Curb ‘fascist’ Perkasa, Rahim Noor, Pakatan MPs tell Najib

By Shannon Teoh

October 28, 2011

File photo of Rahim (left) and Ibrahim raising a giant keris at the Perkasa annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur on October 26, 2011. — Picture by Jack Ooi

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — The federal opposition has called Perkasa and Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor “fascist monsters” after the former top cop likened the rise of human rights movements to communism during the Malay rights group’s general assembly on Wednesday.

Pakatan Rayat (PR) lawmakers said today that Datuk Seri Najib Razak “must immediately put a stop to this fascism movement and openly condemn the former IGP and Perkasa... if he is sincere about his political transformation programme.”

“The latest attacks against the human rights movement is clearly an attempt to reverse Najib’s capitulation to civil society movements such as Bersih,” said DAP publicity chief Tony Pua, referring to the electoral reform movement which saw tens of thousands take to the streets of the capital on July 9.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP said Perkasa, comprising many hardliners from Umno, opposed the prime minister’s parliamentary select committee to improve the electoral system and a raft of reforms that include the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA).

PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar also told The Malaysian Insider that “the tragedy lies not in Rahim Noor’s archaic, irrelevant and misguided views, but in the fact there remain organisations that prop up and bring new life to such monsters.”

The Lembah Pantai MP also accused Perkasa and the former IGP of “a hidden, dangerous agenda... an affront to common sense and should be rejected by all peace loving Malaysians.”

Nurul Izzah said Perkasa and Rahim had ‘a hidden, dangerous agenda’. — File pic

Abdul Rahim, who resigned from the police force in1999 after confessing to assaulting Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim when the former deputy prime minister was under custody over sodomy charges, had called the “human rights wave” a “new religion” that would lead to Malaysia’s social contract being questioned.

The former IGP warned that civil liberty activists saw the US and the UK as their spiritual home, and drew parallels to how the Comintern had engineered the global spread of communism from its Moscow base.

Bersih went ahead with its July 9 demonstration in defiance of a government ban and police action. Nearly 1,700 were arrested, scores injured and one ex-soldier died during the rally.

A coalition of Muslim NGOs also organised a rally last week to stand up to the “challenge of Christianisation” after repeated allegations of proselytisation levelled against the church.

Pua also warned that Abdul Rahim’s speech at the Perkasa assembly was not the first time “the movement is attempting to derail ‘reforms’ put forth by the prime minister.”

He accused Perkasa of forcing Najib to reverse his landmark New Economic Model (NEM) which sought to reform the country’s race-based affirmative action system.

“Within three months from the launch of the NEM, the affirmative action policy reform was reversed when the 10th Malaysia Plan re-incorporated the race-based agenda and quota system.

“At the earlier Malay Consultative Council (MPM) led by Perkasa in May 2010, the prime minister referred to the NEM as a ‘trial balloon’,” Pua said.