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 Malaysian Lawyers have been arrested, and are being held in a police lock up
without bail, just because they dared to hold a walk to celebrate International
Human Rights Day. PS Malaysia sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council.
It’s Sunday night, 9 December 2007. It’s not yet Human Rights
Day as I now wait in Perth airport for my flight home to Kuala Lumpur.
I have been receiving a flurry of text messages all day about
my lawyer friends, who have been arrested at the Human Rights Day Freedom Walk
in Kuala Lumpur held earlier today. Amer Hamzah Arshad, Latheefa Koya, N
Surendran and Sivarasa Rasiah were walking to get to the Bar Council auditorium,
where the Festival of Rights was held in conjunction with International Human
Rights Day. Together with them was Eric Paulsen, a non practising advocate and
solicitor and several others.
I received these messages as I witnessed Falun Gong
practitioners hold a peaceful march in Perth, where the police accompanied them
with a police escort to ensure they were not disturbed. I saw Burmese refugees
peacefully demonstrating in the middle of Perth’s busiest shopping district with
not a policeman in sight.
On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United
Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Malaysia
celebrated the 50th year of its endorsement of this noble charter for human
dignity when we had our Merdeka celebrations earlier this year having joined the
United Nations as an independent nation in 1957. The Bar was celebrating
International Human Rights Day, together with the entire community of civilized
nations.
Malaysia, who now incongruously sits on the United Nation’s
Human Rights Council despite not having ratified most of the defining
international covenants on human rights, will on International Human Rights Day
charge these advocates and solicitors of the High Court in Malaya for the grave
crime of walking without the permission of the government.
Edmund Bon, another friend of mine and Chair of the Human
Rights Committee of the Malaysian Bar who recently won the thirs highest number
of votes in elections to the Bar Council, was arrested as he tried to reason
with DBKL enforcement officials who were attempting to trespass onto the Bar
Council’s premises to remove banners.
As I write, these lawyers are spending the night in a police
lock up because they have been denied bail. After all, the Constitution allows
the police to detain suspects for investigations for up to 24 hours so the
police obviously feel they should use the full time period to make their guests
feel the full might of their brute force.
Never mind that all those arrested are well established
lawyers. Who cares that all have close links to the community? Does it really
matter that all would no doubt have willingly offered themselves to the police
at everyone’s convenience for further questioning and investigations, if
necessary? Of what consequence is the certainty that all would have obeyed a
summons to Court to face charges against them?
What is important to the police is this: Malaysian lawyers
must be taught a lesson. They are beginning to show the rakyat that Malaysians
have rights. They have begun to display - overtly and effectively - a fierce
independence. They constantly call for reform to ensure justice and fair play
(hitherto unknown qualities in the machinery of the State in Malaysia since the
full onslaught of Mahathirisation) become once again integral parts in the
administration of this country.
Knowing my friends, however, I know they must be loving their
time in the police cells. They know what to expect, having heard the horror
stories from clients all these years about the gross conditions of detention.
The police will be at a loss to see my friends cheering,
laughing and singing.
Those lawyers know they have won a great moral victory.
They have done absolutely nothing wrong. They walked
peacefully in order to get to a destination to celebrate an international
festival of the United Nations.
For this peaceful walk, they are being abused by the
Government of Malaysia - a grim testimony indeed to the state of our democracy
and the so called liberalisation of rights in Badawi’s Malaysia.
Malaysia Boleh .. tapi tak boleh Jalan! (Malaysia Can*
.. but cannot walk!)
*Malaysia Boleh or Malaysia Can is the national feel good chant propagated by
the Government. It is a phrase that evokes a wry and cynical smile from most
thinking Malaysians.
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They could have let the event be carried out and completed uneventfully, collected their weekend overtime pay for napping in their vehicles on a relatively cool wet Sunday (together with all the FRU officers who did just that "defending" the Bukit Aman police headquarters) and called it a "win-win situation" of sorts. Given the typical Malaysian public's disposition for short term memory loss, the whole event may have been quickly forgotten after a few days. Instead, they had to vindicate the very purpose of the event by proving through their actions that the requirement for police permits for public assembly and arrests made in respect of "illegal assemblies" have absolutely nothing to do with public safety. This stupidity will be compounded and dragged out in the charges yet to come. Well done! Malaysia Boleh!
David Soong Tshon Li