YAB Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak
Perdana Menteri Malaysia

YAB Dato’ Seri,

Bebaskan YB Manoharan dan Tahanan ISA Yang Lain

Kami yang menurunkan tandatangan di bawah ini ingin menuntut supaya YB Manoharan, ADUN Kota Alam Shah di Selangor dibebaskan daripada tahanan ISA.

Kami berpendapat bahawa ISA merupakan satu undang-undang yang lapuk dan amat tidak berperikemanusiaan. Kami juga berpendapat penahanan YB Manoharan di bawah ISA adalah amat tidak adil kerana beliau hanya merupakan peguambela kepada pemimpin Hindraf yang ditahan oleh polis sahaja dan beliau memang tidak melanggar sebarang undang-undang.

Di sini, kami ingin menuntut supaya YB Manoharan dan semua tahanan ISA yang lain yang masih berada di Kem Tahanan Kamunting dibebaskan dengan serta-merta.

Sekian, terima kasih.

Kerajaan Selangor
Menyokong Mansuhkan ISA !

Download Signature Form

You may also sign up the online petition, which the website is www.petitiononline.com/freemano

Time: 8pm
Date: Every Sunday

Come one, come all. Please bring along your own candles (red & yellow) & wear your RPK t-shirts. T-shirts will be available for sale on-site subject to stock availability. Let’s show our support to RPK & family, and all of the ISA detainees.

Teresa Kok has just been released!

Thank you for all your support. Lets put more pressure on the BN government to release RPK, Hindraf 5 and all other ISA detainees and abolish ISA!

Update : At Jalan Travers Police Station, 1.19pm.

Chong Eng Appointed As DAP Support, Sympathy & Solidarity(SSS) For Free Teresa, Abolish ISA National Committee To Free All ISA Detainees As Well As Malaysia From Draconian Laws Such As The ISA

At the DAP Central Executive Council emergency committee meeting last night, DAP National Wanita chief and MP for Bukit Mertajam Chong Eng has been appointed as DAP SSS National Committee Chair to “Free Teresa, Abolish ISA” to free all ISA detainees as well as Malaysia from draconian laws such as the ISA.

DAP welcomes the people’s victory in forcing the BN government to capitulate and immediately release Sin Chew Daily reporter Tan Hoon Cheng. Tan had made history by becoming the shortest ISA detainee in history of less than 24 hours. We hope to make ISA history and release all ISA detainees by applying on sustained unbearable public pressure to release DAP National Organising Secretary, MP for Seputih, ADUN For Kinrara and Selangor State EXCO Teresa Kok, blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, Hindraf 5 and all other detainees.

Only by making ISA history can we ensure that the ridiculous grounds, of being detained because of posing a threat to national security that is not backed up by facts or evidence but only mere opinion and sentiment, can never be misused or abused again. We must make ISA history to ensure that innocent journalists such as Tan can not be detained for their own protection and whilst being so “protected” are treated as a detainee and put in a lock-up.

Whilst the people’s success in forcing the BN government to capitulate on Tan, we must not stop but focus harder on securing the release of other detainees. Our success must not let us forget that there are still other ISA detainees detained and for that reason we must apply sustained unbearable pressure on the government.

The DAP SSS Committee on Free Teresa, Abolish ISA will focus on civil disobedience campaigns that are peaceful and non-violent such as candlelight vigils, forums and prayer meetings. The DAP CEC will also instruct all DAP functions to be immediately turned into a “Free Teresa, Abolish ISA” campaign.

The CEC also approved an emergency resolution:-

• THE CEC RESOLVES to sternly condemn the detention without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA) of DAP Member of Parliament and Selangor State Exco member, Saudari Teresa Kok Suh Sim, Raja Petra Kamaruddin and others as arbitrary, high-handed and a mockery of democracy. By labeling Teresa Kok and others as threats to national security without any shred of evidence is a travesty of justice and a gross violation of human rights.
• THE CEC STRESSES that neither Teresa Kok nor any DAP leader had ever stoked religious sentiment or played racial issues. The denial by the Masjid Kota Damansara and Masjib Kinrara that Teresa Kok was involved in azan controversy asking for a reduction on the speaker volume absolves her from any blame. In fact, both mosques deny that there was any azan controversy.
• THE CEC RESOLVES that the Barisan Nasional government should not use draconian powers under the ISA to cling on to power and demands the immediate and unconditional release of Teresa, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Hindraf 5 and other ISA detainees.
• THE CEC FURTHER RESOLVES to demand the immediate repeal of the ISA to prevent abuses that oppress the fundamental liberties of the people.

____________________

Media Statementby Lim Guan Eng, Penang Chief Minister Penang & DAP Secretary-General in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, 14th September 2008

]]> http://abolishisa.dapmalaysia.org/index.php/2008/09/16/free-teresa-abolish-isa/feed/ 0 http://abolishisa.dapmalaysia.org/index.php/2008/09/15/open-letter-to-the-minister-for-internal-security-and-home-affairs-%e2%80%93-yb-datuk-syed-hamid-albar/ http://abolishisa.dapmalaysia.org/index.php/2008/09/15/open-letter-to-the-minister-for-internal-security-and-home-affairs-%e2%80%93-yb-datuk-syed-hamid-albar/#comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:17:19 +0000 admin http://freeteresa.dapmalaysia.org/?p=50 September 15, 2008

YB Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar
Kementerian Hal Ehwal Dalam Negeri, Malaysia
Blok D2, Parcel D
Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan
62546 Putrajaya

