HUMAN RIGHTS RESOURCE CENTER MALAYSIA

By EDITH M. LEDERER (AP) – 11 hours ago

UNITED NATIONS — Seven countries accused of human rights violations, including Libya, Angola and Malaysia, won seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council in an uncontested election Thursday.

The U.N. General Assembly approved all 14 candidates for the 14 seats on the 47-member council by wide margins despite campaigns by human rights groups to deny countries with poor rights records the minimum number of votes needed.

All 14 countries easily topped the 97 votes required from the 192-member world body. Libya, which currently holds the presidency of the General Assembly, received the lowest number of votes — 155 — while Angola got 170 and Malaysia 179.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT

When Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak visits the United States this week, US government officials should press him to end Malaysia’s institutionalised system of discrimination against non-ethnic Malays.

As a first step, Malaysia should agree to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), a UN treaty already ratified by 173 countries.

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John Liu
Mar 1, 10

While the ongoing new process of selecting members of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) marks a seemingly relative improvement in the commission’s compliance with international standards, Suaram expresses its concerns and disappointment over the current application of the new process.

Although the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions (ICC) has given Suhakam an ‘A’ status in November 2009 after considering the amendments made to the enabling law of Suhakam in July 2009, the international body will nonetheless once again review Suhakam’s status in November 2010, in particular to assess whether the new selection process is applied in accordance with international standards.

In relation to this, Suaram regrets that the application of the new selection process has thus far been flawed since the beginning, with little or no regard paid to the principles of openness, transparency and inclusiveness.

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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 Super Admin

The last time Anwar Ibrahim was put on trial, I was tortured and forced to ‘confess’ to sodomy

My detention by the Malaysian Special Branch taught me how it feels to be forcibly separated from one’s wife and children. How it feels to be searched and seized, disallowed to make phone calls, handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped naked, driven in an animal cage, shaven bald, endlessly interrogated, humiliated, drugged, deprived of sleep, physically abused.

By MUNAWAR A. ANEES, Wall Street Journal

Nearly 12 years ago, I was languishing in a local hospital as a prisoner of conscience. This loss of freedom was due solely to my long-standing personal and professional association with Anwar Ibrahim, then Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Malaysia. We were falsely implicated in a fabricated case of having committed a mutual act of sodomy.

Such an internment, when driven by ulterior motives, brings a brutal deprivation upon the victim. It acts like a double-edged sword. While one’s freedom of movement is taken away by tormentors, one’s conscience suffocates in a dungeon. A poignant grief sets in once there is awareness that both the body and the conscience have fallen victim to the act of tyranny. That is what distinguishes incarceration out of an actual crime from that emanating from the acts of those who prosecute and persecute innocent others. The tormented memory never fades.

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The girl’s father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay.

According to human rights activists, the girl, who was quickly married after the attack, was divorced weeks later after medical tests revealed she was pregnant.

The girl was raped by a 20-year-old villager in Brahmanbaria district in April last year.

Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper reported that she was so ashamed following the attack that she did not lodge a complaint.

Her rape emerged after her pregnancy test and Muslim elders in the village issued a fatwa insisting that the girl be kept in isolation until her family agreed to corporal punishment.

Her rapist was pardoned by the elders. She told the newspaper the rapist had “spoiled” her life.

“I want justice,” she said.

John Lee MI

DEC 1 — Amid this renewed scandal about the Biro Tata Negara’s propaganda programmes, tucked away is a little scrap of news: our human rights commission, Suhakam, is poised to retain its “A” grading from the United Nations.

We have one of the best human rights commissions in the world — the UN says so. Our human rights commission comprises men and women from every part of the establishment — if they don’t know what law and order is, nobody does. And they have always been unequivocal: our repressive laws, from the Internal Security Act to the Sedition Act, need to go.

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[Translation to English by CPI]

Anatomy of an ISA operation

Arrested: Mat Sah Mohd Satray, a technician working with Dewan Bahasa Pustaka (DBP) was linked to Abu Bakar Bashir accused of heading the Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI). Mat Sah had made Abu Bakar’s acquaintance when he attended a course conducted by the latter, and his attendance at the course one made compulsory by DBP itself.

Tortured: April 2002, Mat Sah was interrogated throughout the day by three officers who took turns in the questioning session. Mat Sah, who was made to sit shivering under the air-conditioner, was not allowed to use the toilet and only provided with a mineral water bottle to ease himself.

