Human Rights Watch Letter to the Prime Minister of Malaysia

April 27, 2009


Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Bin Haji Tun Abdul Razak
Pejabat Perdana Menteri
Blok Utama, Bangunan Perdana Putra
Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan
62502 Putrajaya
Malaysia


Re: Human Rights in Malaysia


Dear Prime Minister,

Congratulations on your April 3, 2009, appointment as Malaysia's sixth prime minister. As you know, Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental human rights organization that monitors human rights in more than 70 countries around the world, has long raised human rights concerns in Malaysia with your predecessors.

We especially welcome your expressed "intention to uphold civil liberties" and your "regard for the fundamental rights of the people of Malaysia." To that end, we urge your government to take specific measures to bring Malaysian law, policy, and practice into line with international human rights standards.

We urge that your government promptly ratifies core international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and begin the process of bringing domestic law into conformity with these international instruments.

We further urge that you and your government give priority to the issues of arbitrary and preventive detention, freedom of expression, protection of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, and ending impunity for security forces. In the pages that follow, we discuss these issues in detail and offer specific recommendations.

Arbitrary Detention
The state of emergency in effect in Malaysia since the 1960s has been used by previous governments to violate fundamental human rights. Under the emergency, the Malaysian government enacted emergency ordinances permitting the government to pass broad and ambiguous laws that bypass judicial processes and review and effectively permit indefinite preventive detention. The Internal Security Act (ISA) is the most notorious of such laws and violates a number of international human rights standards, including the right to be free from arbitrary detention, the right to due process and to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, as well as rights to freedom of expression and association.

Previous governments have justified use of the ISA by referring to multi-ethnic tensions. While Human Rights Watch recognizes that multi-ethnic tensions are a legitimate concern of any government, 51 years after independence, the government should not lose sight of the fact that Malaysia has a well-developed criminal justice system fully capable of dealing with multi-ethnic tensions, threats to its security, and other ill-defined activities without recourse to the extra-judicial ISA.

The official position that detention under the ISA is preventive, acknowledges that the government cannot, or has chosen not to, prosecute detainees for alleged crimes but rather extends executive power at the expense of the judiciary.

Throughout its long history, the ISA has been used to punish and silence peaceful political opponents and government critics. It has become an unfortunate and deeply embedded feature of a Malaysian political climate that stifles free expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Recent ISA political detainees include Raja Petra Kamaruddin, founder and editor of Malaysia's most popular website; Teresa Kok, an opposition Democratic Action Party parliamentarian; and the Hindraf 5. Three of the five Hindu activists remain in detention. Others once held under the ISA include prominent political leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister and current head of the political opposition coalition; and Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, and Lim Guan Eng.

While Human Rights Watch welcomes the release of 13 ISA detainees, we are concerned that the promised government review will rebuff efforts at repeal. We are further concerned that in March and April 2009 there were three new ISA arrests and that such arrests were not formally announced, but only confirmed after reported by a civil society group. We urge that you heed the 2003 recommendation of Suhakam (Human Rights Commission of Malaysia), and promptly rescind the ISA and all other criminal preventive detention measures.

Human Rights Watch urges the Malaysian government to:
- Immediately and unconditionally revoke all emergency proclamations and ordinances that violate internationally protected human rights, including the Emergency (Public Order and Crime Prevention) Ordinance 1969.
- Abolish the Internal Security Act. Malaysia's penal code and criminal justice system are fully capable of addressing situations of internal security.
- Immediately charge or release all individuals currently held under the Internal Security Act. - Assure that those charged have prompt access to legal counsel and family members and are tried in conformity with international fair trial standards.

Freedom of Expression and Assembly
Human Rights Watch welcomes your lifting of the March 23, 2009, ban against two opposition party newspapers, Suara Keadilan, published by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), and Harakah, published by Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), and your follow-up statement that Malaysia's media outlets should not fear the consequences of responsible reporting.

