Tyranny of UMNO.

Malaysia

1. Citizen group seeks crime solution, detailed figures

UPDATED @ 07:05:57 16-07-2012

By Ida Lim

Jul 15, 2012

Richard Wee (left) and Yip Huen Weng want citizens to work with the government for a “Safer Malaysia” instead of merely complaining. — Picture by Choo Choo May

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — A citizen group wants to offer suggestions to and work with the government instead of merely complaining about the crime rate in Malaysia, as the public becomes increasingly concerned about their safety.

Calling themselves “Safer Malaysia”, the month-old group said today it also wants the government to disclose a detailed breakdown of crime statistics.

“We want the Home Ministry to not deny it (crime) is happening,” said Richard Wee, a spokesman for Safer Malaysia, at the group’s first gathering in Damansara Utama, which saw a turnout of around 15 people.

“If crime is going down, why don’t you just release the figures to us?” said Yip Huen Weng, who is also a spokesman for the fledgling movement.

He said this in reference to PEMANDU, the government’s efficiency unit, which has also been tasked with helping to reduce the country’s crime rate.

“The government keeps focusing on ‘perception’ and ‘impression’, but at the end of the day, do Malaysians feel safe?”

Yip added that they are doing a study on how “statistics can be manipulated” and how the government could “shift the goalposts” to show that the crime rate has gone down.

Safer Malaysia say they are still drafting a memorandum containing suggestions on ways to combat crime, which they will present to the government, in the hope that this will lead to a dialogue.

The group stressed that they are non-political and said they plan to hold a candlelight vigil on August 1 at Bandar Utama Central Park.

Safer Malaysia, which wants to be “an initiative to push for reforms” and make law enforcement more effective, currently has 318 “likes” on its Facebook page.

Another non-political group, “Malaysians Against Rape, Assault and Snatch” (MARAH), which also campaigns for public safety, recently started an online petition with a target of 100,000 signatures.

The police, PEMANDU and the Home Ministry have stuck to statistics that indicate that Malaysia’s crime rate has dropped since initiatives under the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) were put in place two years ago.

After a series of incidents at shopping mall car parks, Malaysians, especially women, appear to have grown more cautious when out on the streets.

The country’s expatriate community had also said they were increasingly fearful for their safety here, especially after the kidnapping of 12-year-old Dutch schoolboy Nayati Moodliar, who was snatched while walking to school earlier this year, hit global headlines.

Other cases which made headlines in recent weeks include thieves making off with RM1.17 million from several automated teller machines at a hypermarket in Wangsa Maju; millions of ringgit worth of high-tech medical equipment being stolen from several hospitals in the Klang Valley; a carjacking and kidnapping of a Singaporean family in Johor; and a Malacca clerk who died after she fell off her motorbike following an attack by two men.

Malaysia

2. ‘Overnight citizenship’ for Sabah aliens a thorny electoral issue

By Ida Lim

Jul 15, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — The award of 'overnight citizenship' to Sabah's illegal immigrants may cost the Najib administration dearly at the ballot box if it is not resolved before the 13th general elections, a federal minister has told Singapore's Sunday Times (ST).

Sabahans have become more unhappy at the federal government's seemingly speedy approval of citizenship to Muslim immigrants, many who are believed to enter the country illegally, seeing the newcomers as a threat, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok told the Singapore paper in an interview published today.

"It's unprecedented. Generally, Sabahans have no problem with migrants, provided they come through the front door, and if they want to apply for citizenship, do it in the proper manner.'They can't expect to get citizenship overnight. There must be value to citizenship," he was quoted as saying.

He urged the federal government to take swift action on Sabah's illegal immigration issue before the next national polls, which must be called by next April.

Dompok told the Singapore paper the citizenship award for illegal immigrants has become an emotional issue for the state's voters.

The thorny issue has caused much concern, with Sabah politicians from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition pushing for a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), while the federal government appeared to have dragged its feet in resolving the matter.

Dompok told ST that many in Sabah think the "integrity of the system has been compromised".

"My party has made known our stand. My head is on the chopping board as far as this issue is concerned," said the president of United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko), a BN component party in Sabah.

According to The Sunday Times, Upko has pressed for investigations on fears that citizenship is granted to Muslim immigrants "overnight" if they agree to vote for BN.

Dompok had reportedly said last year that the size of the non-Muslim natives and Muslim Bumiputeras were about equal in 1960, but noted that the latter group had doubled in 2000 and was now nearly twice the population of non-Muslim native Sabahans.

Sabah has experienced a population explosion over the years. Lawmakers in Parliament were told last year that the state population, which numbered just over 650,000 in 1970 grew to more than 920,000 in 1980.

Within the next two decades, the state grew by 1.5 million people to reach over 2.4 million in 2000.

Media reports noted that Sabah's population reached 3.12 million in 2010, with foreigners accounting for a substantial 27 per cent of that figure.

