Syed Hamid Albar lies through his teeth

It is so unbecoming of a Home Minister who has no account of accountability and transparency in the interest of public by claiming that P.Waythamoorthy had returned his passport to the High Commission in London.

It is a well known fact that based on a written instruction from the Malaysian authorities on March 14, 2008, the British government had retained P.Waythamoorthy’s passport on his return from Geneva on April 21, 2008.

It is also another fact that the Malaysian authorities had written to the UK government on July 2, 2008 to return the retained passport to them. Please see attached the letter from UK Border Agency.

These are factual events, not some unsubstantiated story telling to hoodwink the public. HINDRAF challenges the Home Minister to produce evidence to substantiate his claims rather than spinning the truth of the matter to the public.

Further, the Home Minister insinuates that "Despite returning his passport, he is still a citizen although he claims otherwise”.

P.Waythamoorthy has never claimed to be otherwise, and has always maintained to be a loyal Malaysian but forcefully prevented from returning to Malaysia for fear of unlawful persecution by the Malaysian authorities.

These lies are just blatant arrogance from the Home Minister against a Malaysian citizen.
Bearing his precarious medical condition, the Malaysian government should show their humanitarian side for once in allowing him to recuperate with his family and loved ones under the following conditions;

1. The Malaysian government to issue a new Malaysian passport to replace the revoked passport to P.Waythamoorthy and this to be made available for him or his representative to collect from the Malaysian High Commission in London.

2. The Malaysian government guarantees the safe return of P.Waythamoorthy to allow him to recuperate with his family members and loved ones.

3. The Malaysian government guarantees that P.Waythamoorthy will not be subjected to any arrest, harassment or charges upon his return including those under ISA.

4. The Malaysian government’s assurance and guarantee that he will be allowed to return to London for follow-up checks and possible further operations.

5. Lastly, the Malaysian government’s unconditional guarantee that his life will be protected from any form of persecution upon his return and no harm shall befall him.

Thank you.

By R. Shan (Hindraf – New York)

Are the Indians paying for their revolt?

Dev Anand Pillai have been wondering what else can a community, who are an important minority in this country, do except to revolt when the whole system is based on patronage and class divisions in Malaysia?

What else can a community do when they are constantly stereotyped by the authorities and the media to have criminal tendencies?

What else can a community do when they are arrested for suspicion of involvement in criminal activities but instead end up in a body bag without ever being charged? All these seem to be the predicaments of Indian Malaysians, which have led to a sad state of affairs after 52 years of independence.

The system of divide and rule and class patronage has created a mentality in the police force and the authorities in general that Indian Malaysians are the down-trodden class which are only good at arguing and fighting and hence associated with acts which could involve violence.

This mentality is very present and evident in the way the authorities discharge their duties when it comes to engaging Indian Malaysians. The question of continuous "begging" or asking the government in a very scuttle or mild way using political patronage connections should not arise as Indian Malaysians are citizens of this country and have all the right to be treated equally.

If an application is made and the applicant meets all the pre-conditions and criteria, then the applicant should be allowed his request without the need to further inquire into his ethnicity.
But the continuous insistence on ethnicity at every level of bureaucracy in Malaysia has entrenched a feudalistic mentality in the system of governance in the country which tends to only favour the well-connected. This has caused a ‘boiling lid’ effect which is what the country is experiencing now.

If it were not for the Indian Malaysians who had heeded to the call of Hindraf and revolted against the government in 2007, the rest of Malaysia would not have woken up from their long slumber and caused the hard hitting tsunami on the ruling BN coalition.

It can be seen very evidently that when Indian suspects are hauled up by the police, they are easy victims of the feudalistic mentality which has been indoctrinated into the police force.
Fundamental rights under the constitution are all nothing but worthless writings on paper which the police force does not bother with.

Fundamental liberties like the right to a phone call and legal representation of your choice is denied with ease and when brought up before the courts, we have a judiciary that does not insist that the constitution is supreme and in turn reprimand the delinquent police force for its ineptness.

The ethnic Indians have been on the receiving end way before the Hindraf revolution took place but this slow victimisation of Indians who tend to be very loyal to the government if they are in government positions, started many years ago.