However, less than a week later, your government refused to admit a reporter and photographer from Merdeka Review, an internet news website, to the press conference announcing your new cabinet. On April 14, Information, Communication, and Culture Minister Rais Yatim warned bloggers that the law would be invoked against bloggers who make unfounded allegations, and on April 19 he indicated displeasure and a review of "the role of [private] television and radio stations in nation-building."

Until legislation such as the draconian Printing Presses and Publications Act, which requires annual licensing, is dismantled and the scope of the Sedition Act is narrowed, arbitrary threats to free speech and political activity in the name of national unity will remain. In September 2008, for example, Sin Chew Jit Poh, a Chinese language newspaper, and The Sun were warned about their reporting on "sensitive" inter-ethnic issues.

Provisions of the Police Act further compromise the ability of Malaysian citizens to peacefully assemble and advocate on critical issues. License requirements for any gathering of more than three persons have been used to block rallies, large and small, whose message the government disapproves of. Peaceful "unlawful" demonstrations have been swiftly repressed through use of water cannons, tear gas, arbitrary arrests, and politically motivated trials. In 2008-09, a series of small candlelight vigils calling for an end to ISA detention were summarily dispersed. In one, on November 9, 2008, a Malaysikini videographer on assignment was roughed up and had his camera confiscated. While eight people, among them five lawyers, have recently been acquitted of charges relating to their participation in a peaceful march on December 10, 2007, International Human Rights Day, the eight should never have been charged, nor is an appeal of their acquittal by the government warranted.

Human Rights Watch urges the Malaysian government to:
- Rescind the Printing Presses and Publications Act.
- Amend the Police Act to ensure it respects the right to peaceful assembly by revoking the unlimited power of a police district's officer in charge to refuse to license or determine the conditions under which assemblies, meetings, and processions are licensed. Substitute regulations that set out reasonable and negotiated conditions for assembly and an appeal process that eliminates political grounds on which decisions to withhold permission are too often made.
- Narrow the overbroad definitions of "sedition" and "seditious tendency" employed in the Sedition Act and refrain from using the act to censor expression or to jail political opponents or critics.

Security Force Malfeasance
A culture of impunity pervades routine law enforcement by police and immigration officers in Malaysia. Recent unresolved incidents in police lockups highlight the problems of injuries and deaths in custody. Police report that there were 85 deaths in police custody during 2003-07, many of them still unresolved.

The United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions call upon governments to conduct "thorough, prompt and impartial investigation of all suspected cases of extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions, including cases where complaints by relatives or other reliable reports suggest unnatural death." Ensuring that the police and other security officers are held fully accountable for any crimes that they commit is necessary for respect of human rights as well as for the maintenance of professionalism in the security forces.

In Malaysia, inquests move slowly-some are postponed for years-and family members are often not aware they are occurring. Common police explanations for these custodial deaths include hanging (i.e. suicide), falling while trying to escape, and natural causes. In one case, a detainee was reported to have died of "sudden fatty liver" within days of his detention. In addition to injuries that resulted in deaths, numerous other cases of physical abuse occur in conjunction with investigations of alleged crimes.

The death of 22-year-old Kugan Ananthan in January 2009 is one of a number of recent cases that point to the need for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) as recommended in April 2005 in the Report of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police. Although the attorney general originally classified the case as murder, no one has been arrested and the case appears stalled. The subsequent public outcry has no doubt pointed to the lack of confidence in the ability of the police, the hospitals, and the Attorney General's Chambers to investigate swiftly and impartially deaths in custody.

Substitution of the pending Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission bill (EAIC) for the IPCMC is unacceptable. The EAIC, which covers 21 government agencies, is a much-watered down version of the commission's recommendations. Among other defects, the revised bill eliminates the commission's power to initiate its own investigations even if no complaint had been received, and should it find a complaint has merit, choose the appropriate course of action. It also fails to eliminate as commissioners those with vested interest in outcomes.

In addition, the Malaysian government should:
- Implement the original Independent Police Complaint and Misconduct Commission proposal recommended by the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police.
- Discipline or prosecute as appropriate all security force officers involved in incidents of abuse, including those with command responsibility.

Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers
Malaysia's immigration policy makes no legal distinction between undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Only those with proper documentation, including work permits, may legally enter or reside in Malaysia. All others are without protection and vulnerable to arrest, detention and deportation. The government does no screening to ascertain whether deportation poses a threat to a person's life or freedom "on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."

Malaysia's current policy demands that asylum seekers register with the Malaysian offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, impediments to effective access­­­­ deny asylum seekers "the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution" as guaranteed in article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Of particular note, the government refuses to allow UNHCR unrestricted access to migrants awaiting deportation in immigration detention centers, some of whom may be refugees in need of protection who have not had the opportunity to seek asylum.

In the context of the global economic downturn, Malaysia has halted new foreign hires and instituted a "foreign workers first out" policy that requires employers making staff cuts to terminate migrants first. Migrant workers carry large recruitment debts that they pay back over extended periods of time. Their employers should not be encouraged to prematurely terminate employment on the basis of national origin.

RELA
RELA (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat or People's Voluntary Corps) is a government-backed untrained paramilitary force whose members, in conjunction with immigration and police officers, routinely round up suspected undocumented migrants. In May and June 2008, asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants told Human Rights Watch researchers of abuses perpetrated by RELA members and immigration officers during the arrest process and in the immigration detention centers. Such abuses included physical assault, intimidation, threats, humiliating treatment, forced entry into living quarters, extortion, theft, restricted communications with friends or family, and disregard and destruction of identity or residency papers. Several Malaysian officials have excused the abuses suggesting that the number of abusers is insignificant and that reasonable force is sometimes justified. However, credible accounts from migrants indicate that force is ubiquitous and gratuitous.

Domestic Workers
Migrant workers in Malaysia include over 300,000 domestic workers, primarily from Indonesia. Excluded from key provisions in Malaysia's labor laws and subject to onerous placement fees by recruitment agents, many of these workers confront a wide range of human rights abuses, including labor rights violations such as excessively long working hours, lack of rest days, and unpaid wages; violations of freedom of movement and freedom of association; and physical and sexual abuse. In some cases these situations amount to forced labor, trafficking, or servitude.

Human Rights Watch welcomes recent prosecutions and convictions of abusive employers, but few domestic workers receive any redress. In recent years, nongovernmental organizations in Indonesia and Malaysia and the Indonesian embassy in Malaysia have received thousands of complaints from or on behalf of domestic workers. Many more cases are likely unreported given domestic workers' isolation in private homes, employers' ability to have workers summarily deported, and migrants' lack of information about their rights.

Human Rights Watch urges the Malaysian government to:
- Ratify without reservations the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 protocol, and the 2003 Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families and bring domestic law and practice into conformity with the documents.
- Ensure asylum seekers, refugees, trafficked persons, and abused workers are not subject to penalties imposed under the Immigration Act 1959/63.
- Allow asylum seekers the right to residence, documentation, work, and education while their claims are pending and give recognized refugees the opportunity to regularize their status.
- Facilitate UNHCR's ability to determine refugee status by allowing the agency unhindered access to detention facilities. Ensure that all detained asylum seekers and refugees are able to contact UNHCR regularly.
- Abolish RELA, and repeal all regulations under which RELA was established and its powers expanded. Until such time, RELA should be restructured as a volunteer agency with no enforcement powers and with no role in either apprehension of irregular migrants or maintenance of security in the immigration detention centers.
- Undertake independent investigations into allegations of abuse by RELA members, immigration officers, and police officers. Hold accountable the perpetrators of such abuses, including those with command responsibility.
- Extend equal protection of the 1955 Employment Act and the 1952 Workman's Compensation Act to domestic workers and create mechanisms for enforcement.
- Strengthen regulations governing recruitment agencies and include clear mechanisms to monitor and enforce standards concerning migrant workers. Oversight bodies to protect domestic workers from abuse should enjoy the power to conduct unannounced inspections of recruitment agencies and to impose substantial penalties on agencies that abuse workers or otherwise violate standards.
- Ensure employers fulfill their contractual obligations to migrant workers or pay adequate compensation.

