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Tag: Constitution

  • Dr Tan Cheng Bock: I Agree With Lee Hsien Loong On The Qualities Of Ideal Candidate

    Dr Tan Cheng Bock: I Agree With Lee Hsien Loong On The Qualities Of Ideal Candidate

    Last night PM Lee was asked this question

    Q: Who would be the ideal candidate for you for the next Elected President?

    PM Lee: Somebody who can identify with all Singaporeans, whom all Singaporeans will look up to, respect, and at the same time, have the experience and the weight and the judgement to look at what the Government is putting up to them, and to say yes, or no, depending on whether or not it is the wise thing to do. You need the experience, you need the personality.

    You also need that trust which people must build up in you, so when you say, I have made this decision after consulting my conscience and consulting wise people, it carries weight and people respect you and they feel proud to be Singaporean. That’s what we want.

    I am in full agreement with PM.

     

    Source: Dr Tan Cheng Bock

  • A Thank You To PAP Supporters For Forcing PAP To Be Creative With Our Lives

    A Thank You To PAP Supporters For Forcing PAP To Be Creative With Our Lives

    I must admit, I never like PAP supporters. I’m actually jealous of them. When i look at them i always ask myself how can someone be so skillful in angkat buah? Like it is a full tull time job for them right until they are so well-versed.

    But now i have a new-found appreciation for them.

    It is not the opposition parties that keep PAP on their toes. It is actually their supporters right? Every single time PAP lose support from their own supporter base, they always become extra creative. Somehow after that, PAP will come up with some schemes to retain their supporters and to increase their vote share. This PAP creativity means that the Constitution is always updated. Don’t you feel thankful for that?

    You ask yourselves, why was the NCMP (Non-Constituency MP) created? Why was the GRC scheme created? Why did they change the powers of the Elected Presidency back in 1994?

    Now they want to make further constitutional changes to the Elected Presidency, to ensure minority representation even though for many years PAP keep harping on meritocracy. You know how stubborn they have been on their meritocracy but now suddenly, it is fine if we don’t hold on to this ‘meritocracy” too tightly. Wah the minorities must be very grateful for this.

    How did that happen? of course because of PAP supporters lah.

    So thank you PAP supporters for carrying their balls and squeezing their balls and forcing to be creative with the live of Singaporeans.

     

    Tak Kuat Angkat Buah

    <Reader Contribution>

  • Khairy Jamaluddin: Do Not Question Special Rights Of The Malays

    Khairy Jamaluddin: Do Not Question Special Rights Of The Malays

    KUALA LUMPUR — Non-Malays should never again dispute the special rights of the Malays and the position of the rulers, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said today (Nov 26), adding that Malays themselves never questioned vernacular schools and the citizenship of non-Malays.

    He said in his policy speech at the party’s general assembly that the Malays had “accepted and they had never questioned” the social contract they agreed upon during the formation of Malaysia. “If the Malays can accept it by not raising the matter of citizenship and acknowledging that we cannot shut down vernacular schools, why are there those among non-Malays who refuse to honour what they have previously agreed upon?

    “Why are there those who ask for the Malay special privileges to be stopped, those who dispute the position of the Malay rulers and even those who cannot speak a word of the national language?

    Mr Khairy said it was a huge sacrifice for the Malays to allow other races to be a part of the country, so non-Malays must keep their end of the bargain and not question Malay rights: “So great were the sacrifices of the Malay people, and all that we ask in return is for the non-Malays to accept several of those matters which I just brought up as the other end of the bargain.”

    Mr Khairy also defended the existence of vernacular schools, saying that they were allowed as part of the “status quo” which had “existed pre-Independence, and which will continue to exist”.

    Despite Mr Khairy’s statement, some UMNO grassroots leaders have in the past few months demanded that Chinese and Indian schools be shut down for the sake of national unity. Last Sunday, a coalition of 58 Malay-rights groups repeated the call, and even urged Putrajaya to silence “radical” education organisations like Dong Zhong with the threat of de-registration.

    Mr Khairy conceded today that there were “fringe voices” questioning the existence of vernacular schools, but stressed that the UMNO leadership has long accepted the current education system.

    DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, however, said Mr Khairy is now travelling the “dark road” of extremists like Perkasa and its president Ibrahim Ali.

    Mr Lim said UMNO was no longer the future hope for Malaysia as even Mr Khairy, whom Mr Lim described as a “sober voice” in UMNO, was playing the racial and religious card by warning non-Malays not to challenge the “special rights” of Malays.

    “He (Khairy) has taken the dark road travelled by extremists like Perkasa and Ibrahim Ali, when he used his policy speech at the UMNO Youth assembly to blame the non-Malays for questioning the status of the rulers, special position of the Malays and official status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.

