PAS leader tells Amanah advisor to mind his own business

PAS ulama wing information chief Khairuddin Aman Razali has advised Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) advisor Ahmad Awang to mind his own business and not meddle in PAS' affairs. 

"Please take care of your own party which appears to be lost in terms of its struggle.

"Ahmad seems to be facing some internal conflicts, which is why he is forcing others to accept his views," Khairuddin told Sinar Harian.

Khairuddin was responding to Ahmad's claim that he was forced to challenge PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang for the post as the grassroots in the party felt they no longer had room to raise differing opinions.

Ahmad, who claimed he was sidelined within the Muslim community following that, quit the party and joined PAS splinter Amanah.

"He can't claim we are not a democratic party and leave to form a new one because his views are rejected. 

"We must remember that in a democractic party, some views are accepted and some aren't," he reportedly said. 

He added that in the muktamar - the party's annual general assembly and its highest decision making body - all decisions are made through a majority vote. 

"We can't start labelling others just because our views have not been accepted," he said. 

Ahmad earlier told Malaysiakini that many mosques in Selangor which he has lectured at for years, stopped allowing him to speak after he challenged Hadi for the presidency.

The former Persatuan Ulama Malaysia president said that while some mosques had informed him directly, others just keep cancelling his talks claiming there is a scheduling change. 

He said he later found that his regular slots were filled by religious speakers linked to Hadi. 

In response, Selangor PAS chief Sallehen Mukhyi said it is down to the mosque's preference and that the state does not interfere in such administration while Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali said the state must follow regulations on speaking at mosques. - Mkini

Dr M may consider becoming PM again - if Harapan has this plan

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad admitted today that he may be forced to consider becoming prime minister again - if Pakatan Harapan has such a plan for him.

Mahathir was responding to a question during a live session on his Facebook page, when asked whether he would agree to become prime minister again if the opposition defeats BN in the 14th general election (GE14).

"I cannot ignore my friends in the Pakatan Harapan coalition. If they have such a plan and it is agreed upon, I may be forced to consider," he said.

However, he stressed that he does not agree to become the prime minister again.

"I have stated that once I have retired, I won't become prime minister again," he said.

Mahathir has repeatedly stated that he has no plan to contest in the next general election, and neither does he have any plan to become the country's top leader for the second time.

Despite his stand, former law minister Zaid Ibrahim is among those who believe that Mahathir is the best candidate to become prime minister, should the opposition win GE14.

Mahathir also came out on top in a recent Malaysiakini poll as Harapan's prime minister candidate.

Hopes to give views to Harapan gov't

In the live session, Mahathir also expressed hope that he would be given the opportunity to give his views should Harapan win GE14 and forms the new government.

He said this when asked on the possible role he would play in the new government.

"When I retired, I thought that my views should be considered by the government in certain issues as I was prime minister for 22 years. I have a lot of experience and information that can be useful.

"(In the new government), if there are issues that need to be discussed, I am willing to take part in the discussions to find the solutions," he said.

Pointing out how he formed committees that consisted of experts in their own fields to better understand issues during his time as prime minister, Mahathir said this was also one of the ways he employed during the Asian financial crisis.

"I hope the new prime minister will do the same and I am willing to be a part of these committees."- Mkini

Tussle over Hindu temple, Selangor gov't urged to step in

The Selangor state government has been urged to step into a tussle involving a Hindu temple in USJ-Subang Jaya.

At the crack of dawn, devotees began gathering at the Seafield Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, which is located off the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP), spurred by a message spreading on social media that the temple would be demolished.

While the demolition crew did not come, an eviction notice for the temple to be vacated expires today.

Devotees are said to have been praying at the site since at least 1891, when the temple grounds were opened by Indian estate workers.

A fig tree - which is sacred in Hinduism - on the land is said to be over 140 years old.

However the temple grounds are now on private land, which in 2007 was purchased by One City Development Sdn Bhd.

In a press statement two days ago, the temple's management committee president KK Chelapa said a larger piece of land in USJ 23 has been secured to relocate the temple, with One City Development agreeing to contribute RM1.5 million for the construction.

