Suaram: Little change to human rights record under Harapan

Reforms introduced by the Pakatan Harapan government so far have done little to improve human rights as compared to during the time of Barisan Nasional (BN) rule, Suaram said today.

The rights group also noted growing scepticism as to whether the Harapan government has any political will to fulfil its commitments, highlighting setbacks in engagement with civil society groups on related reforms.

Speaking at the launch of its 'Human Rights Report 2019' overview, Suaram executive director Sevan Doraisamy (above) said civil and political rights continue to be an area of concern from the time of BN rule to the Harapan government.

"So far there is no proper engagement from their side talking about civilian political rights... cases of torture, death in custody issues.

"And this is the most important," he said.

"Some of the engagements so far were with lower ranking officers.

"Sometimes they listen, sometimes they have some feedback, but what we want is for a coordinated and proper stakeholders meeting with the minister himself," said Sevan in reference to Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin (below).

He also said there were multiple ways to evaluate whether human rights under Harapan has improved as a whole, including through gauging its level of engagement with civil societies.

Referring to Suaram's report, Sevan noted that detention without trial continues to be practised in Malaysia, despite promises of reform by Harapan.

"But also when we work with detention without trial laws, the political arrests under Sosma (Security Offences (Special Measures) Act) was only three under the previous government.

"In the current government, we have 12, so how you want to judge that?" he said when asked to compare human rights under BN and Harapan rule.

"The previous government held on to it, claiming Sosma is a good law.

"The current government has recognised Sosma has a draconian portion to it... when you know there is a draconian portion to it, and you are allowing it to be used, you are equally bad in practice," he further said.

Meanwhile, Suaram programme manager Dobby Chew (above) said while Harapan had introduced certain reforms, including through parliament, more still needed to be done to improve its human rights track record.

"I think to call it an 'improvement' is stretching the word a little, but it’s more of it managed to stop the decline," he said.

"Because, I think, going into 2018, it was very clearly going downhill in a lot of ways; it’s not just in one area, every area had issues.

"Whereas right now we see some marginal improvement in some areas like Parliament – we don’t see it every day, but that actually represents a lot of issues that are changing right now, that gives us quite a lot of room to challenge the status quo.

"But are they on an improving trajectory? I don’t think so, I don’t think it’s close to that," he said.

Suaram adviser Kua Kia Soong, who was also present during the report launch in Kuala Lumpur, further questioned the failure by the police to solve cases of enforced disappearance involving Pastor Raymod Koh, preacher Amri Che Mat and others.

Concurring with Sevan on the need for improved engagement, Kua said Muhyiddin as Home Minister should answer for the "credibility crisis" faced by the police.

"The minister of home affairs is responsible for law enforcement, public security and order, among other functions," said Kua.

“The police are answerable to him. The buck stops at his ministry," he stressed. - mkini