The next day on April 18, 2002, the mainstream media published news that Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) was engaged in sabotage by attempting to blow up Port Klang. It was a period of mass unease following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States.

Detained: Mat Sah’s habeas corpus application was unsuccessful when the judge ruled that “the international community is now engaged in a war against terror”.

If, however, Mat Sah was really a terrorist, what ‘rebab’ programme is run in Kamunting? Inmates are given irrelevant training like how to make pickles, ferment soya bean and other such culinary skills.

Locked up: In a room without any lamp. Seven wasted years … held without evidence, without recourse to justice; without a view of the sky or the stars.

Released: Sept 15, 2009, “He (Mat Sah) was not set free. He was thrown out of the Kamunting camp and dumped on my doorstep,” is how his wife Norlaila Othman views it.

Provisos: He is required to remain within the police district of Ampang Jaya, Selangor; and not permitted to leave the area without written consent from the state Chief of Police. In other words, Mat Sah is only allowed to move around in Ampang.

Curfew: Mat Sah must report himself at the police station every Monday, and has to remain in his home between the hours of 9pm and 6am, unless obtaining permission from the police to break curfew.

Preventive order: He is not allowed to speak in public; is barred from joining societies and organizations; and banned from taking part in political events.

Merdeka Review interviews Mat Sah and Norlaila

“Kesian dia Mat Sah, even until the day he dies, people will say he is a ‘terrorist’. When in truth, Mat Sah is a good man who was oppressed and made a scapegoat,” lamented Norlaila who had been active in fighting for her husband’s release through the NGOs and Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (GMI).

The authorities came increasingly under pressure following the ‘Abolish ISA’ demonstration on Aug 1 which catalyzed the release of five detainees before Hari Raya Aidilfitri this year. Mat Sah does not give any credence to the government’s statement that the detainees were released after having completed their ‘rehabilitation’.

After tens of thousands of people flooded the heart of Kuala Lumpur crying ‘ISA must go!’, Special Branch (SB) from Bukit Aman who previously used to make half yearly visits to Kamunting were suddenly briefing Mat Sah on a fortnightly basis.

From contact with his SP interrogators in the camp with where he was imprisoned, Mat Sah learnt of the public anger against ISA gaining momentum.

Mat Sah recalled how the SB officers looked harassed after the demonstration. One of the consequences arising from the demo was that Mat Sah – one of ISA’s longest-held detainee still in camp then – was taken to the Kuala Lumpur remand centre to be brainwashed. He was rained a variety of questions in addition to being subjected to propaganda on why the ISA should be retained.

Made to undergo polygraph test

On the night of Apr 17, 2002, Mat Sah was arrested under ISA. He was set upon by 12 policemen at his home and handcuffed while the house was ransacked. “When I asked to see his warrant of arrest, they said ‘no need warrant’ because they were ‘Grade A officers’,” said Norlaila.

Subsequently Mat Sah was labelled a member of ahli JI and KMM without trial. How strange then that “they never even mentioned the word ‘JI’ atau ‘KMM’ (during his arrest). They only said “‘we have our reasons to arrest you under ISA because you are a threat to national security”.

The experience of his first two years in custody is still clearly etched in Mat Sah’s memory.

“Mat Sah, we cannot release you. Malaysia has made a joint commitment with Asean and [a promise to] the United States to combat terrorism. If we let you go, what will they say?” – This was the reason given Mat Sah by Bukit Aman.

Detainees were required to take a ‘polygraph test’ to ascertain if they were lying to the authorities. “They gave me the test twice, once last year, and again this year. The last time they (the SB) said I failed. Yet this time, surprisingly I passed despite my replies being the same on both occasions.”

Mat Sah added, “I saw that they already harboured the intention of letting me go. Saying that (I passed the polygraph test) was merely their convenient excuse.”

‘Your wife needs to slow down a bit’

If the ostensible reason for releasing Mat Sah does not hold water, what about the reasons for extending his ISA detention order?

“Firstly, [they said I] did not obey the rules; secondly, my wife was too vocal…” Mat Sah explained to the journalists, stealing a glance at Norlaila. In fact, the authorities made an ‘example’ of Mat Sah to dissuade the families of other detainees from stepping forward to publicize the ISA issue.

Although they did not say so directly but Mat Sah got the message from their conversations with him that the SB was hinting his wife “should go slow” on her activism.

