Surendran ejected from Parliament: PKR, Nurul slam "unprofessional" govt

KUALA LUMPUR - Member of Parliament for Padang Serai N Surendran was thrown out from Parliament for attempting to raise to lawmakers' attention a controversial death-in-police-custody case that has been stubbornly ignored by the authorities despite numerous complaints by the victim's family.

"My action was in accordance to rule 14 (f) of the house rules which allows petitions of the public to be brought up," Surendran told a press conference immediately after he was banished from the Hall.

He slammed the Speaker of House, andikar Amin Mulia, for "dictatorial" and "arrogant" behavior.

Standing up to defend him were his PKR party colleagues Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar and Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah.

They flayed the Speaker's high-handed action.

"A prelude for eventual rubber-stamping draconian laws and ISA 2.0. Why bother pretending with parliamentary democracy? It is non-existent," an angry Nurul told Malaysia Chronicle.

An outstanding human rights fighter

Surendran, an outspoken and outstanding human rights lawyer, had tried to raise the horrific case of P Karuna Nithi, an engineer, who had at least 49 major injury marks on his body according to a hospital post-mortem but the police insisted he died of "fatty changes to the liver".

Unable to get the police to probe Karuna's death, his family and lawyers had gone to Parliament to petition for action and Surendran, a first-term MP, had tried to present their petition to the Hall.

But Pandikar asked him to wait until the question-and-answer session and this led to banter between both sides of the political divide. It ended with Pandikar ordering Surendran to leave the Hall.

Surendran is the first MP to be ejected since the new Parliament began its sittings after the controversial May 5 general election.

Unprofessional police "manhandled" Karuna's family, lawyers

Lawyers for Karuna's family also complained they were manhandled by police and security personnel at the Parliament lobby.

"This is hardly professional behavior," said Nurul Izzah,

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