Controlled by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) since independence and now led by the increasingly autocratic Prime Minister Najib Razak, the Malaysian government knows Anwar is the only viable threat to its half-century of rule. Anwar became a risk to the government as deputy prime minister in 1998 when he began attacking corruption and calling for reform. Ultimately he became leader of the opposition.

Najib’s UMNO is trying to jail Anwar again in hopes of crushing his People’s Justice Party (PKR). A secular Muslim party, PKR leads a diverse political coalition with ethnic Chinese and Islamist partners. If Anwar is neutralized, this opposition movement would be paralyzed.

Anwar’s accuser – a former intern – admits to meeting with Najib just days before the alleged sexual act occurred and he has since changed his story several times. The charges against Anwar are transparently political. But the obvious intent of the trial matters little in Malaysia, where the government exercises a disabling grip on the justice system and the media.

Yet as one visits Kuala Lumpur today, these autocratic tendencies are not immediately visible. The modern splendor of this city and the surrounding wealthy state of Selangor help disguise one of the world’s most insidious authoritarian governments.

Najib’s most powerful tool is the Internal Security Act – a remnant from the days of British colonialism that gives the Interior Minister power to indefinitely and arbitrarily imprison any Malaysian without trial or even evidence. Through the ISA the government creates a climate of fear by arresting dozens of politicians, journalists, and student leaders.

Opposition voices like Anwar who are politically attacked through the courts are hardly better off than victims of the ISA. Virtually all positions in the justice system beyond the local level are held by government cronies.

Most problematic is that the local media cannot report on the ISA and the puppet justice system. The Printing Presses and Publications Act gives Najib near-absolute control over the news as media organizations need the government’s permission to operate.

Almost all major national newspapers, magazines, television channels, and radio stations here are tied to the ruling UMNO party. And Najib continues to tighten his grip in the face of Anwar’s trial. Suara Keadilan, the publication of Anwar’s PKR party, and the two other visible opposition outlets had their permits revoked on July 1.

The only way to get unfiltered news in Malaysia is online. Here, the media is protected by the “Bill of Guarantee of No Internet Censorship” – a law passed in the 1990s, at the strong suggestion of Bill Gates, to woo IT development to Malaysia.

Unfortunately, internet penetration is extremely limited outside of Malaysian urban centers. In some provinces, less than 10% of the population has online access, and most are stuck with the broadsheets. These read as if from a 1984 dystopia – there is no bad news, and other than culture and sports, there is cant-laden drivel about the government’s righteous quest to “serve the people”.

On a visit to the offices of a small opposition monthly, the editors despaired at the suffocating Malaysian media culture. Not just because it means Malaysians can’t easily find truth, but also because the next generation has grown uninterested: real journalism can no longer be practiced.

Through the silencing of opposition voices, vote-shopping, and gerrymandering, the UMNO-led government is able to continue its autocratic rule while calling Malaysia a democracy. And Najib seeks to perpetuate this charade by clamping down on Malaysian youth. Through the University and University College Act, students are forbidden from having any involvement in politics.

Despite their systemic nature, Malaysia’s human rights violations are largely unknown to the outside world. Many academics and journalists group the country with Indonesia and Turkey as a promising moderate Muslim democracy. And Wikipedia’s entries on Malaysia and on Najib avoid any mention of human rights, the Internal Security Act, censorship, or the crumbling rule of law. Such whitewashing is not surprising given that Najib hired Washington-based APCO Worldwide to burnish his image and besmirch Anwar’s.

Anwar, who has been profiled in TIME, The New Yorker, and Newsweek, and is frequently lionized as a promising Muslim leader, has recently been APCO’s target. In Malaysia, Anwar has often been mocked for having “Jewish friends”. Najib’s mentor and predecessor, Mahathir, even went so far as to say Anwar “would make a good prime minister for Israel.” In return, Anwar seized Najib’s hiring of APCO as a chance to issue inflammatory remarks on the firm’s supposed ties to Israel. This backfired when APCO distributed Anwar’s comments internationally along with a series of unattributed anti-Semitic statements posted on his website. The result is that on the eve of his trial many of his Western allies have questioned Anwar’s integrity.

