PKR vice president N Surendran described the warning issued by the Inspector General of Police to columnist Mariam Mokhtar on the latter's supposed inability to distinguish between militant and theoretical communists as "fantastic and shocking" and "ironical" in turn.
"This must be the first time that a widely read columnist has been singled out by the Inspector General of Police for a warning for having crossed an imaginary line," asserted the MP for Padang Serai who two weeks ago was suspended from Parliament for six months after an altercation with the speaker.
IGP Khalid Abu Bakar issued the warning to Mariam following the appearance of her column ‘One ideology, two reactions' on a web news portal that highlighted the differing treatments accorded the late Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng (left) and Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab, who was inducted into a communist cell in London in the late 1960s and was apparently held in bondage until recently rescued by British police.
"She (Mariam Mokhtar) had better watch out or we will go after her. This (article) is highly seditious," said Khalid in remarks made on the side of a security conference in Kota Kinabalu yesterday which was officiated by Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.
In further remarks, Khalid argued that "Chin Peng was involved in armed struggle, while Siti Aishah purely adopted a leftist ideology. Tell me how many people has she killed?"
Surendran (right), a lawyer renowned for human rights advocacy, said he found Khalid's warning "shocking and fantastic because it must be the first time a widely followed writer has been singled out for a warning of possible arrest if she does not curb her pen."
"For a while I thought Khalid may be mistaking Malaysia for Vladimir Putin's Russia where probing journalists disappear and some found shot to death," said the PKR veep.
Surendran said that the only previous time he knew of a senior scribe being called in for questioning by police was when Rehman Rashid of the New Straits Times was summoned to Bukit Aman during Operation Lalang for an editorial that expressed dismay at the ISA arrests of just over a hundred politicians and social activists in late October that year,
The episode is described in Rehman's book A Malaysian Journey(published in 1993), a thought-provoking blend of travelogue and social commentary.
"Now Khalid has gone one step further by publicly threatening to arrest a political commentator known for her acerbic opinions," he said.
'Dangerous and unacceptable'
Surendran said this practice of police chiefs warning off journalists was dangerous and unacceptable. "No free and democratic country should tolerate this," he said.
"He taxes Mariam for seditious inability to distinguish between militant and theoretical communism which is rather ironic because his cops appear unable to make the distinction between armed criminal suspects and unarmed ones as seen in some shooting cases of recent vintage," argued Surendran.
The PKR veep, a vocal critic of custodial and shooting deaths, was referring to the shooting deaths of five criminal suspects in Penang last August in which three guns were found among the five dead.
"Now without compunction Khalid wants to know if the theoretical communism of Siti Aishah has killed anyone. It's a nice distinction to make and valid, too, but how about similar fine distinctions between armed and unarmed criminal suspects who are caught in the force's cross-hairs," urged Surendran.
Recently, Surendran was fitted out for body armour by police after he accepted an invitation by Khalid to be embedded with police teams in raids against criminal suspects.
The deal broke down when the cops asked Surendran to sign an agreement indemnifying them of responsibility should anything happen to him in the course of operations. Surendran maintained he could not be observer and participant at the same time.
"This must be the first time that a widely read columnist has been singled out by the Inspector General of Police for a warning for having crossed an imaginary line," asserted the MP for Padang Serai who two weeks ago was suspended from Parliament for six months after an altercation with the speaker.
IGP Khalid Abu Bakar issued the warning to Mariam following the appearance of her column ‘One ideology, two reactions' on a web news portal that highlighted the differing treatments accorded the late Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng (left) and Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab, who was inducted into a communist cell in London in the late 1960s and was apparently held in bondage until recently rescued by British police."She (Mariam Mokhtar) had better watch out or we will go after her. This (article) is highly seditious," said Khalid in remarks made on the side of a security conference in Kota Kinabalu yesterday which was officiated by Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.
In further remarks, Khalid argued that "Chin Peng was involved in armed struggle, while Siti Aishah purely adopted a leftist ideology. Tell me how many people has she killed?"
Surendran (right), a lawyer renowned for human rights advocacy, said he found Khalid's warning "shocking and fantastic because it must be the first time a widely followed writer has been singled out for a warning of possible arrest if she does not curb her pen.""For a while I thought Khalid may be mistaking Malaysia for Vladimir Putin's Russia where probing journalists disappear and some found shot to death," said the PKR veep.
Surendran said that the only previous time he knew of a senior scribe being called in for questioning by police was when Rehman Rashid of the New Straits Times was summoned to Bukit Aman during Operation Lalang for an editorial that expressed dismay at the ISA arrests of just over a hundred politicians and social activists in late October that year,
The episode is described in Rehman's book A Malaysian Journey(published in 1993), a thought-provoking blend of travelogue and social commentary.
"Now Khalid has gone one step further by publicly threatening to arrest a political commentator known for her acerbic opinions," he said.
'Dangerous and unacceptable'
Surendran said this practice of police chiefs warning off journalists was dangerous and unacceptable. "No free and democratic country should tolerate this," he said.
"He taxes Mariam for seditious inability to distinguish between militant and theoretical communism which is rather ironic because his cops appear unable to make the distinction between armed criminal suspects and unarmed ones as seen in some shooting cases of recent vintage," argued Surendran.
The PKR veep, a vocal critic of custodial and shooting deaths, was referring to the shooting deaths of five criminal suspects in Penang last August in which three guns were found among the five dead.
"Now without compunction Khalid wants to know if the theoretical communism of Siti Aishah has killed anyone. It's a nice distinction to make and valid, too, but how about similar fine distinctions between armed and unarmed criminal suspects who are caught in the force's cross-hairs," urged Surendran.
Recently, Surendran was fitted out for body armour by police after he accepted an invitation by Khalid to be embedded with police teams in raids against criminal suspects.
The deal broke down when the cops asked Surendran to sign an agreement indemnifying them of responsibility should anything happen to him in the course of operations. Surendran maintained he could not be observer and participant at the same time.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it keeps him in touch with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
It is good that the police is able to distinguish between militant and theoretical communists. Does this mean that the government is now more tolerant of theoretical communists and marxists?...
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