KUALA LUMPUR: A seminar on orang asli rights will be organised by the Bar Council to raise awareness of the plight of the indigenous people.
Bar Council Committee on Orang Asli Rights co-chairman Steven Thiru, in announcing the seminar at a press conference yesterday, said the council was also hoping to enlist volunteers and lawyers to help the orang asli.
He said many orang asli were in need of legal help but there were too few lawyers willing to help them.
“The orang asli are very poor people; they cannot just walk into a law firm and engage a lawyer,” he added.
Steven said although the public often hears of the protection of orang asli rights, the reality is that their rights are, more often than not, trampled upon and ignored.
He said there were many cases where the aborigines were forced to vacate their ancestral lands, and give up their livelihood as well as their heritage due to indiscriminate logging and arbitrary development.
Also present at the press conference was orang asli representative Shafie Idris.
Shafie, himself an orang asli, is an active advocate of aboriginal rights,
and a member of the committee. He travels around Peninsular Malaysia to help the orang asli.
He related an incident where the aborigines of the Endau Rompin National Park in Johor were labelled as intruders even though they had been living in the area for hundreds of years.
“Our lands have been taken by irresponsible individuals,” he said.
The seminar will be held on Nov 19 at the Raja Aziz Addruse Auditorium in the Bar Council Building in Kuala Lumpur.
Various orang asli groups and Representatives of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) will attend to speak on issues related to orang asli rights.
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