Malaysian PM Najib Razak Gets 'Jaundice' in London！

Courtesy of Suara Sarawak

The massive Bersih 2.0 rally in Kuala Lumpur has made Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak an embarrassing guest for the British premier and the Queen this week.

Their respective briefing teams have made both, PM David Cameron and the Queen, well aware of the issue – that Barisan Nasional has been in power for over 50 years, achieving their current status as one of the world’s longest-lasting regimes.

They have also been told that the people who have been criticising the BN regime have ended up being beaten in the streets and locked in jail without charge under the so-called Emergency Ordinance and are without access to their lawyers.

They were also told that in Malaysia people are hauled into detention and treated like “enemies of the state” for wearing the colour yellow and for politely requesting an end to electoral corruption.

It was bad enough having Rupert Murdoch turn up in the middle of the biggest scandal in years over media corruption but entertaining Najib must have been even more uncomfortable for Cameron and the Queen.

Malaysian sympathisers in London have not made it any easier for Najib.

Throughout the week Najib’s British hosts have been constantly reminded of the real nature of their guest. “Flash demos” by demonstrators have sprung outside his various key engagements.

These hardcore demonstrators weren’t going to go away easily andinfuriatingly for BN, the British police were less pliant and refused to do anything to budge the demonstrators.

In fact, the local Westminster police acknowledged to the demonstrators that they are constantly pestered by the Malaysian High Commission, who have been asking for information about the locations of the protests and details of the organisers.

But the UK is a free country and the police have politely told Najib’s people that they are not prepared to harrass citizens or remove their freedom of expression in order to spare the blushes of a visiting “dignatory”.

The flash crowd that turned up to boo Najib’s event at Mansion House (the official residence of the City of London’s Mayor) was larger than yesterday’s outside Downing Street.They had been joined by Amnesty International, who have spoken out about the treatment of the Bersih demonstrators at the weekend. Amnesty commands considerable respect in the UK. The British police refused to indulge the Najib government's demand that they ban Bersih-linked protests in London during the Malaysian premier's visit.

The Malaysian PM had come to court the City’s investors and it was embarrassing. Investors do not like countries with uncertain human rights records and an unhappy middle class.

Few non-Malaysians turned up in the end, but some of the investors who did went and chatted first to the crowd of protesters outside. One, who described himself as ‘working for a global investment company’, said that he was well aware of the human rights issues in Malaysia and confirmed that his company monitors the matter and that such issues are of concern.

Meanwhile, the main topic in the crowd was the news that Najib’s lunch with Cameron had been cancelled. Was it owing to the human rights issues or simply because the UK PM was too busy they wondered? Neither looked particularly good from the perspective of the Malaysia PM !

Once again this gathering went off peacefully and the policing was minimal and friendly. Malaysia secret service people were there of course, frantically taking photos of the crowd with the doubtless intention of finding out as much about the Malaysian nationals there and later making their lives as difficult as they could. So we photographed them too.

Najib swept in at the agreed time with a big convoy of Malaysian cars and hurried up the red carpet inside. He saw the crowd and gave them a cheery wave – as if they had come up to give him their support! But, he didn’t risk going over to give autographs!