Tag: PKR

Malaysian Parliament Passes Controversial Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA)

The controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) Bill was finally passed after nearly 15 hours of debate with 79 votes for and 60 votes against in the Dewan Rakyat early this morning.

The anti-terrorism law faced considerable opposition and criticism for containing a detention without trial provision, similar to the repealed Internal Security Act (ISA) and came after police arrested 17 suspected militants.

Lawmakers said Parliament adjourned at 2.26am when the last motion to amend the Pota bill by Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng was defeated with 60 votes for and 79 votes against.

A subsequent motion to the refer the bill to the full house of the Parliament was passed 79 to 60 while a third reading of the proposed law was also passed 79 to 60.

The Dewan Rakyat had earlier stopped its clocks before midnight last night to enable the committee stage of the Pota debate to continue since noon yesterday.

The motion to stop the clock was tabled by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim and seconded by the Works Deputy Minister Datuk Rosnah Shirlin.

The Home Minister yesterday said the anti-terror act was nothing like the scrapped ISA.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Wan Jaafar said there were certain provisions in the Pota that differed from the ISA, including its executive powers and power of detention.

Putrajaya tabled the anti-terror bill last Monday, which empowered authorities to detain terrorist suspects without trial and disallowed judicial reviews on such decisions by a Prevention of Terrorism Board.

Under the proposed law, suspects can be first detained a maximum of 59 days (including the initial remand period), before being brought to the board, which can then order further detention of up to two years.

Following this, the detention period can be renewed if the board decides there are reasonable grounds. It can also direct a person to be set free if it deemed necessary.

The bill does not allow any judicial review in any court, noting that no court shall have jurisdiction over decisions by the board in its discretionary power.

Critics including Kuala Terengganu MP Datuk Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad and Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen had raised concerns over the new law, saying that it was just a “reincarnation” of the ISA. – April 7, 2015.

Source: www.themalaysianinsider.com

April 7, 2015
PKR To Mediate In Hudud Disagreement Between DAP And PAS

PKR said today that it would play the role of mediator between PAS and DAP to ensure that Pakatan Rakyat does not split up, following the latter’s decision to end ties with the Islamist party’s president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang over the hudud issue.

PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli said the party’s political bureau had held a meeting last night at which it was decided that PKR would meet separately with the warring PAS and DAP leaders to discuss the issues threatening to split the seven-year coalition.

“We want to sit down with PAS and DAP leadership. At the end of the day, even the most difficult issues have been resolved by sitting down and discussing,” he said at a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.

“Pakatan is like a tripod. We cannot survive without one leg. In spite of the miscommunication and internal problems, we have our common interests and we will move along the same direction.”

DAP said yesterday that although it would remain in PR, it was ending all ties with Hadi following the latter’s decision to go against the coalition in tabling a Private Member’s Bill on his own without discussing it with the rest of the leadership.

“DAP is unable to work with a PAS president like Hadi Awang who persists in such dishonest and dishonourable acts,” secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said.

“As Hadi is the PAS leader in PR, DAP’s decision to end all ties with Hadi will effectively put the PR leadership council in limbo. DAP will meet the PKR leadership to discuss the future course of PR.”

Lim later told reporters that Hadi should leave the opposition coalition if he insisted on implementing hudud in Kelantan.

Hadi had come under severe criticism after failing to agree to the decision made at the PR leadership council meeting on February 8, where it was agreed that Kelantan PAS’s hudud bill to amend the state’s Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II (1993) would first be discussed by all three PR party leaders, before it was tabled in the legislative assembly.

The frictions between both parties came to a head after Hadi had gone ahead to submit a private member’s bill on March 18 to Parliament without presenting it first to the PAS central committee and to the PR leadership council.

Rafizi said today that although the matter cannot be swept under the carpet, the hudud issue is not big enough to put the coalition at a breaking point.

“We had also discussed our differences about the hudud in 2011 and resolved it. In the end, the commom interest of the coalition is to bring up pressing issues concerning the rakyat.

“There will be some skirmishes, problems between two parties and the other one tries to bring back peace. There have been problems between PAS and PKR.