Chelapa said a consent judgment in 2014 saw all interested parties - including a rival claimant to the post of temple committee chief, M Nagaraju - agreeing that the temple be moved.

But Nagaraju - who claimed his grandfather had built the current temple structure - and several Indian NGOs backing him, now want the temple to stay where it is.

They have urged the state government to step in and save the temple on its religious and historical merits.

Nagaraju said the temple's devotees are also willing to buy the land from One City Development

"But they (the developer) said we couldn't buy the land. We said don't worry, you just quote the price," he said at a press conference at the temple today.

Nagaraju said an alternative option was for the developers to build around the temple.

Concerns over location for new temple

Malaysian Indian Progressive Association (Mipas) president Rajaretinam Armuggan, who was also present, expressed concerns about the proposed location for the new temple.

Rajaretinam said the new location was a Muslim majority area, and as such, temple celebrations, including chariot processions, may disrupt the local community.

"This could create problems," he said.

Malaysian Indian Education Transformation Association (Mieta) chairman A Elangovan, who was also present, expressed similar concerns about the possibility of religious tensions.

When contacted, Chelapa said the developer and state government would have taken these factors into consideration before proposing a new site for the temple.

He said the court order and the consent judgment were clear and that there was no further need to discuss the relocation.

"We want to follow the law, not the law of the jungle," Chelapa told Malaysiakini.

Those opposed to the temple move warned that the state government may face political backlash over the matter.

"They will end up paying a big price if they fail to settle this issue. Are they ready for that?" Rajaretinam said.- Mkini

I have repented - Mahathir's confession

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has confessed to having repented in response to those who advised the 92-year-old politician to atone.

However, the former premier argued that it is because he has seen the light that he embarked on a quest against wrongdoings.

"It is because I have repented that I am forced to focus on problems plaguing the country.

"I cannot ignore it. I am witnessing various wrongdoings and with many people having asked me to do something," he added during a live session on his Facebook page.

PAS lawmaker Nik Abduh Nik Abdul Aziz was among those who urged Mahathir to repent and turn to the prayer mat.

"There is no need to do the same kind of things over and over again from young to old," he had said.

Nik Abduh was responding to Mahathir's remarks regarding his father, the late PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat.

During the Facebook live session, Mahathir, who is now chairperson of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), urged youths to keep abreast with current developments so they do not inherit a nation in ruins.

"This is why the young must follow the country's political, economic and social developments.

"Before the country is destroyed, they must know what to do and decide that these culprits will not be able to continue destroying the country after the general election,” he said.

Mahathir noted how youths were instrumental in the movement against the Malayan Union in the 1940s.

"I hope the young won't say that they will wait until they are older.

"(Because) they might find that the situation is so bad when they are older that it is hard for them to reverse what has happened," he said.

In a previous blog posting, Mahathir said Malaysians have grown cynical of politics while the younger generation or Gen Y voters believe there is no difference between the opposition and BN.

He added that this generation is of the opinion that politicians on both sides of the fence are pursuing power and financial rewards.

He claimed that the younger generation is also not interested in the struggles of past leaders. -Mkini

NOW EVEN A RM5.90 TOY SET IS INSENSITIVE TO MALAYS: TEACHER UPSET WITH ‘ALLAH’ FLAG ON TOY, CLAIMS IT INSULTS ISLAM

KUALA LUMPUR – A teacher in Perak has lodged a police report after spotting the word “Allah” in Arabic printed on the tiny toy flag that came with the toy brick set bought for his son.

In a report by Berita Harian, Mahnun Mat Isa, 40, said he found the toy set which had little figures dressed in black and carrying the questionable flag that he claimed to resemble “terrorists”, adding that it “offended the sensitivities of Muslims”.

“I ask the authorities to not freely allow the entry of toys that touch on religious sensitivities in this country,” he was quoted saying.

The “terrorist” toy set he bought was part of the Falcon Commandos series by Chinese manufacturer Sheng Yuan, that sells knock-offs of the famous Lego bricks.

