Don’t roll out red carpet for Najib, Britain urged

Police action against citizens during Saturday's rally has jeopardized the country's reputation as a moderate democratic state, says international human rights community.

PETALING JAYA: The consensus from international organisations is that the red carpet should not be rolled out for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak when he begins his official visit to Britain today.

Najib begins his four-day official visit to the UK today, after which he is expected to be in Rome to meet with Pope Benedict XVI.

Najib has said that street protests are not the Malaysian way but the International Human Rights community are angry with him and the police force for denying Malaysians their basic rights during Saturday’s Bersih rally.

Amnesty International (AI) had even gone a step further and called for heads of states to censor Najib .

“Prime Minister Najib’s government rode roughshod over thousands of Malaysians exercising their right to peaceful protest,” said Donna Guest, deputy Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International in a statement.

“This violent repression by the Malaysian police flies in the face of international human rights standards and cannot be allowed to continue,” she added.

“The British government shouldn’t reward this brutality by rolling out a red carpet for Malaysia’s prime minister… (British Prime Minister) David Cameron should tell prime minister Najib that these human rights violations against peaceful reform protests are unacceptable,” she said.

Amenesty International also called on the Vatican to press Najib to respect human rights when he visits the pope later this week.

AI also highlighted the many complaints of police hard-handedness during the rally. It said that the use of force by the police was “excessive, unnecessary and designed to instill fear”.

The Malaysian government however has denied this and said that it has video footages of its own to show otherwise.

The international human right watchdog also asked the Malaysian authorities to investigate claims that police failed to provide immediate assistance to Baharuddin Ahmad, the husband of PKR Setia Wangsa chief, who passed away in the vicinity of KLCC due to heart complications during the rally.

Undermining progress

The United Nations (UN) had also took Najib and the police to task for the handling of Saturday’s rally and events leading up to it.

Frank La Rue, UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, said that the Malaysian government “risks undermining democratic progress to the country” with the pre-emptive measures taken to derail the rally.

“Declaring Bersih illegal based on claims that it is trying to topple the government or it is a risk to national security and public order – in the absence of any credible evidence to substantiate such claims – is also an unnecessary restriction of civil and political rights,” La Rue added.

The UN also reminded Malaysia that as a member of the Human Rights Council, Malaysia has pledged to uphold the “highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch highlighted that the estimation by the authorities over the number of protesters “lacked any credibility”.

“The claims that the number of protesters only numbered 6,000 lacks any credibility, it defies logic that the police were so efficient that they arrested almost one of every three protesters,” said Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the organization’s Asia Division.

Bersih organisers have said that about 50 000 supporters have turned up for Saturday’s rally. Police, however, have put the number at only 6,000. Press reports estimate that there were 10,000 to 15,000 people who participated in the rally.

“This is a maelstrom of the Malaysian authorities’ own making. The failure of the top levels of the Malaysian government to engage in good faith dialogue with citizens demanding basic electoral reforms is the heart of the matter,” he said.

“The biggest victim is the country’s reputation as a moderate democratic state,” he added.