The journalists then asked if it ever crossed Mat Sah’s mind to advise his wife to ‘back off’. With disarming frankness Mat Sah replied, “I’m only repeating what the SB said…”, and this adroit sidestepping eliciting smiles from the journalists.

Norlaila who was seated at Mat Sah’s side was eager to re-enact their dialogue. In a soft voice, Norlaila said (she told her husband in Kamunting), “If you forbid me from campaigning (for your freedom), I will refuse to visit you here anymore-lah…”

The journalists laughed at the antics of the husband-and-wife pair. Nonetheless, it was with a sober realization that behind the light-heartedness of day, their painful past still lurked around the corner and haunted them.

Mat Sah resumed his story of what went through his mind when the SB wanted his wife to keep a low profile. He said one of his fellow inmates was Dr Abdullah Daud from Johor. Although Dr Abdullah’s his wife did nothing to agitate the authorities, his detention was similarly extended anyway.

Refused to sing Negaraku

In any case, it was not as if Norlaila was active right from the start. In fact, Mat Sah obeyed all the camp rules and regulations in the hope that he would be released after two years.

Nonetheless, Mat Sah could see that the Al-Ma’unah detainees who were ‘well-behaved’ (obeyed all the rules) were not set free, whereas the reformasi detainees who were ‘bad’ (did not co-operate with the camp authorities) were let go.

From then on, Mat Sah commenced his own programme of non-cooperation, refusing to sing Negaraku every morning at 7 o’clock. In the meantime, Norlaila began campaigning in the public – presenting her memorandum to Suhakam, giving talks and other activities.

Norlaila’s efforts failed to secure Mat Sah his release but instead earned him even more severe punishment.

On Feb 23, 2006, Norlaila decided to ambush the Prime Minister during an event organized by Felda, where she managed to hand over her memorandum to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who replied with “Insya-Allah”.

In retaliation for her initiative which took the authorities by surprise, Mat Sah was put in solitary confinement for three years. This act was seen as a warning to other detainees so that their families would not follow in Norlaila’s footsteps …

‘The government has destroyed my husband!’

The ISA not only devastated their lives but its insidious effect has seeped into their very bones.

“I feel that he has been made stupid, not ‘rehabilitated’ throughout those seven years” said Norlaila point blank. “The isolation from human company, the rules enforced on him caused Mat Sah to regress mentally.”

When asked about Mat Sah’s personality seven years ago, Norlaila commented, “He was a very cheerful person … an affectionate father.

“We lost everything for seven years, including the job.”

Norlaila recalled how she had to fork out her own money to repair the ‘damage’ done to her husband who was ‘broken’ while being held in Kamunting. She bore the cost of his dental treatment and medical care (for his leg) while he was under detention, and at the same time spending money to buy her husband and his fellow detainees better food during her visits to Kamunting.

“He was not a criminal!”

Mat Sah became a changed man, and reacted with hesitancy to the world [after having spent seven years isolated under ISA’s so-called preventive detention].

Norlaila reflected, “Upon his release, he was like a newborn just emerged from a cave. He didn’t know anything … when we went out, so many things were alien to him; he kept asking a lot of questions …”

There was once when Norlaila took Mat Sah to the market. She was surprised to hear him shout ‘Ikan!’ and pointing to a fish on display at the stall. His behaviour perplexed Norlaila who turned the fish over to check what could be so extraordinary about it. As it turned out, [CPI editor’s note: possibly after seven years of anchovies on the menu], Mat Sah had forgotten that fish could be big in size.

At the supermarket, Mat Sah was careful in his step, fearful that other shoppers would collide into him. [After the long solitary confinement, he is yet to get used to people and crowds]. His ISA detention had resulted in Mat Sah’s world shrinking to a void. He has fallen out of step with technological advances and is overwhelmed by modern gadgets like mobiles and smart-tag, plus unfamiliar with the Internet.

The first day that he stepped into his home after spending seven years in bare cell, Mat Sah reacted as if the house was overly ‘cluttered’, when in fact the living room contained only the sofa and a few decorations, Norlaila remembered.

Growing up without a father

“Of course I’m very upset. And I will curse those officers … the wicked SBs who arrest people under ISA, who keep them locked up for years, who invent all kinds of excuses to prevent their release,” Norlaila told the journalists.

Unlike other ISA detainees who expressed gratitude to the government for their release, Norlaila has reminded Mat Sah only to ‘bersyukur’ to God, not to the government because it is this government that has caused his family so much grief.