The RM5.90 set with code SY627-7 featured two “terrorist” characters with a black flag that resembles that of the Islamic State (IS) terror group, perched on their vehicle.

IS’ flag depicted the supposed seal of Prophet Muhammad, together with the Muslim testimony of shahada that says, “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God”.

Mahnun said he has reported the toy to the police and the Parit Buntar branch of Perak religious authorities last week.

He also urged the Home Ministry to investigate the matter and removed the toy from shelves.

– Malay Mail

AMID NEWS NAJIB PAID ANWAR’S SODOMY PROSECUTOR NEARLY RM10MIL, HIS SPINNERS CHURN UP MALAY HATE AGAINST THE STAR NEWSPAPER

Ask Blogger-turned-Deputy Minister, YB Dato’ P. Kamalanathan, about fake news and he would lament the demise of ethical journalism.  He was once asked by a journalist from a local daily to comment on the video of an Indian-looking woman having her head shaved by two Malay-looking men that was made viral.

Being a responsible social media practitioner, Kamalanathan made the effort to verify the authenticity of the video, only to find out that it had originated from a South American nation, and the incident had happen in that particular country.

When we talk about the ethics of journalism, we would easily imagine the responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the journalists’ work; to verify information before releasing an article; and to shun stereotyping.  Unfortunately, in the world of today’s journalism, accuracy is no longer a value but sensationalism is.  More often than not, an article is conjured to shape the way readers think rather than to allow them to form their own opinion based on a balanced article.

Coincidentally, twenty years ago this year, the eighteenth James Bond movie was released. It was about a psychopathic media mogul who plans to provoke global war to boost sales and ratings of his news divisions.  Although far-fetched, the plot is what many online and print media do nowadays.  And what is to be provoked may not be as dangerous as a global war but equally explosive racial or religious clashes.

Enter The Star.

Yesterday evening, The Star announced the immediate suspension of its Group Editor-in-Chief, Datuk Leanne Goh Lee Yen and executive director Dorairaj Nadason, but not before it sent four editors to face the wrath of the KDN.  The KDN had slapped the daily with a seven-day show cause, while the Inspector-General of Police has begun investigating it under the Sedition Act.

Sedition Act may be seen as a heavy-handed response, but not given The Star’s penchant for inciting racial and religious outrage. It has an array of examples of provoking the above.

During the month of Ramadhan in 2011, The Star published three pork-centred advertisements in its Ramadhan Delights pullout.  Three pork advertisements in a Ramadhan Delights pullout could not have been unintentional. The KDN summoned The Star and was let off with a slap on the wrist.

A screenshot of justread-whatever.blogspot.com article on The Star’s Ramadhan Pork Fest

A mere two years later, it published a report on the rise in the number of child marriages in Malaysia.  The choice of visual display accompanying the report was extremely suggestive.

The suggestive photo used by The Star when reporting on child marriages

The Star harped only on the 2012 statistics provided by the Malaysian Syariah Judiciary Depart­ment (JKSM) where 1022 marriage application involving at least a minor was approved by the Syariah judiciary.  And then it sought the view of Sisters in Islam to justify the report, putting Islam in a bad light.

What it failed to report was that in the same year, 468 marriages involving non-Muslim minors were also approved.  How is that for balanced reporting?  I know that the link given is from 2016, but could the The Star journalist filing that story not have gone to the National Registraton Department to seek for the non-Muslim numbers?

What is sad is that the story was filed by a Muslim journalist.

However, not all of The Star’s journalists were dancing the same tune.  Joceline Tan whose columns have been taking on the Opposition by the horns, faces the wrath of the DAP and PKR on almost a daily basis.  Another was Sira Habibu who, when based in Pulau Pinang, wrote exposés on the DAP and PKR polls.

Things changed for Sira Habibu when Leanne Goh was appointed the Group Editor-in-Chief in 2014.  Sira was tranferred to Kelantan and away from being able to do stories on especially the DAP.  She had one very notable article ridiculing the DAP polls which was given the title “It’s All In The Family For DAP’s Top Rung.”

