BAD INTENTIONS? Why is Hisham starting a Bersih 3.0 "videos war"

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has announced that a compilation of videos on the Bersih 3.0 rally would be uploaded on the Home Ministry website today for public viewing to enable people to see the events that occurred during the rally.

He said: “With the video recording, the people can make their own judgement based on facts and not other consideration.”

This is a  most deplorable development post-Bersih 3.0, as it is continuation of  the vilification and  demonization campaign launched by the Barisan Nasional government against Bersih 3.0 and Pakatan Rakyat  after April 28, like the 30-minute documentary “Bersih 3.0 itu Kotor” telecast on TV1 on Sunday, 13^th May  which only antagonised and turned off the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who had gathered peacefully in Kuala Lumpur in support of the Bersih 3.0 call for a clean election.

The priority duty of Hishammuddin as Home Minister is not to be accused, judge,  jury and executioner all in one but to give full support for an independent, impartial and credible investigation into what actually happened at the  Bersih 3.0 rally and establish  what went wrong which marred a great historic event of peaceful people empowerment uniting Malaysians transcending race, religion, region, class, age or gender for a common national cause  with incidents of violence and brutality, regardless of whether the victims were police personnel, media representatives or peaceful protestors.

Dissolve Hanif panel

What Hishammuddin should do is to give full support to the Suhakam inquiry into Bersih 3.0 and  dissolve the Hanif Omar “independent advisory panel” now that two of the six members, former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim and Petronas corporate affairs senior general manager Datuk Medan Abdullah have withdrawn from the panel rather than to launch off a video war to support the government version and its conspiracy theory of what happened on April 28.

Hishammuddin’s insistence to upload the  video compilation  of what happened on April 28 only confirmed suspicions that the Hanif panel’s real objective is to produce a finding to  match the government script, particularly when Hanif is on open record as supporting the wild and baseless allegation of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that Bersih 3.0 rally was an attempted coup d’etat by the opposition to topple the government.

I fully agree with Suhakam Commissioner Muhammad Sha’ani Abdullah who said  that Hishammuddin’s uploading of the Bersih 3.0 video compilation is against the government objective of setting up the Hanif panel, as it could only be interpreted as a form of pressure to influence both the investigation and outcome of the inquiry.

73 hours of clips

Two days ago, Hanif said his panel had been shown over 43 minutes of footage of videos on the April 28 rally out of a total of 73 hours of  clips available.

If Hishammuddin is prepared to let the public draw their own conclusions on what happened at the Bersih 3.0 rally, is he prepared to upload all the 73 hours of the video clips on Bersih 3.0?

How can Hishammuddin expect the public to have faith and confidence that he would discharge his duties as Home Minister fairly and impartially when he is not prepared to give full support for a credible,  independent and  impartial inquiry such as the Suhakam inquiry instead of the Hanif inquiry?

For a start, is Hishammuddin prepared to withdraw completely from playing any part or role in the vilification or demonization campaign  of Bersih 3.0 rally so as to allow a credible, independent and impartial Bersih 3.0 inquiry by Suhakam  to carry out its task?

Lim Kit Siang is the DAP adviser and MP for Ipoh Timur