It is also due to the class division amongst Indians, were the rich and professional lot think that the poorer segments are mostly those who indulge in criminal activities or acts which tend to get on the wrong side of the law.

Seeing disunity amongst the Indian political leadership and its masses, where clear lines are seen with those who have the power of patronage and those who are at the receiving end, the Malay political leadership see it fit to have it their way with the lower segment of ethnic Indians who mostly tend to sway towards the opposition.

At the risk of generalising, our police force has never been professional, although we have many police personnel who are highly educated these days. They are in the force for the positions, the connections that come with it after they retire, and last but not least to be in the right department or unit where there is a chance to "rake it in".

Most have become automatons who have no remorse or an iota of emotion in them which tells them that the person they are interrogating might be innocent. They might turn barbaric if it was their child who was tortured and killed by their own men in blue in the name of solving crime but no one has shown remorse by coming out into the open and criticising the force for its archaic ways of policing.

For this barbarism to stop, we have to change the entire government and with it, revamp the entire police force where the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General must be made responsible to Parliament. This way, their policies, decisions and actions will ultimately be watched and questioned by the people through Parliament.

One has no hope that the police force will change for the better unless a revolution takes place, where the people demand that the leadership of the police force step down and a commission is formed to take over until a complete revamp is done.

If the police force is corrupt and barbaric, the courts can make amends if it stops behaving subserviently to the force by questioning it and demanding to know what they have investigated before agreeing to remand a suspect.

But sadly our courts are made up of magistrates who are too scared to question the police. When our courts can save the day, they choose to keep quiet and let the press and the politicians do the talking.

Our courts have the constitution to safeguard and administer, to protect the rights of the people of this country but again they choose to keep quiet and allow this barbaric acts to fester.
Unless and until a strong commitment is conceived on part of the people to completely change the way in which this country is administered, these barbaric acts will continue and ethnic Indians will always be at the receiving end.




courtesy of malaysiakini

Death of detainee - Syed Hamid have done it again

Amidst the lunar new year celebrations, the week has been marred with controversies involving two deputy ministers, a Home Minister, the police and a death of a suspected car thief. The public, including friends and family of Kugan Ananthan were outraged to learn about the death of the 22 year-old while he was in police custody. Two deputy ministers of the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk K. Devamany and Senator T. Murugiah were also alleged to have 'raided' the morgue with the crowd where Kugan's body laid.

Our beloved Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar (image above) on January 25 issued a stern warning to the two deputy ministers, saying both of them are likely to face action for 'breaking the law' by accompanying the crowd.

“No minister or member of the administration is above the law and if you have committed an offence then you have to face the consequences,” Syed Hamid said. [25/1/09]

Being there with a crowd who so happened tried to enter the mortuary to see the body of their loved one is a crime?

The initial autopsy revealed that Kugan had died of fluids in his lungs but his family sought for a second autopsy, insisting that he had died of injuries. Lo and behold, the second one found external injuries caused by blunt brute force trauma on Kugan's body and it was suggested that he could have died of cardiac arrest following the injuries. That was pretty amazing - It took two autopsies for the authorities to actually 'discover' external injuries.

The police have promised a full investigation into the matter with all 11 police officers from the Subang USJ Taipan police station being suspended from duty.

No one is above the law but the Home Minister?
The Home Minister once again points his holier-than-thou finger at the two deputy ministers for their alleged 'accomplice' in the mortuary invasion. Indeed, 'no minister or member of the administration is above the law' , to quote the ever wise minister but how many times we Malaysians have seen the police and most importantly the Home Ministry act as if they are 50,000-feet above the law?

Malaysians are all too familiar with how the authorities handled peaceful marches like the BERSIH rally in 2007 and the arrests of participants of candlelight vigils and anti-war gatherings with riot police and water cannons. And not to mention the unholy trinity of ISA arrests of a blogger, an Opposition MP and a reporter of whom Syed Hamid gave the excuse of 'protecting her from death threats'.

If such indiscretion and the blatant abuse of preventive laws by the Home Ministry and the police are not acts far above the law, then what is? Syed Hamid must realize that for every finger he points at others, three are pointing back. It is true that the Home Minister is the man who calls the shots on who should be arrested and which assembly should be halted. But then again, every educated Malaysian knows adjectives like 'seditious', 'dangerous' or 'unruly' for an assembly or a person are subjected to the Home Minister's interpretation of events. The truth is, he is a lousy interpreter.