“When we were preparing the shadow budget and manifesto, there were a lot of shouting, walk-outs and yet we managed to come together and present our budget and common policy framework,” he added.

“By making that stand, we have declared that it is very hard for us to work with Hadi now,” he said.

Source: www.themalaysianinsider.com

March 26, 2015
Anwar Ibrahim’s Family Pleads For Royal Clemency On His Behalf

KUALA LUMPUR: PKR President Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and her second daughter, Nurul Nuha Anwar, were earlier reportedly at Istana Negara to submit a Petition for a Pardon from the Agong for jailed Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Earlier, Anwar’s lawyers had expressed some doubts that the Opposition Leader would apply for a Pardon and stressed that he continues to maintain that he was innocent of the charges.

A Petition for Pardon would delay Anwar’s disqualification as Permatang Pauh MP.

Anwar’s eldest daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar was reported in Malay Mail Online as confirming that the family was seeking the Pardon from the Agong, on Anwar’s behalf, and there’s a precedent for this.

She cited the case of DAP’s father-and-son team Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng who had submitted a similar Petition when they were in prison.

She was apparently speaking from Parliament where she was submitting the letter on the Petition on the Pardon to Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia.

In the absence of a Petition, Anwar can be barred from being a federal lawmaker 14 days from February 10, based on Article 48 Clause 4 (a) of the Federal Constitution.

Nurul Nuha confirmed, in a statement, that the Petition for the Pardon had been submitted to Istana Negara for the Agong’s attention.

“An appeal for a royal pardon has been submitted. The courts may have pronounced a guilty verdict but our father, and we as a family continue to state that he is innocent,” she said in the statement. “By virtue of Article 42 of the Federal Constitution, we hope that the Royal institution would in the name of justice based on the entire facts grant an appeal.”

The family, she stressed, she said would continue to pursue and exhaust all available legal means to free Anwar.

PKR veteran Sivarasa Rasiah, one of Anwar’s lawyers, said on Monday the legal team will apply for a review of the decision under Rule 137 of the Federal Court Rules as a judicial review was not possible for a criminal conviction.

The Federal Court, on February 10, saw no reason to interfere with an earlier Court of Appeal decision to convict Anwar on a sodomy charge and sentence him to five years in jail.

The Bar Council, in an initial reaction, said that Anwar had been convicted of a victimless offence and implied that there was no law on this.

On the role and function of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the State Rulers, the Federal Constitution is largely fashioned on the British model but with local adaptations, according to Law Professor Shad Faruqi in an advisory written in 2006 for Australian journalists who raised the case of Anwar.

“The Agong has the power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites. On any constitutional question, he can refer a matter to the Federal Court for the court’s advisory opinion.”

The British Queen’s judicial powers are now very minimal and there is only really one which is used on a regular basis, with others having been delegated to judges and parliament through time:

Royal Pardon – The Royal Pardon was originally used to retract death sentences against those wrongly convicted. It is now used to correct errors in sentencing and was recently used to give a posthumous pardon to WW2 codebreaker, Alan Turing.

Source: www.freemalaysiatoday.com

February 25, 2015
Malaysian Opposition Wants Police To Question Najib Razak Over Murder Of Mongolian Mdel Altantuya Shaariibuu

The police should investigate Datuk Seri Najib Razak over the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, ‎the PKR and DAP said today‎, after the prime minister rejected claims by convicted former police commando Sirul Azhar Umar that there was an order to kill the Mongolian woman.

“Datuk Seri Najib Razak statement today that it was ‘utter rubbish’ for Sirul to have acted under orders to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu was premature, suspicious and must be investigated by the police,” said PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil in a statement today.

Fahmi questioned how Najib could issue such a statement if he knew nothing about Altantuya.

“And does he have more information than the public knows to make such a conclusion? His comments have raised the perception among the public that there is something not right in this issue,” he said.

In a separate statement, Klang MP Charles Santiago said the judiciary should issue a stay of execution for Sirul and Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, who was also convicted for the murder, until Najib was questioned.

The DAP leader said Najib’s “strong reaction’ to Sirul’s claim implied he knew details of the case.

