A besieged Malaysian government made a spate of arrests, amid growing signs of an inclination to invoke draconian laws in the face of mounting opposition.
Malaysian govt goes after dissenters
HONG KONG: A besieged Malaysian government made a spate of arrests on Tuesday, including of leading ethnic Indian activist P Uthayakumar, amid growing signs of an inclination to invoke draconian laws in the face of mounting opposition.
Lawyer Uthayakumar, 46, who heads the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) and had mobilised a rally of over 10,000 ethnic Indians last month to protest race-based discrimination, was arrested twice on Tuesday on charges of sedition. If convicted, he could face up to 5 years in jail.
He was rearrested in the lobby of a courthouse in Kuala Lumpur within minutes of his having posted bail after being arrested earlier in the day on the charge of publishing seditious material in a letter written to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
In the letter, Uthayakumar had alleged that ethnic Indian minorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia were being “persecuted”, and that they “may be forced into terrorism” as had happened with ethnic Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka.
On a day of dramatic developments, former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who had recently travelled to India, was briefly detained by immigration officials on his return to Kuala Lumpur. In media interviews in Mumbai, Anwar had spoken out in defence of ethnic Indians, and leaders of Malaysia’s ruling National Front coalition had criticised his comments as “tarnishing Malaysia’s image abroad”.
Of his detention, Anwar said: “It’s harassment, a desperate attempt to intimidate the public and deflect attention away from major issues of corruption among United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) leaders and the judiciary.”
Also on Tuesday, eight leading Opposition leaders were arrested for attempting to deliver a memorandum to Parliament to demand free and fair elections. A police cordon had been thrown around Parliament to prevent the supporters of Bersih, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, from getting through. “It is completely uncalled for and unwarranted. Parliament is not a private club, it is a public place,” said Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.
Tuesday’s developments point to the government’s rising intolerance of dissent and moves towards invoking the draconian Internal Security Act, which provides for detention without trial, in defence of public order. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said on Monday that his duty was to ensure stability even if it meant invoking the ISA. “If I have to sign a detention order, if someone has to be taken in under the ISA... I’ll do it without feeling guilty or sad,” he said.
The crackdown has been widely criticised by civil rights activists and lawyers.
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