Thank you for your consideration. We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss these and other human rights issues with you and with members of your administration.


Sincerely,
Brad Adams
Executive Director
Asia Division



Cc:
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Dato' Haji bin Muhyiddin Yassin
Minister of Foreign Affairs Datuk Anifah bin Haji Aman
Minister of Home Affairs Dato' Seri Hishammuddin bin Tun Hussein
Minister of Information, Communication, and Culture Dato' Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim
Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Ilango Karuppannan
Ambassador to the UN Datuk Hamidon bin Ali

Malaysia: Truly Asia?

On November 25, 2007, an estimated 20,000 ethnically Indian Hindus gathered in the streets of Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to protest against government discrimination. The backdrop of the state-owned Petronas Twin Towers, Malaysia’s foremost symbol of modernity and progress, served as a damning indictment of the faults that now divide Malaysian society.

When Malaysia (then Malaya), along with many other Southeast Asian countries, became independent in the 1950s, many political experts thought its tremendous racial and religious diversity made it a tinderbox, a potential “Balkans of the East.” Seeming to prove them wrong, Malaysia’s steady economic growth helped bring about prosperity that ensured at least a peaceful coexistence among the different ethnic groups. Malaysia’s story of prosperity and harmony, a model of similar trends across Asia, prompted an international tourism ad campaign with the tagline: “Malaysia: Truly Asia.”

Yet beneath that veneer, frustrations among the country’s Indian minority had been bubbling under the surface for decades before they were finally aired at the protest in November 2007. The unexpected intensity and broad support for the protests within the Hindu minority came as a rude shock to the Malay community and the ethnic Malay establishment that dominates the state and its institutions.

A group known as Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) emerged as a major player behind the protests. Frustrated by the Malaysian government’s positive discrimination towards indigenous Malays, Waytha Moorthy, a lawyer by profession, founded HINDRAF soon after seeking counsel on the issue from Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, the Malaysian king, in January 2006—but to no avail. The Malaysian government reacted to the protests, which were the culmination of HINDRAF’s efforts, by jailing Moorthy’s brother along with four other HINDRAF leaders, under a dated pre-independence law, the Internal Security Act.

Speaking to the Globalist, Waytha Moorthy, in exile in London, asserted that the jailings were illegal. “This act was illegally invoked under the guise of national security to silence the legitimate voice of democracy in Malaysia,” he said. Initially in self-imposed exile, Moorthy has now had his Malaysian passport revoked, making him, in his words, “de facto stateless.” He added that the five protest leaders are still being detained “without having been charged in open court, with no opportunity to defend themselves.” This is, according to Moorthy, an indictment of the independence and fairness of the Malaysian judiciary. But the Indian Hindus’ woes go back much further.

An Old “New” Policy
Since independence, Malaysia has had a partisan, race-based political system. The ruling coalition consists of the main Malay-Muslim party, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and parties representing the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities. The Malays, or Bumiputeras (sons of the soil), who were historically disadvantaged under colonialism, were accorded special entitlements under the benignly titled New Economic Policy, which gave them privileges in employment, education, and business. The policy was started in 1971 as a response to race riots on May 13, 1969, between the Malay and Chinese communities, a result of the Malays’ grievances regarding their poor economic conditions. The Chinese community has long held significant economic and financial power, mitigating the domination of political power by the Malays. But that arrangement left the Indian community feeling powerless and deeply frustrated.

In recent years, many Indians, who are mostly Hindu, have been aggrieved by a new perceived abuse: the destruction of Hindu temples. The Associated Press reported that eight temples were destroyed over three months from February to May 2006, ostensibly for occupying land illegally. HINDRAF claimed in a November 2007 letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that a Hindu temple is destroyed every three weeks in Malaysia. The lack of accurate and unbiased news coverage in Malaysia makes the exact number of destroyed temples difficult to verify, but none deny that the pattern is real.

