No, it was not an empty auditorium but quite a full house for the Emergency Public Consultation on the Special Complaints Commission Bill (or fake IPCMC Bill) at the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall last night.
It vindicated my faith and confidence in Malaysians that despite the impossibly short two-day notice falling on a weekend and end-of-year holiday season, minimal exposure in print media and total lack of leafleting, there was a strong turn-out of Malaysians for the Public Consultation to demonstrate their concern, commitment and seriousness about their citizenship rights.
Many thanks to you all on this blog for your encouragement and support as well as other netizens and bloggers who helped to give the Public Consultation a plug, including:
Fake IPCMC Bill consultation tonight (rocky’s bru)
Emergency Public Consultation on fake IPCMC Bill (the meesh experience)
It’s a fake IPCMC! – Lim Kit Siang
(Kembara Minda Perjuangan)
Emergency Public Consultation on fake IPCMC Bill (carboncopy)
Urgent: Emergency Public Consultation on the SCC Bill
(Blog for Positive Changes)
What the…?! Coming to KLS Chinese Assembly Hall tonight? (Dan-yel)
And congrats to jedyoong for being the first to blog about the Public Consultation although “Am tired. Wanna sleep”.
Don’t have time to write a fulsome account of the Public Consultation. Just the highlights:
Outcome – Unanimous vote by show of hands that the SCC Bill should be deferred to the next parliamentary meeting in March next year, and in the meantime there should be a Parliamentary Select Committee to ensure the widest public consultation with the civil society on the proposed legislation.
This was the unanimous sense of the Public Consultation, which was offered three options, viz:
• Support for the SCC Bill;
• Rejection;
• Deferment.
The Public Consultation was in full support of the views expressed by the panelists that the SCC Bill is a poor and unacceptable substitute for the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) Bill proposed by the Royal Police Commission as the most important of its 125 recommendations to reform and transform the Malaysian police into an efficient, accountable, incorruptible, professional world-class police service.
Some quotes by panelists:
Tunku Abdul Aziz, Royal Police Commission member and former President, Transparency International Malaysia –
A mockery of the IPCMC recommendation, “totally turned upside down”;
“Total disdain for fairness, justice and public opinion”;
“Say goodbye to all the high hopes that we will have the best police force that money cannot buy”.
Edmond Bon, Chairperson of Bar Council Human Rights Committee:
More correct to be named Special Referral Commission rather than Special Complaints Commission;
Minor recommendations of Royal Police Commission accepted but major recommendations ignored;
“Just adds another layer of bureaucracy. Really sad. Might as well not have the Bill”.
Datuk Param Cumaraswamy, former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Independence of Judges and Lawyers:
A slap in the face of the Royal Police Commission.
Government has duty to explain why it cannot implement the recommendations of the Royal Police Commission.
Will require another Commission to oversight the SCC.
I will convey to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who is responsible for piloting the Bill through Parliament, the unanimous stand of the Public Consultation for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee for proper public consultation and to defer passage of the SCC Bill until the next parliamentary meeting next year.
As an aside, after the successful Public Consultation last night, there was a suggestion for a get-together for all registered visitors of this blog. What do you think and if you are positive about the suggestion, any ideas as to where, when and even how?
YB,
Well done to all! Shows that Malaysians do care.
A get together sounds like a great idea!
May also be a good platform to get everyone to contribute their ideas and engage everyone to do their part for the coming elections.
Good morning Malaysia!
Keep it up, zero tolerance for half baked implementation like the SCC bill. Throw it into the garbage and perform the full IPCMC. Stop wasting our hard earned tax money on something useless. We want something better. Do your job or get out of the way. That is the message echoing in the silent majorities of Malaysia to the current administration.
Malaysiakini has a good video on Tunku Aziz comments. His description of “quiet outrage” not dissapointment I thought was most apt.