The Singapore paper reported that Sabah's population is now one-third larger than neighbouring Sarawak, Malaysia's largest state by area size.

Although Sabah is traditionally viewed as a safe vote bank for BN, failure by the ruling government to address this issue may cost it crucial votes that will enable it to stay on in power.

Urban voters in Sabah had expressed their desire for an RCI on the immigrants issue in a survey carried out by independent pollster Merdeka Centre last May.

Last month, the federal government told Parliament that it was in the final stages of drawing up the RCI's terms of references but there does not seem to have been any further news of the promised RCI since then.

3. Bishop: National Harmony Act could be a misnomer

·       Terence Netto ·       8:44AM Jul 15, 2012

Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing suggested that it is better for the government to just repeal the Sedition Act than replace it with another law whose provisions may be as selectively enforced as it predecessor's has been.

The head of the Catholic Church in the Melaka-Johor diocese was airing his comments to Malaysiakini on the move by Prime Minister Najib Razak to have the Sedition Act replaced by a National Harmony Act.

"My intention is not take political sides but since this new law is about ensuring religious and racial harmony, I feel duty bound to hold forth on the matter," he remarked.

"The contemplated new law may turn out to be a misnomer," opined Bishop Paul Tan, who is concurrently president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

"Instead of promoting harmony, it may insure disharmony if its provisions are selectively enforced as has been the case with the Sedition Act," asserted the Jesuit-trained prelate.

The Sedition Act proscribes the questioning of a host of issues ranging from the position of Malay rulers to the status of Islam.

In announcing that a new National Harmony Act would be enacted to replace the Sedition Act, Najib has said that the government was seeking to balance the right to free speech with the need to protect institutions and positions considered sacrosanct by the Malaysian body politic.

Signs of growing maturity

"Consider what has happened in recent years," said Bishop Paul Tan.

"We have seen a politician or two and some religious leaders raise the bogey of Christian proselytisation of Muslims and proffer no substantive proof in support and yet they have not been hauled up for seditious speech.

"But more surprising still - and a wonderfully pleasant one at that - was that the general populace declined to react to the inflammatory posturing of the individuals concerned."

Bishop Paul Tan said this was perhaps a sign of growing maturity and discernment among the people that enables them to distinguish between religious charlatans seeking to stir the pot and democrats questing after an expansion of the parameters of civic debate.

"Why then enact a new law when the old one has not been equitably enforced and why promulgate new legislation when the majority has shown a heartening maturity that intuitively accepts what is held to be sacrosanct and knows who is an inciter and who a responsible democrat?" he asked.

"The authorities must know that cynicism follows hard upon the impulse to draw up laws with zeal and enforce them with bias and that best subsoil of a civil polity is the restraint that ordinary people exhibit in the face of willful and undeterred demagogues," said Bishop Paul Tan.

"Don't replace obsolete laws with newfangled ones, especially if you cannot be counted on to enforce them with equity," he contended.

4. Landslide vote against Lynas in mock referendum

·       Nigel Aw ·       10:22PM Jul 14, 2012

Voters in a mock referrendum has overwhelmingly rejected the RM700 million Lynas Advanced Material Plant in Gebeng, Kuantan.

Organised by NGO Stop Lynas, Save Malaysia (SMSL), the mock voting was carried out in 19 cities and towns across Malaysia.

The results, which was announced close to 9pm, saw landslide votes against the rare earth processing plant with some centres having virtually zero vote in support for Lynas.

When contacted, SMSL spokesperson Steve Hang said after all ballots have been counted, a total of 20,194 people voted against Lynas, while six were in favour.

"A total of 28 locations in Malaysia participated but only 19 places held the mock voting. The other areas had signature campaign, pickets and even flash mob," he said.

Hang added that an estimated a total of 26,000 people nationwide had participated in the ‘National Day of Stop Lynas Action’.

Four cities in Australia had also joined in with their own protest against Lynas, he added.

Voting began simultaneously today at around 5pm for most areas in Malaysia while the earliest was in Bukit Merah, Perak where voting took place from 7am to 9am.

Bukit Merah was the site of the Asian Rare Earth plant which has been accused of causing an increase of cancer cases in the 1990s among the local populace.

Queuing up at the mock voting centres, voters of various age and colour in towns and villages dropped their ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on Lynas into prepared ballot boxes.

'Vote matters'

When contacted, SMSL chairperson Tan Bun Teet said the results reflected the sentiments of the people against the controversial plant, which is seen as a crucial facility to break China's stranglehold on the rare earth market.

However, he added that regardless of the results, the mock referendum today was to send to a message to Malaysians about the significance of their votes.

"Our focus is not actually on how many people voted against or for Lynas. Our focus is teaching people that the vote in their hand counts and really matters.

"We hope people who voted today will realise that the act of voting is important to ensure whether we live in a hazard-free environment or do we continue to vote a government that does not care about the welfare of the people," he said.

He added that the many locations which conducted the voting today were also afflicted by environmental issues and are part of a network of the green movement.