YB Datuk Seri,

Administrative detentions without trial of:
Raja Petra Kamaruddin – blogger
Tan Hoon Cheng – journalist
Teresa Kok – Member of Parliament and State Legislative Councilor

The arrests and detentions without trial and the circumstances leading to the same of the abovenamed three under the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) on Sept. 12, 2008 are a source of grave concern for the rule of law and democratic values in Malaysia. All three are reported to have been detained under Section 73(1) of the Act for purposes for police inquiry on grounds that there were reasonable cause to believe that they were acting in a manner prejudicial to the security of Malaysia. Under the same Act they can be detained for 60 days thereafter you as Minister could sign a detention order for further detention up to 2 years which could further be renewed. All such detentions are without trial and without any form of judicial supervision.

A further cause for concern is over the show cause letters sent to three newspapers by your Ministry to explain within one week for manipulation of sensitive issues, reporting a racially sensitive statement made by a politician belonging to the dominant political party currently in control of the government and for reporting that the present Inspector General of Police had been “paralyzed” after undergoing a bypass surgery. Those notices were served on the newspapers under the Printing Presses and Publication Act 1984, a legislation for annual licensing of newspapers by the Executive.

Obviously if their explanations are not found satisfactory by you the annual licenses issued for these newspapers would be revoked. The decision to revoke is final and under the Act cannot be questioned “by any court or any ground whatsoever”. Service of such notices leaves a chilling effect on freedom of the press.

With regard to the arrests and detentions in the case of Raja Petra Kamaruddin, there are two charges for sedition and criminal defamation pending against him for the very news items posted in his blog. Without awaiting the trials on these charges detaining him administratively would be seen as interfering into the due process of the court and prejudging the criminal charges and could amount to contempt of court. Such detention could also be seen as preventing him from adequately preparing his defences to the two criminal charges.

In the case of journalist, Tan Hoon Cheng, though it is a relieve that she has since been released after 18 hours of detention yet to subject her to such arrest and detention under the ISA for having recorded and reported accurately in the newspaper what is now alleged to be sensitive is beyond belief. What is of serious concern was the person who uttered the alleged sensitive remark, Datuk Ahmad Ismail, is currently under investigation for sedition. To date, it is reported that the police had not completed their investigations. Yet how in the interim the journalist who reported could be a threat to the security of the State is most puzzling. How did the police come to believe that she could be a threat to State security when the investigations were incomplete? Your clarification at your press conference on Sept. 13 that she was detained partly because of “alleged threats on her personal safety” is untenable. A country where the government has been resisting legislation to provide whistle blowers protection could resort to arbitrary detention under such a draconian legislation to provide such protection is shocking indeed.

Why the journalist who merely recorded and reported the statement was subjected to such detention when the person who uttered the statement is still not charged under the Sedition Act is yet to be explained. Your contention is that Datuk Ahmad has been suspended for three years from his political party meant that action has been taken against him. This is most unsatisfactory. The suspension from his political party was an internal party procedure. No action as yet has been taken against Datuk Ahmad by the State for an offence against the State. In any event the fact that UMNO (the political party) suspended him must necessarily mean that what she reported was true and correct.

In the case of Member of Parliament, Teresa Kok’s detention, you were reported to have said in the press conference that “She started a very sensitive issue with the question of the ‘azan’ and it should be stopped”. She vehemently denied these allegations from the beginning and from media reports of various persons including the mosques concerned there appears abundance of evidence to support her denial. Yet todate no action seems to have been taken against the former Chief Minister of the State of Selangor, Khir Toyo, who lost his seat and his government in the March 8, general elections. It was he who made the allegations against her which were reported in a vernacular newspaper. Should he not be investigated for the offence of false news under Section 8(A) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 if not detained under the ISA?

The newspaper which originally published the news too may have committed the same offence. It is learnt that a police report has been lodged against Khir Toyo. What is the state of the investigations? Why detain Teresa Kok in the interim? It is also learnt that to date Teresa Kok is denied access to her parents and counsel.

These latest developments are reminiscent of what happened in Malaysia in 1987 when 106 were detained under this draconian legislation and four newspapers banned. Those detentions led in the following year to the government’s assault on the independent judiciary. It is also reminiscent of how internal dissensions within the dominant political party in power spilled over to violations of human rights and fundamental liberties and rule of law in the nation with the guardian of these values namely the judiciary severely damaged and still not recovered.

There is something most unsettling over the conduct of the police on the investigations of the police reports lodged and the selectivism applied in the actions taken thus far.

As I mentioned in my earlier letter addressed to you on March 24, 2008 regarding the continued detention of the 5 Hindraf leaders under the ISA detention without trial offend the first principle of the rule of law.

I urge you to without delay take appropriate action to release Raja Petra and Teresa Kok from detention. I also urge you to withdraw the three show cause notices served on the newspapers

I am copying this letter to the Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth in which bodies Malaysia is much involved. It is to bring to their attention the fragility of the rule of law in Malaysia and how it is deteriorating. With these developments Malaysia’s role in these bodies is tenuous. I hope Malaysia is called upon to account for the violation of the rule of law, human rights and democratic values before these bodies. The Malaysian government must be ashamed of itself. The developments must be a source of embarrassment to YB Dato Seri Mohd Shafie Aqbal who only in August was elected Chair of the EXCO of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Yours sincerely, Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy former UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges & Lawyers

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