The truth is that Anwar has been critical of some policies of the current Israeli government. And in the last few months he has even become more vocal as he wrestles with Najib’s media apparatus to avoid being pinned as blindly pro-Israel. But Anwar is hardly an anti-Semite. Contrast this with UMNO—which has led entire rallies inveighing against “the Jew”. Anwar’s critics should be careful not to carry water for Najib’s party, which proudly sports venomous anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy.

Over dinner in Kuala Lumpur, Anwar told us that unless international actors address issues like censorship and imprisonment without trial, Malaysia will not become the oft-discussed bridge between East and West. Only if his trial is exposed as a sham and he avoids prison might Malaysia have a real democratic contest with elections in 2012 or 2013.

Sadly, this country’s appalling human rights record remains buried under a sea of APCO press releases.

Thor Halvorssen is the president of the Human Rights Foundation and the founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum http://www.oslofreedomforum.com. Alex Gladstein is its chief operating officer.
Read the original article in The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com

In making the announcement, he said the two policies were the Pakatan Rakyat State Government Administration Integrity Index and the Integrity Pact (IP) which would be used as the yardstick to gauge the government’s effectiveness and progress each year.

“The Integrity Index will enable the government to evaluate its position in terms of administration and the people in the state can assess the state government’s commitment toward its policies,” he told reporters after chairing the weekly State Exco meeting, here Wednesday.

Abdul Khalid said the IP would be used to prevent and eliminate corruption especially in the awarding of contracts and public tender.

He said a representative of the Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) had also given a briefing on the new policy at the Exco meeting.

In this context, he said the state government would set up a Special Committee for the implementation of the State Government Administration Integrity Index and the IP.- BERNAMA

For all the propaganda spouted by BN-owned media, it is plain as daylight that Najib Razak reshuffled his cabinet yesterday for the sole purpose of appeasing MCA and MIC’s internal leadership problems, did nothing at all for the rakyat’s interest, and nothing at all to increase women’s representation in government.

The last point truly rankles because Malaysia ranks a deplorable 100 out of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index 2009. To add salt to the wound, Malaysia ranks even worse at female political empowerment at number 113 out of 134 countries, behind the likes of Lesotho, Botswana and Mongolia.

These rankings cannot be the 1Malaysia that Najib vaguely claims to be all-inclusive and non-discriminatory when he has chosen not to appoint a single new female into leadership positions in government. Not even one to fill the vacancy left by Chew Mei Fun when she resigned.

Instead, Najib has chosen to fill appoint even more men into government leadership and further raised the male-female ratio disparity by creating two new deputy minister posts which he again filled with men.

The silence and apathy by BN component party leaders towards this gender divide is glaring. Ng Yen Yen, who was chief of Wanita MCA until 2008, and formerly Women, Family and Community Development Minister as well, has yet to raise a peep in protest of Najib’s disregard and zero commitment to increasing the number of women in positions of leadership in government.
Another issue on the cabinet reshuffle is how the appointment of young politician Chua Tee Yong, son of Chua Soi Lek, as a deputy minister reeks of nepotism. Chua Tee Yong is but a first-term MP who was elected not on his own steam but by taking over Labis constituency formerly held by his father for four terms. Thus, Chua Tee Yong’s appointment appears to be compensation for his father’s conspicuous absence in the Cabinet and Parliament.
Furthermore, I question the ever-changing post of Minister for Housing and Local Government, typically held by MCA, which has been switched several times since 2008. This instability has created a lack of follow-up on the issues and laws related to housing industry which adversely affects the people. I can only hope that Chua Chee Heung will not further disappoint the people now that he is taking over the ministry.
With such dubious and unrepresentative appointments in this cabinet reshuffle, Najib has further betrayed the wishes of the rakyat as evident in the 2008 election results and further denied women, who make up 50% of the electorate, their due right to proportional representation in government. This lack of female representation in government, as perpetuated by Najib, is an inexcusable step backward for Malaysia and gives good reason to believe his 1Malaysia is mere political rhetoric.

