Waytha stands by past comments after 10-year-old clip makes the rounds

(FMT) – Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department P. Waytha Moorthy has defended his past claims that the Malaysian Indian community was unjustly treated, after a video clip of his interview with a Dutch broadcaster made the rounds on social media today.

Waytha, who also heads Hindraf – the group behind the 2007 protests in Kuala Lumpur to highlight the plight of Malaysian Indians – said there was nothing secret about what he had said, adding that he had always been open in his lobbying activities abroad.

He said the Malaysian police too were aware of his activities.

“Which ‘terrorist’ in the world would have done what I did?” he asked.

He said during his five years of forced exile in Britain, he had approached foreign governments including the US State Department, US Congress, the UK House of Lords, as well as major human rights bodies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to highlight the plight of the Indian community in Malaysia.

He said the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government had given him a Cabinet position despite being fully aware of his stand on the plight of the Indians.

“The Umno government and the entire Malaysian community are fully aware of what I did during my five years of exile in the United Kingdom, yet they made me a deputy minister in 2013 because they knew they had made a mistake in not addressing the legitimate issues affecting the Indian community,” said Waytha, who is currently in charge of the National Unity and Social Wellbeing portfolio in the Prime Minister’s Department.

Following BN’s election victory in May 2013, Waytha was appointed as a deputy minister by then prime minister Najib Razak.

He resigned less than a year later, accusing the then government of going back on its pledge to help Indians as promised in a memorandum between Hindraf and BN.

Waytha today said he had no regrets of speaking up for the Indian poor and their treatment from the authorities.

He said thousands of Hindu temples had been destroyed by “those whom I believe were trained by the Biro Tata Negara (BTN)”.

“Cases of forced religious conversions were gathered from hundreds who came to me for assistance, testimonies of which are in the possession of the police who raided my office and confiscated those documents in November 2007.

“Indian youths were recruited as hijackers and drug couriers in cohorts with rogue elements within the police who were working hand in glove with the invisible underworld,” he added.