He said that despite his denials, Najib had always been linked to Altantuya as she had worked as a translator during a defence deal involving Najib, then the defence minister, and his associate, Abdul Razak Baginda.

“Although Najib has always maintained he does not know Altantuya, expose by a private investigator and the recent information leaked by Sirul have always looped in the prime minister,” said Charles.

“And if necessary, this case should also be re-investigated in the interest of the nation as it involves a man who has the top job in the country.”

He said the police should not attempt to protect Najib as Sirul’s threat to expose the details of the murder was explosive.

“Malaysia’s internal security may well be compromised following Sirul’s statement as it raises suspicion that we may have a premier who could be involved in a criminal case,” said Charles.

Najib today rubbished Sirul’s claims that he was under orders to kill Altantuya, but refused to elaborate further.

“It’s total rubbish, total rubbish,” he told reporters after attending MCA’s Chinese New Year open house at Wisma MCA today.

N‎ajib was asked on Sirul’s claim in a Malaysiakini report that he had orders to kill Altantuya.

On Tuesday, Sirul (pic, left), now detained in Australia, said that the “real” murderers were still free.

“I was under orders. The important people with motive are still free,” he told Malaysiakini in an interview.

Sirul also said that his superior officer, then deputy superintendent Musa Safri, should have been called to give evidence in the Altantuya murder trial.

At the time of the murder, Musa was the aide-de-camp of Najib, then the deputy prime minister.

“He should have been put on the witness stand by the prosecution,” Sirul was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini.

The 43-year-old said he never knew Altantuya or even Razak, who was acquitted with abetting the Mongolian’s murder.

Altantuya’s father Dr Setev Shaariibuu had previously claimed that his daughter had come to Malaysia specifically to meet Najib.

In 2013, the Court of Appeal acquitted Sirul and Azilah, saying there was serious misdirection by trial judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Yasin, including the decision not to call Musa as witness.

The three-man appellate court said the failure to put Musa on the witness stand was important to the prosecution to unfold the narrative of its case.

On January 13, a five-man Federal Court bench led by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria sentenced the men to be hanged, overturning the Court of Appeal’s decision. – February 19, 2015.

February 20, 2015
Online Petition To The US Government To Lobby For The Release Of Anwar Ibrahim

KUALA LUMPUR ― Just hours after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was convicted of sodomy here, an online petition has been started to urge the US government to seek the Opposition Leader’s release from his five-year jail term.

In the petition that called Anwar a “longtime friend” of the US, it pressed the administration headed by US President Barack Obama to make the jailed politician’s release a “top priority” in the global superpower’s policy towards Malaysia.

“Anwar Ibrahim, the Leader of the Opposition in Malaysia, a champion of democracy, a believer in Islamic justice, and a longtime friend of the United States, was convicted and jailed on trumped-up charges on February 10, 2015,” said the individual with the initials JM from Alexandria, Virginia who started the petition.

The petition noted that the US White House had quickly issued a statement after Anwar’s conviction to express its “deep disappointment” and concern over Malaysia’s rule of law and fairness of the judicial system, but said such remarks are inadequate.

“But statements are not enough. The Administration must follow its words with action. Anwar is a political prisoner. The future of democracy in Malaysia is at stake. Securing Anwar’s release from prison must be a top priority in US policy towards Malaysia, to be advanced in every way possible,” the petition said when urging for action.

The petition was filed on the White House’s online petitions page under the issues of “civil rights and liberties, foreign policy, human rights”.

It has so far secured nearly 2,000 signatures and has until March 12 to reach the 100,000-threshold mark that is required to prompt a White House response.

The “We the People” site initiated in 2011 by the Obama administration reportedly does not ask for the nationality of signatories, who are only required to be aged 13 and above and owning a verified email address.

This is not the first time that a petition regarding Malaysian events were started on the page, with a petition started in May 2013 to protest against alleged fraud during the country’s 13th general election.

Yesterday, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s conviction of Anwar for sodomising his former political aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, also keeping a five-year jail sentence.

The decision also leaves the Pakatan Rakyat opposition pact without a leader.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

February 12, 2015