*Teresa Kok a state executive councilor for Selangor State Government. She is also Seputeh parliamentarian and Puchong state assemblyman.

“Although the federal government had issued football betting licence, the state government, via local authorities has the power to stop it.

“The company has to apply for licence from local authorities to operate football betting,” he said in a statement here.

Finance Deputy Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung had said the ministry had issued a company licence to operate football betting during World Cup 2010.

Khalid warned local authorities against issuing licence for football betting adding the state government would close premises operating illegal gambling.

He said issuing such licence would not eradicate illegal gambling but would aggravate social problems as the poor would gamble away their hard earned wages.

– BERNAMA

ATRIAL that could determine whether one of Asia’s fast-developing countries evolves into a democracy has been making lurid headlines this month around the region. Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader in Malaysia and one of the foremost advocates of political freedom in the Muslim world, stands accused of consensual homosexual sodomy, which in his country is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. That Mr. Anwar would be prosecuted on this charge is itself a human rights violation. But the testimony in the case is also revealing a blatant abuse of power by a man the Obama administration has been courting: Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
Mr. Anwar, a 62-year-old married father of six, heads an opposition coalition that for the past two years has been chipping away at the quasi-authoritarian regime that has governed Malaysia since independence in 1957. He has a chance of defeating Mr. Najib in the next general election — and transforming the country. So it’s been more than a little suspicious to see the testimony of his chief accuser, a 25-year-old man who claims that he had sex with Mr. Anwar in June 2008. Two days before the alleged encounter, the man said, he met with Mr. Najib; the next day he phoned the national police chief. Before filing his complaint, he consulted with a close friend of Mr. Najib’s wife. When the accuser finally stepped forward, two days after the supposed sex, doctors could find no evidence of sodomy.
Mr. Anwar has been in this situation before. In 1998, when his reformist ideas challenged then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, he was prosecuted on sodomy charges and imprisoned for six years — until a court ruled that the testimony against him had been coerced. Since then he has become a leading advocate of democratic reform as an antidote to Islamic extremism. The success of his multi-ethnic coalition could decisively push Malaysia into the democratic camp with neighboring Indonesia at a time when China’s authoritarian system threatens to become a regional model.
In short, Mr. Anwar is a natural ally of the United States — which is why it is odd that the Obama administration has all but ignored his case. While the previous sodomy conviction was condemned by senior Clinton administration officials, including Vice President Al Gore, the State Department has said nothing publicly about this trial. Nor did the White House mention it when President Obama met with Mr. Najib in Washington last month — an event hailed by Kuala Lumpur’s pro-government press as a U.S. endorsement. In fact, the administration seems to find Mr. Najib useful; he’s been helpful on issues such as nuclear proliferation, Iran and Afghanistan. But failing to protest his ugly persecution of Mr. Anwar is both shameful and shortsighted.
The above article was published as editorial in Washington Post on May 19, 2010. Official website is at www.washingtonpost.com

More than a decade after he was beaten, tried and jailed, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim will once again face a Kuala Lumpur court today on charges of sodomy. The accusations are highly dubious and raise a serious question: Is this moderate Muslim democracy becoming a nation with no real rule of law?

The circumstances surrounding Mr. Anwar’s prosecution are suspiciously familiar to most Malaysians. In 1998, he was arrested as he was mounting serious arguments against the increasingly erratic government of United Malays National Organization chief Mahathir Mohamed. On a nearby page, Mr. Anwar’s former aide Munawar Anees describes being tortured and forced to confess to sodomy, a criminal offense in Malaysia. Mr. Anwar was convicted of sodomy and abuse of power and served six years in jail before the sodomy ruling was overturned in 2004. He was allowed to run for political office again in 2008, which he did, in earnest.

