Add 'Sedition' to 'Raja, Bangsa & Agama'

Noh Omar is still smarting from the UMNO election loss in the recent Selangor state elections. And the UMNO party election is just around the corner so the wannabe just has to do something dramatic to warm the cockles of the heartland.

He looked sideways and saw his UMNO colleague, another wannnabe worried about his own party VP position because of Mukhriz Mahathir's likely ascendancy in the party, sic RoS at DAP, so he decided to sic the police at (as reported by the Malay Mail Online) "... individuals who posted images of students eating in a bathroom at SRK Sri Pristana ..." for possible sedition.

The Malay Mail Online had reported that "... a mother by the name of Guneswari Kelly posted on social network Facebook photographs that appeared to show several non-Muslim children and even adults at a school named as SRK Sri Pristana in Sungai Buloh taking their recess in the toilet even as the school canteen went unoccupied."

"According to her, the children were directed not to use the canteen — shown cordoned off in the pictures — as they would “dirty” the area. Instead, they were told to go to the school’s changing rooms and lavatories, and ordered to stay there for the duration of their recess."

So, the dubious wannabe-pahlawan wants the police to investigate a concerned mother of her victimised child-pupil and her supporters for sedition.

Sedition can lead to jail, and in Boleh Land, it's not impossible for Guneswari Kelly to be trotted off to jail whilst the school's principal (or Noh Omar) promoted to Tan Sri, because there is a precedent for this scenario.

In 1995 Lim Guan Eng was arrested and charged by the police after he publicly criticized the government's handling of statutory rape allegations against Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik, the former Chief Minister of Malacca.

The grandmother of the under-age girl had gone to complain to her MP in Malacca, then Lim Guan Eng, about the alleged (statutory) rape, where the young sweetie allegedly had sex with Rahim Tamby Chik and 14 other men. The girl confessed to the sexual liaisons. The 14 men were charged and the girl 'detained' under so-called 'protective custody' for 10 dayswithout her guardian's permission.

Lim the Younger accused the government of double standards in that statutory rape case, where the Attorney General, Mohtar Abdullah, decided not to prosecute Rahim Tamby Chik, but instead 'detained' the under-age alleged Muslim girl, a mere fifteen-year old schoolgirl, under 'protective custody'.

Aliran had published: Lim GE was held to have uttered the words, "that he was dissatisfied with the fact that the court had ordered the minor to be detained for three years whereas Rahim, who should have been imprisoned for violating the law, was instead set free". 

It is important to note that while the accused was held to have published the word "imprisoned" he had uttered in his speech the word "detained". 

In any event, this utterance was held by the court to be seditionbecause it had the tendency "to bring into hatred or contempt or .. excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Malaysia..." 

This, in a nutshell was the case against Lim Guan Eng, the Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka. This is the reason he is serving a sentence of imprisonment for 18 months at Kajang Prison and has been disqualified from holding office. 

The million-strong is left wondering and at a loss about the constitutional oath of office of a Member of Parliament and the right and duty of an elected parliamentarian, and indeed all citizens, to comment on a matter of public concern without fear or favour.

The million-member jury will no doubt long ponder over the difference between 'imprisonment' and 'detention', especially since the girl had in open court testified that she had tried to escape from the Rehabilitation Centre but was caught after she had escaped. 

The jury is also left to wonder why an elected Member of Parliament is denied the freedom of expression enjoyed by a newspaper columnist Marina Mahathir who in her article captioned Whither Justice published in the Star on 9 November 1994 prior to Guan Eng's pamphlet had stated that:

There are injustices in the law which are mind-boggling ... a gross mockery of justice ... As a woman, especially a Muslim woman, I am angry, disgusted and ashamed ... As a mother, I now have real fears for my daughter. What protection can we hope for our daughters if, in the interests of politics, a minor can be so easily sacrificed?

But on the grounds of the difference between the word 'detained' and imprisoned', Lim was accused under the Sedition Act of prompting 'disaffection with the administration of justice in Malaysia'.

Compare Lim’s so-called ‘crime’ with the behaviour and public utterances of delegates to the UMNO general assemblies, UMNO politicians, Utusan racist articles, etc.

Even Marina Mahathir described the authorities' treatment of the girl as a 'mockery of justice' in comments above.

Just to make sure Lim was nailed, he was additionally charged under the Printing Presses and Publications Act for 'maliciously printing' a pamphlet containing allegedly 'false information' specifically the term 'imprisoned victim' in reference to the alleged rape victim.

See the crucial 'imprisoned' versus 'detained' which saw Lim GE sit behind bars for one and one-half years?

Amnesty International had this to say of Lim Guan Eng’s case:

The sedition charges against Lim Guan Eng, apart from being an apparent move to silence a leading critic, appear to be part of an established government strategy of selectively using repressive laws in prominent cases to engender a wider public reluctance to criticize the authorities. 

A similar intimidatory stance was reflected in December 1996 when the government threatened to use the ISA against those seeking to organise an NGO forum to discuss alleged abuses of police powers. Threatened with detention without charge or trial, the organizers suspended the forum indefinitely. 

Members of the government and ruling coalition have also publicly criticised those regarded as dissenters after questioning their patriotism. In December 1996 Prime Minister Mahathir accused some Malaysian NGOs of acting in collaboration with foreigners to undermine the countrys international reputation and described them as 'traitors' and 'leftists'. 

Similarly in November 1996 in a parliamentary speech a senior UMNO parliamentarian accused Lim Guan Eng of being a 'traitor' because he had allegedly referred his case to the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) thereby 'damaging Malaysia's international image'.

Lim Guan Eng’s courage to stand up for the girl has been such a sterling example of courageous public service, especially for women, that parties like PAS, with too much focus on the sleazy issue of sex and lust, could do well to emulate.

Instead of harassing and persecuting women with the inconsequential, PAS could do well to fight for their real dignity and justice, such as protecting them from oppression by abusive husbands and rapacious employers, rather than their nonsensical version of 'dignity' that demanded women to comply with PAS' narrow worldview of aping desert Arabs in dressing. In reality those dress codes masked PAS leadership’s misogynist persecution of womenfolk.

I pick on PAS rather than UMNO for the reason I had expected it to be the main counterweight to UMNO, already a lost cause. Yet PAS has continuously let us down miserably by straying into puerile issues.

But indeed the injustice to Lim Guan Eng must not be allowed to be forgotten. That he is from the DAP is coincidental and irrelevant.

But Dr Mahathir shouldn't be allowed to get away. As the PM-then, he defended the charge against Lim GE. And the alleged rapist was awarded a Tan Sri.

Incidentally, guess who was the DPM then?

It would seem that apart from a Chinaman MP from DAP, the only prominent Malay personality who spoke up against the statutory rape of a 15-year old Malay girl, allegedly by an UMNO leader, had been Marina Mahathir. Bravo to her!

So don't think that Noh Omar's threat has no grounds. It had been done before when a whistle-blower (Lim GE) was jailed while the alleged rapist got away scot free. And the PM defended that outcome.