For seven long years, Mat Sah’s only son Suhaib had missed his father. Even though Mat Sah has now returned to the embrace of one who for half his life grew up without a father figure, they are having a hard time making up for the lost years.

According to Norlaila, Mat Sah is unsure about how to interact his son, today a teenager. Similarly when Suhaib wants to talk to Mat Shah, he would look to his mother Norlaila for direction.

“For too long they have been apart…,” Norlaila admitted that the lapsed relationship between father and son is one that requires mending. Norlaila herself was confronted with a similar awkwardness. The first night that Mat Sah was released and returned home, she felt that it was a stranger who was in her bedroom.

Suhaib has been unnerved by how his father seems slow in his movements and thought processes. He once asked his mother, while giving his father a sidelong look and gesturing with a finger pointing to the head: “Is he okay up there?”

Majority of ISA victims were leftists

Unlike Wan Azizah Wan Ismail who was known as the ‘wife of the Deputy Prime Minister’ before her husband fell from power, Norlaila was only a secondary school teacher. When Anwar Ibrahim was brought down, his family had the support of the reformasi movement, and were the focus of international media attention. Anwar was seen as a prisoner of conscience.

Not so with Norlaila’s family. Even PAS – painted as having links with terrorists by the BN propaganda machine – was reluctant to extend a helping hand to Mat Sah’s family.

Nonetheless, Norlaila was not alone and she recalled the assistance given her by the reporters from Harakah, Malaysiakini and others. More importantly, when Norlaila was at her wits end, friends from GMI lent her their shoulder to cry on.

During the period of her struggle to free Mat Sah, she has been diligent in her research. Armed with her newly acquired knowledge, Norlaila has made it her mission to correct public misconception about ISA.

From her reading, Norlaila learned that the ISA dragnet included many of those categorized as ‘leftists’. These were people belonging to organizations that fought for the rights of labourers, factory workers, farmers and other marginalized communities.

Over the last seven years, Norlaila has tried her level best to free her husband and get the ISA abolished. “I have done all that I’ve had to do with civility. However when the government is ‘kurang ajar’ to us, then we have to continue to educate this government.”

Lim Hong Siang is editor of ‘Merdeka Review’, Malay edition. The interview above was conducted by Lim together with his colleague Chen Shaua Fui. This summary is edited and reformatted by CPI with permission from ‘Merdeka Review’ and can be read in its Malay version, ISA: ‘Saya akan sumpah SB-SB yang jahat!’

The full interview can be read in the Merdeka Review four-parter below:

• Bhg I: Demo 1 Ogos yang bebaskan saya, Mat Sah
• Bhg II: 13 Mei berulang tanpa ISA?
• Bhg III: Kita masih dalam ISA, Norlaila
• Bhg IV: Bila diuji dengan ISA… Berdosa kalau diam, Norlaila

SIPAUN: Suhakam is clear. The ISA must go

THE Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) remains steadfast in its call for the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Contacted yesterday, Suhakam vice-chairman Tan Sri Simon Sipaun said: “I had made it clear that Suhakam has not  deviated from its original  stand that the ISA be abolished.”

He explained that Suhakam’s stand was communicated to Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein during a meeting together with Bar Council representatives  on Sept 15 to clarify the situation.

As such, Sipaun said, the minister must have misunderstood Suhakam’s stand if he had said the human rights group had agreed there was a need to retain the ISA, although it should be amended.

Sipaun explained that while a new legislation would take time to come  into effect, Suhakam wants a review of the ISA to make it more human rights-friendly as an interim measure.

There was at no time in the meeting, Sipaun insisted, that he or Suhakam representatives had agreed that the ISA should be retained.

“The ISA is against human rights principles, where it is not right that a minister or police can arrest a person without trial or reason.”

He pointed out that, in a published recommendation to the government in 2003, Suhakam had called for the repeal of the ISA, so that it could be replaced by a more human rights-friendly legislation.

“No one should be deprived of individual liberty or the right to defend himself. People should be given the chance to be innocent until proven guilty. Suhakam is still very concerned over the abuses of the ISA.”

While visiting the detention camp in Kamunting, Siapun said, he met with a detainee who had been there for seven years.

“They should not be detained for such a long period. If there was evidence of crime, he should be sent to the court to be tried and not be kept in the detention camp.”