Mr. Anwar was arrested again in July 2008, a day after participating in his first nationally televised debate in more than a decade—an event that showcased his political skills and highlighted the growing momentum behind his three-party opposition coalition. He was accused of sodomy with a 23-year-old former aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan. Mr. Saiful was taken into protective police custody after he made his allegation and has since rarely been seen in public. The government denies any political motivation for the charges. Mr. Saiful himself has not been charged.

As in 1998, the evidence in this case is thin at best. The police made a show of arresting Mr. Anwar, put him in jail for a night, and forced him to undergo a humiliating medical “examination.” The government then passed a bill in parliament to give the police expanded powers to collect DNA in criminal cases. Mr. Anwar’s lawyers claim they have a hospital report that shows no sodomy occurred.

Also troubling is the public involvement of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was deputy leader at the time of Mr. Anwar’s 2008 arrest—and the man most politically threatened by Mr. Anwar’s popularity. Mr. Najib acknowledged that he was photographed with and spoke to Mr. Saiful after he was allegedly sodomized and before he went to the hospital for tests. Mr. Najib says he didn’t influence Mr. Saiful’s decision to press charges. Mr. Saiful couldn’t be reached for comment.

This story would sound familiar in a tinpot dictatorship. But Malaysia isn’t one. Along with Indonesia, it forms the backbone of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Its citizens today have far more access to news and information through the Internet than they did 12 years ago. They also have the power to vote.

And that may be the mechanism that keeps Malaysia free and honest. Ordinary citizens—including the majority ethnic Malays—increasingly support Mr. Anwar’s secular platform of religious tolerance, economic liberty and modernization. The opposition won five of 13 states in national elections in 2008, and it has since won seven of nine by-elections. Mr. Anwar was re-elected to parliament in a by-election the month after his arrest in 2008. There will likely be protests in front of the courthouse to show support for him.

The trial that begins today threatens domestic political unrest and undermines confidence, at home and around the world, in Malaysia’s rule of law.

Anwar is ranked 32nd in the list which boasts names of powerful leaders like US President Barack Obama (ranked 2nd), British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (74th) and Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton (6th).
He was also one of the ten Muslims name in the list including Zahra Rahnavard (3rd), the wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, , the spiritual leader of Egypt’s Jihad militant group Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (10th), American Muslim economist Mohamed El-Erian came (16th), former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani (20th), renowned journalist Fareed Zakaria (37th), Bangladeshi banker and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (46th), Swiss Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan (49th), Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid (51st), and Palestinian Premier Salam Fayyad (61st).

Below is an excerpt from the report on Anwar:

Two decades ago, it would have been impossible to imagine Anwar pulling together rural Malays, ethnic Indians and Chinese, and Islamists into a coherent political bloc. Back then, Anwar was deputy prime minister in a de facto single-party state that espoused preferential treatment for ethnic Malays. It was a policy that Anwar had pushed from his days as a youth leader right up until 1997, when he denounced his patron, then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for corruption. He would spend the next six years in solitary confinement on trumped-up charges for that political betrayal. And he would leave jail in 2004 with a bold message for change in a country now at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world. Today, Anwar’s political career is blossoming, despite a new, politically motivated indictment. Abroad, he has become an outspoken advocate of religious tolerance.

He sat down with Foreign Policy to talk about his big ideas:

On Muslim countries and the West: You can’t just erase a period of imperialism and colonialism. You can’t erase the fault lines, the bad policies, the failed policies, the war in Iraq, and support for dictators. That to me is the reality. But what is the problem? When you … apportion the blame only to the West or the United States. They want to deflect from the issue of repression, endemic corruption, and destruction of the institutions of governance.

On his time in prison: I spent a lot of time reading. I decided to focus on the great works and the classics. Friends from around the world were sending books, but it takes months for [the prison] to vet them. There came a book on the Green Revolution at that time. The officer said, “Anything revolution — out!” even though it was about agriculture. But the books kept coming. The officers were not even graduates, and [the books] were in English. They would say, “Anwar, out of 10 books, can you send back one?” So I would select something I had already read or something I was not interested in and say, “We should reject this.”