Moorthy joined forces with human rights organizations such as the Minority Rights Group International and Amnesty International to protest this situation. Aside from the ignominy and agony of seeing local temples destroyed, the Hindu community witnessed a Malaysian Hindu soldier, Maniam Moorthy (no relation to Waytha Moorthy), a national hero as a member of Malaysia’s first-ever expedition to Mount Everest, buried by the government as a Muslim. According to Waytha Moorthy, this highly controversial incident served as a catalyst to spark the formation of HINDRAF.

Though it has united Indians around its cause, HINDRAF may have further polarized Malaysian society by emboldening its opposition at the same time. Some Malays have taken umbrage at HINDRAF’s emergence, seeing it as an affront to the proper status quo as currently enshrined in Article 153 of the Federal Constitution: “It shall be the responsibility of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong [the King of Malaysia] to safeguard the special position of the Malays.”

In response to the rise of HINDRAF, Johan Saravanamuttu, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and an expert on Malaysian politics, said, “These incidents have put a greater emphasis on ethnicity in politics.” Also, he argued, greater racial emphasis accentuates the partisan climate in Malaysian politics: “These extravagant demands probably damaged the cause in the minds of many Malaysians by making HINDRAF look more extreme.”

But he stressed that most Malays empathized with the Indians’ demands, seeing them not so much as challenges to Malay hegemony but as expressions of frustration with Indian marginalization. Adriana Nordin Manan, a Malay researcher in politics and social sciences, said, “People across the ethnic spectrum are beginning to see the New Economic Policy as a policy that was good in the beginning but needs to be reviewed in order to benefit the poor from all the ethnic groups, the majority of whom are Malay to begin with.” She added, “I hope that Malaysia becomes a nation of people who regard themselves as citizens, where not everything is seen as a zero sum game between the ethnic groups.”

A Shift in Mindset
Indeed, HINDRAF may have sparked a national soul-searching exercise that has led many to rethink the structure of Malaysian society. Moorthy said of the socioeconomic policies in the country, “There has been a shift in mindset among all Malaysians.”

While Malaysia’s Indians remain a politically weak constituency unlikely to bring about broad political change in Malaysia’s partisan race-based political system, the election last March, which saw the incumbent political party lose votes in all communities, supported Moorthy’s idea. Saravanamuttu said, “The issues HINDRAF raised have resonated deeply across the board and made a palpable, real impact on the election results.” He cited analysts’ estimates that the greatest swing of votes from the incumbent Barisan National coalition to opposition parties was seen among Indian voters, with a change of about 35-40 percent.

This shift was further given credence by a poll in June and July 2008 by the independent Merdeka Center that showed that a majority across all races felt that Barisan Nasional’s “race-based affirmative action policy is obsolete and must be replaced with a merit-based policy” for a truly fair redistribution of wealth.

In response to calls for change, the Federal Government has introduced the “Race Relations Act,” which aims to build stronger interracial ties. Saravanamuttu is skeptical of the move. “This act [will] prove to be of limited effectiveness, for it proscribes rather than liberates race relations in the country,” he said. Other more positive harbingers for Malaysia were a declaration last March by the newly elected Penang state minister that his state will not follow the New Economic Policy and a statement by deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak in October urging his party to end the New Economic Policy, something that, if realized, would go a long way toward alleviating Indian anger. Yet the same month also saw the home minister declaring HINDRAF to be an illegal organization.

Meanwhile, Moorthy ruefully told the Globalist, a generation has grown up knowing tension, not tolerance. “When I was growing up, my father’s friends, of various races, used to come visit and celebrate together diwali with open house festivities, inviting friends and neighbors,” he said. “In recent years, my nephews and nieces do not get their friends visiting them anymore.” In November 2008, HINDRAF urged Malaysian Indians not to hold diwali open houses at all to protest deeply entrenched government discrimination. That the lights went out on diwali, the festival of lights and the holiest day in the year for Hindus, was at once a bitter irony and a symptom of the ills plaguing all of Malaysian society.

Monish Shah is a freshman in Morse College.

Mahathir's Returns...........