    “Putting the blame on non-Malays is dishonest and evil politics by Khairy because it is simply false and malicious that the non-Malays questioned such rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution,” he said in a statement today.

    Mr Lim, who is also Bagan MP and Penang chief minister, said Mr Khairy should be addressing facts and figures from reports about the incomes of Malaysian households.

    The Malaysia Human Development Report 2013 revealed that 53 per cent of Malaysian households have no financial assets while one in three Malaysians have no banking or financial accounts of any kind. It also showed that rural households have the highest number of those without any financial assets (63 per cent), compared to 45 per cent of urban households.

    By ethnic group, about 57 per cent of non-Malay Bumiputeras and 55 per cent of Malays have no financial assets, with the figure for the Chinese and Indians at 45 per cent and 44 per cent respectively. Almost 90 per cent and 86 per cent of rural and urban households respectively had no savings, the report had said, citing the Household Income Survey (HIS).

    Mr Lim asked why Khairy had not addressed the report, which was sponsored by the Prime Minister’s Department, since it had a direct impact on the economic future of Malaysians, especially youths including Malays and Bumiputeras. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Sisters In Islam: Malaysia Not A Theocratic Dictatorship

    Sisters In Islam: Malaysia Not A Theocratic Dictatorship

    KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 — Women’s advocacy group Sisters in Islam (SIS) has told minister Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom that Malaysia is a democracy and not a theocratic dictatorship.

    The Muslim women’s rights NGO also said shariah laws are man-made and therefore not infallible, pointing out that the recent court challenges by SIS against a fatwa and by a group of Muslim transgender men against a state shariah law prohibiting cross-dressing were challenges to the “unjust and inefficient” Islamic legal system in Malaysia.

    “We would like to remind the minister that Malaysia is a democratic country, not a theocratic dictatorship,” Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, a member of SIS’ board of directors, told Malay Mail Online.

    “Our Federal Constitution guarantees the fundamental liberties of every citizen including Muslims. The rule of law applies to everyone, and everyone has a right to seek redress in the courts if they feel they have been unfairly treated,” she added.

    SIS also expressed alarm at the call by Jamil Khir, who is the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs, for all Muslims to defend their faith from liberal ideologies “by any method”.

    “Does this mean he is giving the go-ahead for anyone to take vigilante action against those the minister deems un-Islamic, including violence? Does this mean that should anyone physically attack such persons, the state will take no action against them?” Marina asked.

    Jamil Khir said yesterday that in a “new wave” of assault, Muslim transgenders and SIS are colluding with Islam’s enemies to put its religious institutions on trial in a secular court.

    The minister was responding to two recent court challenges where state Islamic authorities were cast into a defensive role, with one initiated by SIS at the High Court here against a Selangor religious edict, or fatwa, declaring their organisation and its members “deviants”.

    The other was a separate case mounted by a group of transgender men who were convicted of cross-dressing under the Negri Sembilan state shariah law, which they won at the Court of Appeal Friday.

    A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal had unanimously ruled Section 66 of the Negri Sembilan Syariah Criminal Enactment 1992 to be unconstitutional as it violated the three Muslim men’s right to freedom of expression.

    Jamil Khir said Islamic institutions like the state Islamic councils must work together to face “this new wave against Islam”, claiming that there is an “agenda” outside the country’s predominant religion aiming to twist the faith of Muslims.

    Malaysia’s religious authorities have long derided liberalism and pluralism, with Friday sermons nationwide claiming a conspiracy by “enemies of Islam” to manipulate Muslims through ideas like secularism, socialism, feminism and positivism, in addition to the two.

     

    Source: www.themalaymailonline.com

  • Challenge on 377A Rejected by the Supreme Court

    Challenge on 377A Rejected by the Supreme Court

    The nation’s highest court today (Oct 29) ruled that a law that criminalises sex between men is constitutional.

    The Court of Appeal found that Section 377A of the Penal Code did not infringe on the rights of 51-year-old artistic therapist and social volunteer Tan Eng Hong.

    Mr Tan was arrested for engaging in oral sex with another man in a public toilet in 2010. He contested the law but had his application dismissed by the High Court in 2013.

    Mr Tan’s lawyer M Ravi noted that the case had been before the courts for four years and its precedent could be “far-reaching”.

    “Today’s decision has legitimised discrimination against gay men and approved the criminalisation of the conduct of their private lives by statute,” he said in a statement to the media. He called the ruling a “huge step backwards for human rights in Singapore”.

    The Court of Appeal is also hearing a separate appeal to have Section 377A declared unconstitutional, from two men — Gary Lim Meng Suang and Kenneth Chee Mun-Leon — who have been in a relationship for the past 16 years. The High Court had ruled against them in 2013.

    Source: www.facebook.com/TodayOnline