On politics: Of course, you simplify the arguments [for politics], but the central thesis remains constant. People say, “Anwar, you are opportunistic. How can you talk about Islam and the Quran here, and then you talk about Shakespeare and quote Jefferson or Edmund Burke?” I say, it depends on the audience. You can’t talk about Edmund Burke in some remote village in Afghanistan. Then you go to Kuala Lumpur and you quote T.S. Eliot. If I quote the Quran all the time to a group of lawyers, [they will think] I am a mullah from somewhere!

Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim attempted to use Section 2C of the Official Secrets Act (OSA), which allows ministers and mentris besar to declassify documents, to make public the report that was prepared by the Works Ministry but tabled at the Cabinet. The state government had initially planned for the documents to be made available through the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ), but according to Khalid, the Federal Government has challenged the decision and cautioned the state not to declassify the documents.

For the public and especially families of those who died in the tragic incident, it is illogical that a report detailing the probable causes of the landslide, findings on the safety of the area and possible recommendations for future planning is kept secret. The public should question whether the government has something to hide and not claim any responsibility. In addition, the public should also question the real reasons the OSA is still defended and used by the Barisan Nasional government where public safety, security and interests have clearly been compromised.

Two weeks ago, Khalid used Section 2(c) to declassify documents to expose three failed joint venture programmes under the tenure of his predecessors in the state.

The documents, referring to a reforestation project, the abandoned Bukit Botak housing project and the land allocation for Felda Bukit Cerakah settlers, showed the extent to which bad governance and the lack of transparency have cost the ordinary citizens millions of ringgit. This is proof that the secrecy law is used to protect the interests of a few and to prevent any public scrutiny of the decision making process.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg and CIJ is concerned about the kinds of information that has been kept hidden from the public all these years, and where tragedies caused by landslides, cracks in highways, water shortages and other public projects that went wrong could have been avoided if there was more transparency.

The time has come for all governments to commit to a more open and transparent governance by releasing to the public all documents now classified under the OSA, and to move towards replacing the law with a Freedom of Information Act. The public must demand for these reforms as it is their right to be informed and to know.

The Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia (CIJ) is a non-profit organisation that aspires for a society that is democratic, just and free where all people will enjoy free media and the freedom to express, seek, and impart information.

Ends

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Gayathry Venkiteswaran

Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
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For more information please contact Gayathry at 03 4023 0772

FOR corporate czar turned chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, the past 18 months have seemed like 18 years.From day one, Selangor’s 14th – and first from the opposition – chief minister has been beset by shocks and scandals – from protests against a pig farm project approved by his predecessor to a Malay mob publicly stomping on a severed cow’s head in August to protest against the presence of a Hindu temple in their neighbourhood.

Many of his colleagues in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition have also suffered body blows – from being detained under the Internal Security Act to having their sexual trysts filmed. Recently, an aide to one opposition figure died suddenly after being interrogated by a federal government agency.

But then Mr Khalid, 62, is a seasoned giant-killer steeled for tough challenges, on and off the political scene. In September 1981, the then-CEO of the Malaysian government’s investment vehicle Permodalan Nasional pulled off an infamous dawn raid on the London Stock Exchange by taking over Britain’s Guthrie Corporation within two hours.

Then in 2007, the former Guthrie chief defeated the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate in the contentious Ijok by-election, paving the way for Pakatan to snatch Selangor from the BN coalition.

An economist by training, Mr Khalid has since tried to show Selangorians that they ‘own the state economy’. He has, among other things, given each family some free water monthly, set up an education trust fund for all born last year in the state as well as harnessed the state’s riverine resources by treating river water for sale and building along riverbanks.

While he despairs of the state’s 6,000 or so civil servants who prefer, as he puts it, ‘coordinating things to being proactive’, the married father of four sees hope in his four grown-up children. His three daughters are, respectively, a computer engineer, a cat surgeon and an animator while his investment banker son represents Malaysia’s central bank in New York.