The former prime minister is expected to complicate life for newly minted Premier Najib

With Malaysia expected to shed as much as 2.5 percent off its gross domestic product in 2009 and the country's politics riven with factionalism, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak looks unlikely to get a 100-day honeymoon, or even less of one. For one thing, he has former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad looking over his shoulder at every move.

The late-March conclave of the United Malays National Organisation that ratified Najib in power in particular demonstrates Mahathir's resurgence, and with him probably UMNO's old guard. With a US$16.26 billion stimulus package announced in March to increase employment, improve infrastructure and help the private sector, the test of whether there is a new UMNO or an old UMNO will be where the stimulus will be directed. Watch for the firms most closely connected to party stalwarts.

The problem is that while Najib may placate the Mahathir faction inside UMNO, the greater public at large continues to be disenchanted with the party's leadership of the country. After the March 2008 election which cost the ruling national coalition its two-thirds lock on parliament, Najib has lost four of five other by-elections to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, winning only one in an isolated village in Sarawak in East Malaysia. He faces a revolt in the northeastern, conservative state of Terengganu, where 10 local assembly members refused to be seated last week in objection to the chief minister appointed to head the party there. In two by-elections on April 8, one in Perak and the other in Mahathir's own home state of Kedah, his personal return to the campaign trail appeared to have done little good, with both elections going to the opposition in greater numbers than in the 2008 general election.

Although Mahathir's hegemony over his old party is not 100 percent, and he says he is retired and intends to remain only an adviser, his return to UMNO leaves little doubt about his sway. After he left the party in a huff a year ago when it was announced that he faced a probe over judicial corruption, he devoted considerable space on his blog, Chedet, to blasting Najib when he wasn't ripping into Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whom he anointed as his successor only to turn on him with a vengeance. Party insiders say Najib, having got Mahathir back on his side, lives in fear that the former prime minister will go after him again if he doesn't get what he wants. Mahathir, party insiders say, regards Najib as weak and won't hesitate to blast the prime minister if he doesn't get his way.

In particular, party insiders say, one condition for getting Mahathir back into the party was the isolation of Khairy Jamalludin, former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son-in-law, even though Khairy was elected head of the important Youth wing of the party. Despite the position's importance, Khairy was denied a cabinet seat and his close associates within his faction of the party are being investigated for vote-buying although vote-buying was widespread on all sides during the UMNO conclave.

Mahathir's son Mukhriz, who lost out to Khairy in the contest for the youth wing job, was named minister of international trade and industry. That ministry in particular is the senior Mahathir's brainchild, the agency from which many of the grandiose projects of Mahathir's 22-year reign as prime minister sprang.

Daim Zainuddin, who was appointed finance minister by Mahathir in 1984, holds no official position. Daim became enormously rich -- and controversial -- under Mahathir. Although he apparently will have no official position, he is expected to play a major role in advising the government on Malaysia's economic outlook, perhaps joining the new council of economic advisers that Najib is establishing. It was Daim as much as Mahathir who advocated the creation of a class of Malay entrepreneurs through the award of vast contracts for government-linked projects to counterbalance the Chinese. That policy as much as anything is responsible for the quandary Malaysia finds itself in today, with a class of rent-seeking cronies who have become enormously rich while draining government coffers, particularly in the construction industry.

Although it is by no means certain, it also appears that some of Mahathir's cherished grandiose projects, which were cancelled by Badawi to Mahathir's eternal enmity, may be back. In particular, the so-called “crooked bridge” across the causeway whether Singapore wanted it or not, has made a reappearance, with a trial balloon floated last week in The Star, one of Malaysia's two English-language newspapers, which is owned by the Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-biggest component party in the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national coalition which is led by UMNO.

If the bridge does make an appearance, one UMNO stalwart told Asia Sentinel, it will demonstrate beyond doubt the sway Mahathir holds over Najib. It is certain to cause serious complications in Malaysia's relations with Singapore, which buys water from Malaysia, and sand, which Singapore needs in ever-increasing amounts in its bid to fill the Strait of Sumatra to make itself a bigger country. Singapore also wants airspace – liebensraum for its air force, which is bigger than Malaysia's and Indonesia's combined, and which can't get its wheels up before it leaves Singapore's borders.

