Malaysian Students Seek Full Political Rights

(New York Times) – Moves to allow Malaysian university students to join political parties have failed to satisfy student activists, who say a legal amendment approved by Parliament last week will still infringe on their right to participate fully in politics.

Under a decades-old law, it is illegal for students to join political parties or take part in political campaigning and protests. Those who do risk expulsion from their university and other penalties, including fines. The law has dampened what was once a vibrant activist movement.

There have been cases where universities have issued fines and warnings to students for supporting political parties. Analysts say universities have mostly taken action against students who support the opposition.

That ban is likely to be lifted soon after lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament approved an amendment last Thursday to the Universities and University Colleges Act, or U.U.C.A. The law is expected to take effect after it has been approved by the upper house, which is dominated by the governing coalition.

But the new amendment will still impose restrictions on students, like giving universities the power to decide which organizations, with the exception of political parties, are suitable. Students, civil society groups and the political opposition say these conditions are repressive.

“There’s still a limited freedom there,” said Haziq Abdul Aziz, secretary of Students Solidarity Malaysia, a group that represents about 15 student organizations. “We want the government to give full freedom to the students to take part in politics, to join organizations.”

Since the act prohibiting students from expressing “support, sympathy or opposition” to any political party was enacted in 1971, Malaysian students have repeatedly demanded that the ban on political involvement be rescinded.

When Prime Minister Najib Razak announced last November that he planned to amend the law as part of a raft of reforms to improve civil liberties, student activists were hopeful that all restrictions would be lifted.

Many were disappointed when details of the amendment were released and have called for the law to be abolished.

“We don’t actually need such an act to control the students,” said Adam Ali, a student activist and member of Progressive Students Legacy, a student organization at Sultan Idris Education University. “Why must we control the students? They know their rights — they can practice their rights. With the current amendment of the U.U.C.A., what happens now is that they are again controlling the students.”

Under the amendment, students who hold any political post will be prohibited from conducting political party activities on campus. Students could also be prevented from joining any organization that the university’s board deemed “unsuitable to the interests and well-being of the students or the university.”

Mr. Haziq said he was concerned that universities could make arbitrary decisions about which organizations students could join.

The original amendment included a clause that would have banned students who held political posts from being elected to positions in student organizations, but lawmakers voted unanimously to remove this clause before the bill was passed. The clause had been widely criticized, including by members of the prime minister’s own party.

Parliament rejected the opposition’s attempts to remove several other clauses, including the provision that prevents students from “expressing support or sympathy” to an unlawful society or organization the university deems unsuitable. Tian Chua, vice president of the opposition People’s Justice Party, described the reforms as “half-hearted” in a Twitter post: “Where is the promised freedom for the young people?”

Mr. Najib’s pledge that students would be permitted to participate in politics came after a court ruled last October that the National University of Malaysia had breached the Constitution by taking disciplinary action against four students who took part in political campaigning during a by-election in 2010.

Before the enactment of the act, Malaysian campuses used to be home to vibrant student activism, with many of today’s leaders, including opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, cutting their political teeth on campus. Mr. Haziq said that since the law was introduced, the student movement had lost its momentum, with most students now afraid to take part in politics because they were worried that they could be expelled. 

“Student activists are in the minority,” he said. “The majority of students are not interested in politics because they are afraid that the universities will take action against them. The U.U.C.A. has successfully made the students fearful to criticize the government.”

Lee Hock Guan, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said the law had been a “damper” on student activism. He said although the government had changed the proposed amendment, students would still not be able to campaign for their political parties on campus during national elections.

“To open up the political space in the universities,” he said, “they need to also remove the clause banning students from political party activities on campus.”

Saifuddin Abdullah, the deputy minister of higher education, said that he was personally an advocate of allowing student political participation but that the government’s position was that political party activities would not be allowed on campus, “the reason being to maintain neutrality” of the universities.

The Malaysian Bar Council had also called for several provisions to be removed from the amendment, saying that they violated the Constitution.

“These provisions are unnecessarily restrictive, unreasonable and disproportionate barriers to a student’s freedom of association” under the Constitution, Lim Chee Wee, the council’s president, said in a statement.

He said existing laws had long prevented university students from being actively involved in a “significant aspect of the democratic process.”

“Universities, as with all institutions of higher learning, must, as one of their primary duties, embrace and espouse the development of critical thinking by their students and the encouragement of robust debate,” Mr. Lim said. “This is vital to ensure a continuous stream of thinking Malaysians who are able to advance and build our nation.”

In Kuala Lumpur last week, student activists camped out at Independence Square and marched against a government loan program that they said charged students high interest rates and left them with debt. They have not yet decided whether to hold another demonstration to protest the amendment, but they have vowed to keep fighting for their right to fully participate in political life.

“We have the right to take part in politics,” said Mr. Haziq, the Students Solidarity Malaysia secretary. “Students are just like other citizens who have the right to participate in politics, to give opinions. This is our country and we have the right to say whatever we want.”