya ‘bukti’ Jabatan Kimia itu diaudit oleh pakar asing yang bebas, maka pakar itu mungkin mendapati bahawa spesimen yang kononnya ‘bukti kukuh’ itu sebenarnya berusia sepuluh tahun, dan bukannya dari insiden 'liwat' 26 Jun 2008, sebagaimana yang didakwa oleh kerajaan.

Ya, mereka (para pakar) bukan hanya mampu menentukan sama ada ‘air mani’ yang terdapat pada seluar dalam Saiful itu milik Anwar ataupun tidak, malah mampu menentukan sama ada ia adalah spesimen bertarikh September 1998 ataupun spesimen bertarikh 26 Jun 2008, sebagaimana yang didakwa oleh kerajaan.

Bukti' sudah tersedia. Spesimen air mani pada seluar dalam Saiful telah 'disahkan' sebagai air mani Anwar. Masalahnya adalah jika mereka membenarkan pakar asing yang bebas bagi mengaudit dapatan Jabatan Kimia itu, maka akan terbuktilah bahawa spesimen itu berusia sepuluh tahun dan bukannya bertarikh 26 Jun 2008, sebagaimana yang didakwa.

Jadi, mereka perlu menukar spesimen September 1998 dengan spesimen baru yang bertarikh Julai 2008. Itulah sebabnya Perdana Menteri, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi dan Syed Hamid Albar, dan yang lain-lain meminta Anwar supaya memberikan spesimen barunya. Mereka memerlukan spesimen baru ini bagi 'membuktikan' bahawa air mani pada seluar dalam Saiful adalah bertarikh 26 Jun 2008 dan bukannya September 1998. Malah Abdullah sendiri 'mengesahkan' perkara ini apabila dia meminta Anwar memberikan specimen barunya, walhal bagi pemprofilan (profiling) DNA, spesimen lama sudah memadai – tetapi jika ‘bukti’ Jabatan Kimia itu diaudit oleh pakar asing yang bebas, maka akan terbuktilah bahawa spesimen itu berusia sepuluh tahun.

Ya, pada bulan September 1998, mereka sudah pun mengambil spesimen Anwar. Namun mereka tidak boleh menggunakannya sebagai bukti dalam tuduhan liwat terbaru ini. Mereka perlu 'mengemaskinikan' bukti mereka, dan melainkan mereka dapat memaksa Anwar bagi memberikan spesimen baru kepada mereka, maka bukti tu menjadi terlalu lemah. Itulah sebabnya polis terpaksa melepaskan Anwar dengan jaminan polis sehari selepas beliau ditangkap ala filem aksi Hollywood. Mereka hanya ada dua pilihan, iaitu membebaskannya ataupun mendakwanya di mahkamah. Tetapi nak dakwa macam mana kalau bukti tak kukuh? Realitinya adalah ‘bukti’ yang berdasarkan spesimen bertarikh September 1998 tu sememangnya tak kukuh dan takkan membolehkan mereka mendapatkan sabitan. Ini kerana Anwar dituduh meliwat Saiful pada 26 Jun 2008, dan bukannya September 1998.

Nah, sekarang baru anda tahu bagaimana cara dua ekor kucing kurap, Peguam Negara dan Ketua Polis Negara beroperasi. Kedua-dua ekor kucing kurap inilah yang memalsukan bukti pada tahun 1998, yang mana mengakibatkan Anwar dipenjarakan selama enam tahun. Dengan berkata demikian, adakah saya bersalah atas jenayah hasutan dan fitnah? Ya, tulah yang saya harapkan. Alang-alang, baik saya lakukan satu lagi ‘jenayah’. Saya akan menuduh Peguam Negara dan Ketua Polis Negara memalsukan bukti dan menakut-nakutkan saksi.

Begini… sebenarnya, mereka meminta seorang doktor dari sebuah hospital bagi melakukan pemeriksaan kesihatan ke atas Saiful. Doktor itu melakukannya dan dalam laporannya, dia mengatakan tiada bukti bahawa Anwar pernah ‘menjolok’ ataupun meliwat pemuda tu. Pihak polis kemudiannya menangkap doktor tu dan menahannya selama tiga hari. Walaupun mereka cuba memaksanya supaya mengubah laporannya bagi membabitkan Anwar, dia enggan melakukannya.

Sehingga ke hari ini, doktor itu tetap bertegas bahawa tiada bukti bahawa Anwar telah meliwat Saiful. Dia tahu bahawa dia akan ‘kena’ disebabkan ketegasannya, tetapi dia tak peduli. Walau apa pun yang dilakukan kepadanya, dia takkan mengubah laporannya dan mengatakan bahawa Anwar meliwat Saiful. Pihak polis akhirnya terpaksa melepaskan Anwar atas bon peribadi ataupun jaminan polis. Doktor tu enggan mengubah laporannya, manakala Anwar pula enggan memberikan spesimen ‘barunya’.

Bukti' terhadap Anwar tak cukup kukuh. Mereka kini terpaksa mencari cara lain bagi 'membuktikan' bahawa Anwar meliwat Saiful. Sementara itu, lantaran tuduhan saya yang terbaru ni, mari kita tunggu sama ada Peguam Negara akan membuat laporan polis yang lain terhadap saya dan sama ada Ketua Polis Negara akan menangkap saya dan mendakwa saya di mahkamah atas kesalahan menghasut dan jenayah fitnah.

Sekarang ni pun, saya sedang menghadapi empat pertuduhan hasutan dan jenayah fitnah. Dua ataupun tiga pertuduhan lagi, apa salahnya? Ye tak? Sama ada saya dipenjarakan ataupun tidak, tu bukan soalnya. Apa yang penting adalah dunia perlu diberitahu bahawa mereka sekali lagi cuba memalsukan bukti terhadap Anwar Ibrahim. Kalau saya terpaksa masuk penjara pun, gasaklah.

ARTIKEL DI ATAS DITERBITKAN PADA 21 JULAI 2008. TAK LAMA SELEPAS TU, SAYA DIPANGGIL KE BUKIT AMAN KERANA MEREKA INGIN 'MENGAMBIL KETERANGAN SAYA' ATAS TUDUHAN MENGHASUT. SAYA ENGGAN MEMBERIKAN KETERANGAN. MAKA POLIS TERPAKSA MEMBEBASKAN SAYA. MEREKA KEMUDIANNYA MENGGELEDAH RUMAH SAYA BAGI MENCARI LAPORAN DOKTOR YANG BERKENAAN DAN MERAMPAS PELBAGAI DOKUMEN. WALAU BAGAIMANAPUN, MEREKA GAGAL MENCARI KOMPUTER SAYA, SEKALIPUN MEREKA MENGGELEDAH SELURUH RUMAH SAYA. TAK SAMPAI DUA BULAN KEMUDIAN, SAYA DITAHAN DI BAWAH AKTA KESELAMATAN DALAM NEGERI.