Pakatan Harapan de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim said his daughter Nurul Izzah is free to give her thoughts on the appointment of former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Noor as a facilitator for peace talks in southern Thailand.
Anwar said this is because the wound runs deep for the PKR vice-president, given that Rahim had assaulted her father when she was young.
Rahim received a two-month jail sentence after he assaulted Anwar on the night of his arrest on Sept 20, 1998, following the latter's sacking as deputy prime minister.
Anwar subsequently appeared in court with a black eye. Rahim had since apologised to Anwar and his family for the incident.
"Izzah is free to give her thoughts. At the time (of the incident), she was still young and of course she was affected when her father was beaten (until he was) half-dead," Anwar said in a press conference after closing the government's Future of Bumiputeras & the Nation Congress (KBN 2018) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre today.
Anwar said that it was more important for the incident to serve as a lesson to the people that those who are in power must not abuse it.
On Rahim's appointment as a facilitator, Anwar said he respected the prime minister's prerogative to select him.
"We have to give him space to decide on what's best," he said.
Nurul Izzah had recently criticised Rahim's appointment on Twitter.
"I unequivocally oppose this appointment of a brutal assaulter of an innocent man, as he lay there blindfolded and handcuffed - left without medical attention for days," she tweeted.
Rahim had responded by saying that it was “irrelevant” to link his appointment as a facilitator to Anwar’s “black eye” incident.
He also added that "what is past, is past”, and believed the government had chosen him based on his role in the peace talks with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) in 1989. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.