Ibrahim Ali and The A-G’s Chambers: A Matter of Double Standards

by Tay Tian Yan@www.themalaysianinsider.com

The Attorney-General’s Chambers has finally broken its silence and offered reasons for not charging Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali.

It said Ibrahim’s threat to burn the Bible did not fall within the definition of seditious tendency as it was meant to defend the sanctity of Islam, adding that we have to look at the case in its totality and not separate it from the context in which it was made.

Totality and context? So, a person threatening to burn the Bible just because someone else had distributed the Bible outside the school can now be spared action.Will such logic work?

Last September, US Pastor Terry Jones and his assistant soaked 2,998 copies of the Quran in a petrol tank, each representing a victim of the September 11 attacks, and prepared to bring them to a park for burning.He was stopped and held by the Police as he made his way to the park.

Jones argued that he was not anti-Muslim. He only wanted to defend the US Constitution and pay homage to the victims of the September 11 attacks.If the American prosecutor were behaving like our A-G, knowing the mysteries of “totality” and “context”, then it was likely that a verdict like this would be passed down: Jones must not be charged, for in totality it was the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center first, creating the context for a threat against the sanctity of the Christian faith, and that given such “totality” and “context”, Jones was provoked into burning the Quran.

So, Jones should escape the sanctions of the American laws because he was forced to protect his own religion and the US Constitution while showing respect for the September 11 victims?

In a similar manner, R.S.N. Rayer who cursed UMNO at the Penang State Assembly sitting and who was later charged for making seditious remarks, should most definitely be spared as well because he had been provoked by the UMNO reps and given such a context, he was actually defending his own sanctify by saying “celaka”.

Rayer should most positively be allowed to cite the “totality” and “context” factors when defending for himself in the court in future because these two things are never patented to the A-G. Anyone can apply them!

The same should also apply to a dozen other individuals charged under the Sedition Act, for they were all defending their own sanctity under specific “totality” and “context” circumstances.

Not charging Ibrahim Ali is totally unacceptable, and the excuses cited are anything but convincing. Instead of prosecuting Ibrahim Ali, the A-G’s Chambers has offered such ridiculous logic to justify its inaction, putting itself in the middle of a credit crisis.

If such logic can be applied to condone irrational acts, our world is indeed too dangerous a place to live in, for the Islamic State militants could claim that they waged jihad under the oppression of the Shiites, and their intimidation to the West was meant to guard the sanctity of Islam.

Consequently, the West must halt all the air strikes, the Syrian and Iraqi regimes must surrender their power, non-Muslims must be converted, while the entire world must submit itself to Isis authority.

There is no other alternative for the A-G Chambers but to see the truth and act in accordance with the nation’s laws. Stop all the imbecile excuses right away. – mysinchew.com