The police- abuse of power or sheer incompetence?
We should be warned not to turn Kugan's death into a racial issue, pitting the Malays against the Indians. I believe many Malays are just as disgusted and angered with the police force which just so happen to be a Malay-majority institution. Remember, we are all Malaysians and thus, this is a Malaysian issue at heart. The Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar, on the other hand, pleaded with the public not exploit Kugan's funeral as a political protest. Yes, it should be a protest against the victim of its own declining credibility - the Royal Malaysian Police!

The force have been lambasted for their lackadaisical approach when dealing with a death of a detainee. The family of Kugan also revealed of ignorance to basic protocols by the police when they were not even informed of Kugan's arrest prior to his sudden death on January 14.

“The police never informed us that he was arrested and we only heard about it from an anonymous caller...All they (the police) said was that he had died and his body was at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC)... Look what they have put us through," Kugan’s uncle V.Raviroy told reporters. [The Malaysian Insider, 26/1/09]

I could only imagine what Kugan's family had gone through when Raviroy said that while Kugan had died at 11am on January 20, his family members were only informed of his death at 9pm by several plain-clothed detectives who came to their home. Police incompetency again? It's nothing new.If Kugan's death was indeed natural and was not caused by police brutality, the authorities still have answer for the other 80 deaths in police custody from 2000 to 2004, a sum according to The Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police.

Out of the 80 cases, only 39 cases had been referred to the Magistrate for inquiry. And of the 39 cases, only in 6 cases did the Magistrate conduct inquest. The Royal Commission also found that in some 22 cases which had been referred to the Magistrate, decisions had been made to not hold inquests. This is a strict violation of The Criminal Procedure Code which states that when a person dies while in the custody of the police, the officer who had custody of that person shall immediately give intimation of such death to the nearest Magistrate and that the Magistrate shall hold an inquiry into the cause of the death.

It is also understood that no closed-circuit-television-cameras (CCTV) were placed in the lockup where Kugan was detained despite a governmental directive years ago for such devices to be installed to prevent police abuse.

Nevertheless, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail have asked the police to classify Kugan's death as 'murder' after personally studying investigation papers and photographs of the deceased.

Kugan's death signifies an unfortunate fact that some things do not change in Malaysia. How many times have we seen real measures are only taken when there is death? It took several lives to be lost the last time to prompt the government to review the safety of hillside projects and take preventive measures to prevent another landslide. Just how many more lives must be lost before any serious affirmative actions are taken to address the dire incompetency of our police force?




courtesy of standupformalaysia.blogspot.com

Syed Hamid denies revoking Waytha's passport

The government today once again denied that it had revoked Hindraf chairperson P Waythamoorthy's passport.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has been informed by the Immigration Department of Malaysia that the Malaysian international passport issued to Waytha Moorthy s/o Ponnusamy is still active in our passport and travel document system.

"In other words, the Malaysian government has never made any cancellation to the mentioned travel document," said Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar Syed Hamid in a statement today.

"Waythamoorthy is now believed to be overseas and is still free to travel internationally," added the minister.

The issue erupted on May 16 when Waythamoorthy, presently in self-imposed exile in London, and Amnesty International said that the Malaysian government had revoked former's passport to force him to return to Malaysia.

Waythamoorthy had said that he was informed of the status of his passport when he returned to London from Zurich on April 21.

"I was informed by the UK immigration officer at Gatwick Airport that the Malaysian government had revoked my passport," he had said then.

Passport to expire in 2010
In an immediate reaction then, Syed Hamid suggested that Waythamoorthy's passport could have expired and shrugged off the issue by saying that a misunderstanding could have occurred over the status of the passport.

However Waythamoorthy clarified later that his passport was only due to expire in 2010.

Waythamoorthy has been away from Malaysia since the government's crackdown on Hindraf last November.

He had claimed that the government was seeking to lure him back to this country to detain him under the Internal Security Act.

Five other Hindraf leaders, including the movement's most popular face and Waythamoorthy's brother Uthayakumar, are presently being held without trial since Dec 13.