On a recent trip here to meet investors and investment advisers from DBS and Nomura as well as support the Selangor soccer team in a match against Singapore – Singapore won 3-0 – he told The Straits Times how being chief minister has changed his life:

· What’s it like to be Malaysia’s most embattled opposition chief minister?

I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to have as much political support as political resistance. I’m resigned to the fact that politics does not give you a level playing field. I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to go through rough patches to achieve the ultimate objective. If I accept all that, I will not be frustrated by sudden noises or the cow’s head problem.

It’s not just noise, surely, not when your Pakatan partner Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) starts wooing Umno again.

The vision of socialistic thinking versus the vision of the Holy Book may be different. We have to adapt to move forward, rather than discuss how to change all these thinking processes. In this, I’m not going to have a common means to an end.

But even the ends are not common, surely. PAS wants an Islamic state, the rest of Pakatan doesn’t.

Helping the helpless is the same to those who have democratic as well as religious thinking. That’s what we call the ends. The Pakatan parties are now stumbling onto various platforms where we feel we don’t understand each other, even though we may be in the same team. But you cannot just throw away the ball in your hands and you cannot tackle your team-mate. It’s better to tackle the other party for us to win.

· But how can you win when PAS in Selangor is wooing Umno?

I’m not sure if that is true or not.

Selangor PAS leaders such as Hasan Ali have reportedly done so.

First, Umno may not want him and he may not want Umno too. If they had gone merry-making, as they are said to have done, they would have been partners years ago. I do not think that the intelligent people in PAS would have gone and joined. Only those who are desperate, maybe 10 per cent of PAS, may want join (with Umno).

· You say it’s been painful for Umno after March 8, 2008. But hasn’t it been very painful for you too?

Oh, yes! But government servants will have to understand that, before, you had to kowtow to one BN government in order to be assured of reasonable promotion and so on. But today, you have two sets of governments (one federal and one state) and adapting to that is painful.

· Many see you as a bitter, ex-Umno man with a big chip on your shoulder. What say you?

During my student days, maybe I was not yet mature, I would say the government was quite stupid in doing all the things they were doing. But then I joined an institution that helps the bumiputera at large, and Umno invited me to give them advice. I readily gave it because I thought it would add value to the society I’m helping. So of course Umno felt that I’m part of them. But I’m part of Malay society, not part of them.

· How can you help your Malay brethren most effectively?

Through education and skill-building. There is no other option. You have to earn your keep. That means it will take years. Education is not a rushed job; you’ve got to build the capacity (of the Malays) to understand.

What’s happened in the last 30 to 40 years is that we’ve tried to short-change ourselves. We want good Malays but we don’t train them well. In the end, they get through some education (programme, but) without basic capabilities – and fail.

· What else should they have?

They must be very patient. You can’t become an entrepreneur and a millionaire overnight. Until we can say ‘Yes, this is the way our society should go’, we’ll have to go through change.

· How long will this take?

At least another generation.

By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer ( The Straits Times Tuesday, October 20 2009)

The State fully agrees that the matter should be resolved quickly in the interest of the public and has indeed been vigorously pursuing negotiations throughout the months of June to present.

However, the State is not willing to offer a higher price to the outstanding water services concessionaires for their water services assets as this has immediate implications of increased water tariffs.

First, the current offers of June 2009 are already at significantly higher prices than those initially offered in February 2009. Second, the concessionaires are being well compensated based on fair and reasonable values taking into account all injected capital and risks undertaken. Third, higher prices paid to concessionaires would ultimately be borne by the rakyat, either through tax-payers’ money or higher tariff rates in the future.

Buying back the water services assets of the concessionaires at inflated prices is unfair to the rakyat.

The State is therefore concerned about the possibility that the Federal Government may be willing to offer higher prices for these assets to the concessionaires and hopes that this will not materialise as the rakyat would be hit twice, first through taxpayers’ money, and second through increase in water tariffs. - MOHD SAHRULNIZAM MOHD ZAIN