Another project which will probably reappear soon, according to party insiders, is the dual-track railway that will run 329 km up Malaysia's spine from Ipoh to the Thai border. In 2007, the government approved a no-bid contract with Gamuda-MMC for RM12.5 billion (US$3.73 billion) but then shelved it again. The MMC part of the consortium is a construction company backed by Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, a longtime backer and fundraiser for UMNO. The contract, critics say, was far in excess of the amount necessary to actually build the project. It remains to be seen what company will get the contract this time.

On the other hand, time may be running out for the troubled Iskandar Malaysia project, a massive 2,200 square kilometer development in Johor, across from Singapore, which Badawi commissioned in 2006 and which has been flagging, particularly as the global economy has turned down. The development is to include port facilities and a huge panoply of petrochemicals projects and orther projects as well as condominiums. Besides being commissioned by Badawi, Mahathir has called it an extension of Singapore itself.

Local media quoted Mahatir as saying “after the land is sold, the Malays will be driven to live at the edge of the forest and even in the forest itself. In the end, the area in Iskandar Malaysia will be filled with Singaporeans and populated with only 15 per cent Malays.”

Whether the opposition can capitalize on the disarray within the coalition is another matter. The Penang deputy chief has quit the Parti Keadilan Rakyat opposition party amid corruption allegations over illegal quarrying activities, is threatening to expose further scandals in the Penang government. The opposition coalition has been under pressure across the country from Najib's attempts to pry away party members , with critics charging he had been offering large sums of money to get them to jump ship.

The stimulus package, the largest in Malaysia's history, represents 9 percent of GDP, but still is expected only to bring the export-oriented economy back to about neutral. With malaise growing, and critics at his back, Najib faces an unappetizing future.

by Asia Sentinel

P.Uthayakumar Speaks ....................

Today April 26, 2009, marks my 500th day under Umno’s captivity without being charged, tried or found guilty in a court of law. I suppose this is ‘justice’ for me, an Indian ethnic minority and human rights lawyer of 18 years.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s continued unilateral decree is that I be made to serve a jail sentence of two years and indefinitely thereafter under his regime. There are prisoners here at Kemta Kamunting, Taiping, serving their eighth year of their ISA sentences.

But I have no regrets. I know in my heart that every day of my imprisonment will liberate and open up a thousand new minds against Umno’s atrocities and injustices in their marginalisation, discrimination, suppression, oppression and the exclusion of Indians from the mainstream of national development in Malaysia.

Today, I have grown 500 days older. Today, I have lost 500 days of my precious freedom. Today, it is 500 days since I shaved my beard or combed my hair to protest my ISA detention. Today, it is 500 days since I have been made to wear the very same two pairs of dark blue baggy pants and white restaurant waiter-like prison uniform.

My left foot
On Jan 31, 2009, I had accidently injured the last toe of my left foot, which had gotten worse because of my long standing diabetic condition. From day one of my injury, I had repeatedly asked to be treated at the Gleneagles private hospital as I no longer have confidence in the independence of government-service doctors, which I believe had been compromised by the Home Ministry and its Special Branch police officers.

Under protest, I agreed to be treated at a government hospital on Feb 3, 2009. As I had anticipated, the doctor refused to admit me despite my swollen leg and blackening left foot condition. The doctor told me there were no hospital beds and neither did she want to refer me to an orthopedic surgeon or a consultant physician, as well as a cardiologist to treat my silent heart attack during my ISA detention.

No cast was put on my leg. No medication was prescribed. This doctor told me that my leg would heal on its own. My suspicion was confirmed when the doctor, who had written my medical notes in a police file, gave it back to the police officers accompanying me.

By the second week, my leg got even worse and despite repeated pleas, the prison authorities refused to take me even to a government hospital, which I agreed to go under protest. I had lodged four police reports but again zero action was taken. Even my statement was not recorded.

