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JOHOR BAHRU: From the inaugural training session in the north, the Education and Training Working Group of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) ventured south to Johor Bahru for its 2nd Human Rights Training programme on 23 June 2007.

As part of the ‘Bringing Human Rights Home’ tour, the main aim is to inculcate human rights values among members of the Bar and to equip ourselves with the necessary tools to deal with rights violations.

A diverse audience greeted us here, with a broad mix of practitioner levels.

A total of about 25 pupils, lawyers and members of the public were present (including the two SUARAM activists who had been arrested in conjunction with the gathering outside the Johor Menteri Besar’s residence.

Special mention is made of the firm of Syarikat Rodziah from Kota Tinggi which provided 8 of the participants.

The session was well received, with sessions on an overview of human rights (by Rajen Devaraj, HRC Executive Officer), immigrant and refugee rights (by Amer Hamzah Arshad, Deputy Chair of the HRC) and Orang Asli rights (by Augustine Anthony, Chair of the Orang Asli Project). I shared on the topics of international human rights law and religious freedom.

Many of the participants were grappling with issues they were involved already in their day-to-day practice, and there were lively discussions during all the sessions, particularly the substantive sessions on refugee rights, indigenous rights and religious freedom. Of particular interest to the participants was the plight of the Orang Asli. This is due to the large Orang Asli population in Johor and the heightened awareness amongst lawyers ever since the Malaysian Bar’s community service trip to their settlements to alleviate their hardship during the great Johor floods earlier this year.

Abdul Razak Ahmad, who has sadly passed on since then, had also been invited to give a short talk on his experiences as an advocate of human rights after lunch.

In that brief half hour, I had a glimpse of the spirit and dedication of a man who could lie across a railway track as a sign of protest for a cause he believed in. At the same time, however, what I remember most was thinking what a humble unassuming chap he was and what a good lawyer he must have been.

During his talk, he pointed out that the Government released him from his detention under the ISA on the eve of Awal Muharram. His release was conditional and he was subjected to restricted residence and a curfew. Razak was once arrested for being in a coffee-shop at 10 pm, 2 hours after his 8 pm curfew. He successfully defended himself on the basis that the Government had not interviewed him prior to extending the restriction order, which was a requirement of the law. This story emphasises the valuable lesson that more human rights litigation is won on technical points rather than on high flown exhortations to international human rights norms.

I recorded the following wise words by Razak. After pointing out that cases against the Government was not ‘anti government’ but merely upholding the rule of law, he said “I would urge young lawyers to come forward together with senior lawyers whenever you see abuses, and take it up. I am very glad that we now have a human rights committee, and that there are quite a number of lawyers from North to the South who are helping the poor and the Orang Asli.”

Johor lawyers have always been actively pursuing human rights issues, and it is no wonder that this training session was so successful. The power-point presentations at the session are being compiled and fine-tuned by the HRC with a view to formulating a standard curriculum which will be used for human rights training throughout the country.

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