Senate president won’t meet Ambiga, NSC Bill delay unlikely

Dewan Negara speaker Abu Zahar Ujang today declined to meet activist Ambiga Sreenevasan, who was at Parliament to call for a delay in the debate on the National Security Council Bill in the Upper House.

PKR Senator Syed Husin Ali said Abu Zahar did not want to meet with the National Human Rights Association (Hakam) president because he “does not want to be influenced”.

He was also short of time, Syed Husin told reporters after meeting Abu Zahar on the NSC Bill for 20 minutes this morning.

“The speaker did not want to meet Ambiga because he didn’t want to influenced, and there was not enough time because the House sits at 10am.

“It was just a meeting, we didn’t discuss anything. We only managed to request that the debate on NSC be delayed to the next session.

“It is clear that this is not going to happen, but he did promise to give as much time as possible for the senate to debate it in this session,” Syed Husin told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

Ambiga led the ‘#TakNakDiktator’ (Reject Dictatorship) coalition of civil society members to hand in a memorandum against the NSC Bill at the Dewan Rakyat earlier.

The Lower House passed the Bill after six hours of debate. The Bill was tabled in the last week of the 2015 session.

#TakNakDictator held a briefing for the senators on the NSC Bill at the Parliament complex yesterday, but no BN senator attended.

The bill, among others, proposes that the NSC, chaired by the prime minister, be given powers to declare a security zone where conditions related to a state of emergency can be imposed. -Mkini