Don't embarrass Malaysians over UN human rights seat, Kasthuri tells PM

 

Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto has reminded the administration of premier Ismail Sabri Yaakob that a seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) means that Malaysia must commit to uphold, defend and promote human rights in its own backyard.

“Or else it would only be cosmetic and meaningless.

“I winced at the thought of all the violations of human rights happening in our own backyard and how difficult it was to get the government to understand that it must take a top-down approach in terms of amending laws and a bottom-up approach in educating the public on these amendments,” said Kasthuri in a statement today.

Nonetheless, she said she was also proud that Malaysia won a seat at the UNHRC for the term of 2022 to 2024.

“In Ismail Sabri’s address yesterday, he said Malaysia was ready to take an active role to ‘facilitate international reconciliation, cooperation and consensus-building’.

“I would like to remind him and hold him to his words to do the same back home.

“If the government truly believes in the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then it must do the necessary to ensure that it moves in that direction and not away from it,” she said.

She called on the prime minister to engage with all MPs and to ensure that he and his government commits to the following reforms: -

1. To reform the criminal justice system and abolish the death penalty beginning with the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

- Malaysia remains one of the 51 countries that still have the death penalty. There are currently 1,366 people on death row and the number has been increasing every year, which shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime and there has to be greater investment by the government to fight crime instead of ending lives.

2. To table amendments to the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorces) 1974 and Shariah provisions to set 18 as the age of marriage for Peninsular Malaysia as well as in Sabah and Sarawak.

- To date, Malaysia still allows child marriages to take place according to the law. While there are more stringent procedures today after the nationwide uproar of a 41-year-old man who married an 11-year-old girl, even one case of child marriage is a national disaster.

3. To withdraw the appeal of the High Court decision that allows for automatic citizenship of children born overseas to Malaysian mothers as done by Malaysian fathers and to amend the Federal Constitution in line with this.

- to date, Malaysia is a part of 25 countries that have nationality laws that deny women equal rights in conferring citizenship to their children as men do.

4. To table the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission in the coming Parliament sitting and to ensure it is passed and to adopt a new interpretation by Suhakam of custodial deaths, as well as to ensure the welfare of the police force is taken care of.

- Malaysia records custodial deaths annually in its lock-ups, prisons and detention centres, whether increasing or decreasing in numbers. One death under the care and watch of the police is one preventable death too many.

5. To sign and ratify international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the Second Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Convention Against Torture, the 1951 Refugee Convention and conventions that eliminate discrimination and intolerance based on religion and belief and to immediately set up a Royal Commission on Enforced Disappearances.

- Malaysia loses nothing if it signs and ratifies these conventions and other international instruments to be seen as a committed and serious partner in ensuring that violations against human rights, genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity be fought head-on and to prevent future global atrocities.

“A seat at the UNHRC must be utilised as a golden opportunity for Malaysia to undo wrong practices in the past and to act as a state party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as mentioned by the prime minister himself.

“Malaysia and Malaysians must rise above ourselves to push for the government to be accountable for its conduct in our own backyard as a new member of the UNHRC for the term of 2022 to 2024,” said Kasthuri. - Mkini