Kit Siang Blasted Abdullah Badawi

DAP adviser, Lim Kit Siang Thursday (18 Sept) said the uncharacteristically stern and harsh allegation by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Wednesday (17 Sept) that Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is a threat to the national security and economy has sparked speculation that the stage is being set for a Operation Lalang 2 crackdown and Anwar's arrest under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

He said Malaysians must deplore in the strongest terms the veiled threat by Abdullah that Anwar would be arbitrarily and undemocratically silenced as the allegation that Anwar is a threat to national security and economy is a most ludicrous and preposterous one.

"I have been twice detained under the ISA, once in 1969 and the second time in 1987 for a total of 35 months – and on both occasions, I was accused of being "a threat to national security," Lim said in a statement.

"All the 16 DAP MPs and leaders detained in the 1987 Operation Lalang dragnet under the ISA were all accused of being threats to national security – but these are all baseless catch-all allegations just to justify the abuse of the ISA to silence critics and dissent."

Lim said Anwar Ibrahim can be accused of posing a grave threat to the political security of Abdullah and the other Umno and Barisan Nasional leaders, but he cannot under any stretch of imagination be accused of being a threat to national security and economy.

He added that the toppling of the Barisan Nasional national government by getting the allegiance of the majority of the 222 MPs in Parliament to support a Pakatan Rakyat federal government is neither "subversion" nor "organised violence" intended in the Preamble of the ISA enacted 48 years ago in 1960.

In fact, the toppling of the government-of-the-day is part and parcel of the democratic process if the government-of-the-day loses support of the majority of the elected MPs, resulting in a change of government, Lim said.

MySinchew
2008.09.18