Sira Habibu’s article ridiculing the DAP line up

If you search for the article using its URL now, which is www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2012/12/10/its-all-in-the-family-for-daps-top-rung/ you will find that it is no longer there.

This is where Sira Habibu’s article on the DAP line up was

Leanne Goh did not even defend Joceline Tan’s writing when attacked by a former The Star journalists for being anti-Opposition.

Since then, The Star has been pandering to the DAP evangelists and Liberal Muslims on the pretext of promoting a “Moderate Malaysia.”

When Pastor Ramond Koh went missing in February 2017, The Star went to town with the case, reporting at least seven times between March and May this year on the issue with headlines such as this:

The above headline suggests that the Malaysian security forces and indirectly the Malaysian government may be involved in the disappearance of the said pastor.  The location of the video is not where the pastor was first said to have gone missing and the speed of the CCTV camera panning suggests that there was someone controlling the camera and that the person knew what to wait for and what was going to happen.

The Star’s coverage of the missing pastor was picked up by foreign portals that have since put Malaysia in a bad light.

All the above quoted The Star.  So what is Leanne Goh’s game?

The Star has since suspended Leanne Goh and a senior editor Dorairaj Nadason over the frontpage fiasco, and have returned Datuk Wong Chun Wai to oversee the editorial operations.  But mind you some of the examples I mentioned above also happened during Chun Wai’s time as the GEIC which goes to show that he was not in total control back then.

The Star has issued countless apologies especially to the Muslims in Malaysia but has remained remorseless.

So would Chun Wai be able to wrestle the evangelist and liberal monsters who reside within The Star, or would a suspension of its publishing and printing permits that it so deserves be needed to remind not only The Star, but all journalists to be ethical? Maybe only then its habit of promoting racial and religious hatred will stop.

We will see what the next six days will bring us.

– https://seademon.me

SHOCK EXPOSE – EVIDENCE GROWS NAJIB ‘FRAMED’ ANWAR FOR SODOMY II: 1MDB MONEY TRAIL SHOWS NAJIB PAID ‘SODOMY TOUR’ LAWYER SHAFEE RM9.5 MIL FROM HIS AMBANK SLUSH FUND A/C

According to the documents obtained by Sarawak Report, the controversial lawyer Muhammed Shafee Abdullah was one of the biggest individual recipients of money from Najib’s 1MDB slush fund accounts.

Shaffee, who is known to be an extremely close confidante of Najib and who was controversially appointed as the public prosecutor during the appeal against the acquittal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on sodomy charges in 2014, received two payments.

11th September 2013 Najib paid him RM4,300,000 from his AmBank account no 2112022011906 and again on 17th February 2014 he received RM5,200,000 from the same account.  This account has been identified as having been funded by money stolen by the Prime Minister from the 1MDB subsidiary SRC, which had borrowed some RM4 billion from the civil service pension fund KWAP.

AG Apandi inadvertently confirmed that finding by waving MACC investigation papers showing the money trail into Account no 2112022011906 in January 2016, at the very press conference during which he announced that no wrong-doings had been committed and he was closing down investigations into 1MDB.

Acc no 2112022011906 as highlighted in the MACC money trail held up by AG Apandi

Later Apandi acknowledged the money had come from SRC, but chose to exonerate the Prime Minister because Najib had explained he hadn’t realised that this was where the millions had appeared from in his accounts.  No one has ever asked Najib (or recipients such as Shafee) for this public pension money to be returned.

What were the payments for?

Anwar Ibrahim – jailed after Shafee lead a bizarre appeal against his earlier acquittal

These payments came at extremely sensitive moments relating to Shafee and Najib and provoke immediate questions about why the Prime Minister was paying this particular lawyer such very large sums of illegitimate money?

Quite apart from the illegality of the source there are also potential glaring conflicts of interest.

