The Bar Council shares the concerns expressed by civil society and SUHAKAM in relation to the Inspector-General of Police’s reported suggestion that the authorities may resort to deploying armed forces to maintain public order, particularly in relation to assemblies.
The Bar Council notes that there has never been any necessity to take such measures in the past. On two recent occasions, in fact, assemblies were conducted peaceably and without incident.
Resort to the use of armed forces to control such assemblies is unwarranted and heavy-handed, and we call for this move to be abandoned. The threat of such deployment is intimidating to members of the public who have shown the desired maturity and responsibility in the conduct of such assemblies.
The public had in fact understood that this Government was moving towards loosening the grip on assemblies. The threat of the use of the army is wholly inconsistent with this and any process of democratisation that we are aiming for. Recent events in the course of the week have also created much disquiet. We call on the Prime Minister to address this disquiet.
We need to know that we live in a Malaysia that upholds fundamental freedoms and respects the Rule of Law. We need to know that our enforcement agencies are there to protect the public and not to instill fear in them, and that their officers will have the courage to carry out their duties without fear or favour. We need to know that all the organs in the administration of justice are functioning fully and flawlessly.
We need to know that the freedoms that we believe existed do not become a fiction.
Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan
President
Malaysian Bar
4 July 2008
PEOPLE'S POWER
It is interesting that using the police and military to stifle freedom of dissent has been brought up again. Actually, Malaysia has been through this before. After the 1969 race riots, they set aside parliament and set up the National Operations Council (NOC) headed by Tun Abdul Razak, the Second Prime Minister of Malaysia. The NOC was emergency rule and rule by decree. After some time it occurred to the Malay leaders and military people that if parliament is not swiftly restored, then they are going to have problems. It occurred to the Malaysian military people that if the NOC continues the emergency and rule by decree and deprive the Chinese Malaysians of a political participation, then pretty soon some of the Chinese in Malaysia would slip into the jungles and team up with the communist under Chin Peng. Furthermore, China would find it irresistible to help the Chinese in Malaysia because blood is thicker than water. This realization obviously made the military people in Malaysia nervous. So, Tun Abdul Razak (Second Prime Minister) was persuaded to act. Tun Abdul Razak immediately boarded an airplane and flew to China (Beijing) to shake hands with Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China (Beijing). To the surprise of everybody Tun Abdul Razak actually recognized the Peoples Republic of China as a sovereign independent nation. He returned to Malaysia, put together the Barisan Nasional from the Alliance Party, lifted emergency, called for fresh elections, and restored parliamentary democracy. Yes, Malaysia has been through this before.
ReplyDeleteIf the military people want to do it again with emergency rule, then, well, then, I don’t know. We will wait and see. If the military people do it again, then they will get little support from all the major powers in the world. None of the major powers, namely the USA, EU, Russia, China and India would be supportive of a military take over of Malaysia. A military takeover of Malaysia must be justifiable in the eyes of USA, EU, Russia, China and India.
Malaysia’s best bet would be a multi-party political system, one person one vote, and an independent judiciary.