The worst case scenario ran across my mind. I may lose my left foot. For the first time, I realised that as a lawyer, I could not even save myself. There was nothing I could do, I was a prisoner.

But even then, I had thought to myself that should the worst happen, I would put on a prosthesis (artificial leg) and keep walking. I feel that at the end of the day, it was the prayers held at scores of Hindu temples nationwide by supporters of Makkal Sakthi that had actually saved my leg and ensure my well-being in prison.

Surviving on bread and biscuits
On March 22, 2009, I found pieces of beef in the chicken sambal served to me. Mohamad, a Pakistani national, and Abdul Sarjon, a Sri Lankan national, and fellow detainees who worked at the prison kitchen confirmed that chicken and beef were cooked in the same pot after which the chicken was scooped out and served.

I immediately lodged a police report. But again nothing happened as usual. But had it been the other way round - the victimisation a Malay Muslim - a different set of rules would be applied by Umno.

But I suppose this is all part and parcel of PM Najib’s One Malaysia policy. One Malaysia, two systems. Since that day, I have refused to consume cooked food from the prison kitchen in protest against the violation of my religious rights in contravention of Article 11 of the Federal Constitution. As a Hindu, I do not consume beef. I am now surviving basically on bread and biscuits.

Throughout these 500 days, there was never a single day that I ever regretted starting and spearheading this struggle. I believed in justice, including for the minority ethnic Indians, in Malaysia.

In these 500 days, I have refused to meet any of the Special Branch officers who came to meet detainees once in every two to three months to “plead for my release”. I have done no wrong and I am not prepared to beg for my freedom. I had earlier also refused to meet Umno’s home minister, knowing fully well that my release from prison is in his hands, for the very same reason.

My biggest satisfaction and what keeps me going in prison is the true and sincere spirit of the struggle through Hindraf’s Makkal Sakthi.

It moved me to see thousands of Hindraf supporters who had braved FRU’s tear gas and water cannons, who were roughed up and beaten by the police, arrested, handcuffed, thrown into jail, prosecuted in court and bravely standing up in the dock to face possible jail sentences, losing their jobs, and with their wife and children suffering.

All these sacrifices, just for a public cause to put to an end to Umno’s racism, religious extremism and exclusion of the Indians from the mainstream of national development. To all of you, I salute you and I am proud of you. Makkal Sakthi Valga.

I miss my freedom
I am suffering from this imprisonment daily. I miss my freedom. I miss my family, my wife and children.

But I am prepared for the worst, even if it means another 500 days or more of imprisonment. I will do this just for the cause of Hindraf. Umno can imprison me but they cannot imprison the forces of Hindraf’s Makkal Sakthi.

Makkal Sakthi was the tipping point in the March 8, 2008 general elections. It was the triggering factor which resulted in Umno/BN losing two-thirds majority in Parliament as well as political power in four west-coast states.

Makkal Sakthi once again showed its prowess at the Bukit Selambau and Bukit Gantang by-elections. I never, even in my wildest dream, thought I would see Makkal Sakthi forces to this extent in my lifetime.

I am no Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, but Umno has to understand and accept that it was the genuine grievances of the people - the pent-up pain and suffering, misery and heartache - that brought about the unprecedented 100,000-strong Hindraf rally on Nov 25, 2007.

Please be patient. Umno will not change, but we will change Umno in the 2012/2013 general elections. We will put an end to Umno’s bully tactics and its rule by fear. We have waited 52 long years.

Please be patient. In another three or four years, there would hopefully be a new beginning, a new political structure and a Malaysia with equality and equal opportunities, including for the Indians. A Malaysia where the Indians would be a part of the mainstream in national development.

Every day and every moment of my imprisonment, my thoughts and prayers are with Makkal Sakthi. I have plans for our further struggle. Please pray for my freedom, and for Umno’s end of its rule so that justice will finally prevail.

Umno may have punished me with this 500 days of imprisonment but you, the Makkal Sakthi, will in turn punished Umno/BN where it hurts them most - the ballot box.
God bless.

P Uthayakumar, Kamunting Detention Camp, Perak