The RM5,200,000 received in February 2014 came just a fortnight before the Appeal Court overturned an earlier acquittal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of alleged sodomy. Shafee Abdullah, a private lawyer, had been controversially appointed to a one-off role as the public prosecutor for this extraordinary appeal.

In the first place, for the prosecution to appeal an acquittal in a criminal case is breach of all normal court practice and should never have happened.  However, the involvement of Shafee in this untoward and plainly politically-motivated move against Najib’s most dangerous political opponent represented even further abuses of judicial process.

As Anwar’s defence team pointed out, to place someone from outside of the normal prosecution service into this high profile role at this point in the case is against established practice.  It also represented a clear conflict of interest, since Shafee himself is a known confidant of Najib.

And the conflict was worse than that, Anwar’s lawyers pointed out, because Shafee was himself a material witness, pivotal to the case for the defence, which was that Anwar was the victim of a conspiracy.  Namely, two days before the alleged victim of Anwar, Mohd Saiful, pressed charges, the student was identified as having visited the home of Najib himself to discuss the entire matter.

Najib at first denied this fact. However, when photographs were produced he admitted meeting the student, but only to discuss his ‘career plans’.  Only after the alleged victim then broke under questioning and confessed he had discussed his allegations against Anwar with Najib did the Prime Minister admit that the discussion had taken place.

Shafee Abdullah has been proven to have been at Najib’s house at the same time.  However, the lawyer claims he was not part of the meeting between the Prime Minister and the student – a meeting where legal advice might be considered an obvious priority. Shafee said he was doing something else, somewhere else in the house. Anwar’s legal team contended that to the contrary he was advising the prime minister on handling the student, who went ahead to denounce Anwar two days later (after a further secret meeting with the Deputy Head of Police).

So, why was Najib paying Shafee such a huge sum of money in February 2014, at a time that this lawyer was supposedly contracted into a public role as a special prosecutor in by far the most high profile legal case of the period – a case in which Najib had a very strong interest in the outcome and in which Shafee himself was a material witness?

The Australian barrister Mark Trowels, who acted as an observer at the trial and then wrote a book about the case, has described the entire prosecution as a gross miscarriage of justice full of “glaring anomalies”. Shafee was at the centre of it, so why was Najib paying him over RM5.2 million?

March 7th 2014 a three man Appeal Court panel found Anwar guilty, overturning the judgement of the High Court the previous year in an astounding perversion of justice (normally an acquittal can never be appealed or reversed except in exceptional cases and through a complete re-trial).

Najib’s legal fixer

Anwar naturally appealed the shocking and irregular overturn by the Appeal Court of his earlier acquittal and once again Shafee was used to prosecute the case for the government through the Federal Court.  In a short hearing in early 2015 those Federal judges upheld the Appeal Court judgement, causing no surprise in Malaysia.

What did surprise even Shafee’s colleagues was what this legal eagle did next.  He embarked on a road show justifying the conduct of the shameful trial process and continuing to villify Anwar, now in jail. Shafee even went so far as to regail his listeners with details of intimate allegations that had specifically been barred from the court itself, thereby breaking the rules again in the poorest of taste.

Shafee then sued lawyers who censured this conduct through the Bar Council for defamation, but lost his case.

Such enthusiastic support for Najib, which so plainly goes beyond the objectivity of a supposedly neutral observer betrays what has in fact been a long association between the two men.

Texts which were released on line many years ago between the two men and which have never been denied show that Shafee offered his services to the beleaguered then Deputy PM in the aftermath of the discovery of his translator Altantuya’s body and the arrest of Najib’s bodyguards and his advisor and proxy Razak Baginda for her murder.

Shafee closely represented Najib as they worked to get Baginda off the hook and put all the blame for the crime on the two bodyguards, excluding all discussion of motive from the case.  So, no wonder his bias against Anwar was raised by his lawyers, since Shafee is widely regarded as Najib’s prime legal fixer in opposition circles.

The court dismissed such concerns.  However, the glaring question as to why Najib paid Shafee nearly RM10 million in the few months and weeks before that verdict remains.

– SARAWAK REPORT