Hindu Rights Action Force rejects claim by Malaysia’s chief of police that the organisation has links with terrorists.
Hindu Rights Action Force rejects claim by Malaysia’s chief of police that the organisation has links with terrorists
KUALA LUMPUR: A group of Malaysian lawyers demanding affirmative action for the country’s ethnic Indians vowed on Friday to sue top police and legal officials who claimed it had ties to terrorists.
Malaysia has tried to paint the group, the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, in terrorist colours after it organised a rare protest by 10,000 ethnic Indians last month.
Malaysia’s police chief said it was trying to provoke racial clashes. But Hindraf dismissed the accusation as ridiculous, saying it was pursuing its objectives by legal, peaceful means.
“They’re bankrupt of ideas to punish us,” the group’s legal adviser, P Uthayakumar, said. “They’ve no more bullets to fire so they’re firing this at us. It’s like killing a fly with a sledgehammer, because we’re so small.”
Multi-racial Malaysia has brushed aside claims that it has mistreated its ethnic Indians. November’s protest also upset authorities because it followed a much larger opposition-sponsored rally seeking electoral reform in Malaysia, where such gatherings are unusual.
Police chief Musa Hassan this week accused Hindraf of seeking assistance from terrorist groups.
Uthayakumar said Musa’s remarks echoed courtroom comments by Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail linking the group to Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, and dared both officials to produce evidence of their claims.
“Technically, what they said is slander and criminal defamation, he said. “I’m going to file a civil suit against the attorney-general and the chief of police, because then they will be forced to produce the evidence in court.”
Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the police chief’s accusation showed the government was escalating its position of denial.
“It will be Malaysia’s misfortune and tragedy if the government’s sole concern is to indiscriminately demonise the Hindraf leaders,” Lim, head of the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party, said.
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