Rahim Noor should crawl back into the woodwork
ALIRAN
The former Inspector–General of Police, Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor, emerging as it were from the dead, has expressed some startling views on human rights. P Ramakrishnan takes him to task.
A man who infamously trampled upon the rights of others has no right to speak on human rights. He is the least qualified to speak on this subject.
Yet, the former Inspector–General of Police, Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor, emerging as it were from the dead, expressed some startling views on human rights.
He is quoted as having said that the coming of a “human rights wave” would threaten the principles on which this country was founded.
In what way would the “human rights wave” threaten the principles on which this country was founded? The principles on which this country was founded is embodied in the Federal Constitution, which was agreed upon mutually by all the communities that aspired for a free and independent Malaya.
The Federal Constitution specifically guarantees the human rights of all the citizens. Indeed, it protects the rights of all Malaysians. If these rights were not guaranteed and protected, there would be no Federal Constitution to begin with and we wouldn’t have attained our independence on 31 August 1957.
The human rights wave, reflected in the Bersih 2.0 ‘Walk for Democracy’ that demanded clean and fair elections, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be termed as a “communist wave”. It is a democratic wave giving expression to the innate desire of the human spirit to be free and treated fairly and with justice.
The present wave – demanding accountability, transparency, good governance, rule of law, the right to information, the right to assemble peacefully, the right to publish and disseminate views – represents the universal rights that are upheld by the United Nations, As Malaysia is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, we are duty-bound to respect and protect these universal values.