Tunku Aziz described how the RCI on police put in so much effort to make sure they did the right thing for Malaysians and he also correctly point out that the opportunity is incredible rare to get this right. To have it now simply politically convenienced away is a squander much larger than all the corruption and waste of Dr. M era.
If the SCC is passed as is, we can basically kiss any real reform for decades, at least a generation. If the PM think he can pass the SCC as is and then change it later, he is fooling himself. It will never happen. It will have to take another RCI which won’t happen until enough cases is build up to justify it for years and then politics have to be right for it to happen again.
This is a rare opportunity that UMNO right-wingers may never concede again in the future.
I was impressed with Tunku Aziz last night.
Congrats Uncle Kit for the good response. please rest well and take care. It Would be real fun if the all the visitors of this blog could meet up. If only I could make it….
Well done YB Lim and thank you. Although I was unable to attend, I’m glad there were many concerned citizens who came out in full support and made it. It must have been a great encouragement for you and other speakers. Not a wasted effort!
YB Lim,
yes please arrange a place to meet.Would love to meet some of the people here especially Jeffrey.
i’m all for a get together. please have it during weekend because i’m not living in KL. If it is not too much, it would be a great idea to have a skeleton outline of what is to be discussed so we can come abit more prepared. LAwan tetap lawan, lawan sampai menang!
YB Kit,
I’ll be more than happy to meet you when you come to New York.
MERRY X’MAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
This is the sad truth of our nation building process – as a nation, Malaysia is truly blessed with many fundamentally good and desirable factors, in terms of human, natural, and environmental resources. POTENTIALLY we can be a great model nation, if only we can do the right things and harness all our human resources.
However, when we look back at the last 50 years, we can see clearly that our nation has been hijacked by the ruling race-based political parties, Umno in particular, ie, Umnoputras and their gang of thieves that include non-Malays.
The ruling group has become more greedy, selfish, power-hungry, and devious. The entire country and its resources have been systematically engineered to profit the ruling group and its gang of thieves.
This open plundering has been going on, especially in the name of NEP. Threats and crackdown have been used as well to suppress civil voices of dissent.
Rules and bills have been twisted and kneaded to satisfy the ruling group rather than the people. We end up with more setbacks.
How can we progress as a nation in this modern, globalised world? Our neighbours are moving on while we are still always entrenched in negative, tribal issues and doing nonsensical things which are directly opposite to one another (eg, having National Service for our multiracial youths to promote national unity while having all sorts of government-sanctioned practices that discriminate minor races; talking about democracy while forbidding or suppressing public expression of opinions; declaring public rallies as undesirable and not part of our culture while allowing a favoured group to demonstrate and have rowdy rallies; etc etc etc).
Honestly, Umno and BN are not fit to rule this nation. Surely and steadily, they are ruining this nation. Just look at the large number of clowns and nodding puppets in the circus, our parliament.
Unfortunately, there are lots of refused-to-be-informed and easily-bribed blinkered voters who continue to vote for parochial and racist ‘leaders’ rather than for worldly and patriotic leaders.
Look at the Lingam tape – must one of the biggest insults to our nation building process!
Who will cry for Malaysia?
Look at the Lingam tape – must be one of the biggest insults to our nation building process!
Uncle Kit and Dr. Tan,
Thanks for organising the event to allow “minorities” Malaysian to have our said. Well Done!
Special thanks and salute Tunku Aziz and many thanks to Edmond and Datuk Param.
Also, many thanks to other DAP MPs (Chong Eng, Teresa, Po Kuan, Chow, Tan Kok Wai, Fong Kui Lun and others) and members (Tony and others) who present in the event for their continues efforts in battling for better Malaysia!
Sorry, I couldn’t make it last night.
On get-together party, what about we hold it at Batu Caves to show support to the thousands of brave Hindraf members whom were locked within and were gassed and showered with water canon laced with chemicals?
Batu Caves is very scenic especially at night!
To side track, why the Gomen never try to apply to UN to make Batu Caves as one of the United Nation World Heritage?
YB,your continuing and untiring effort in voicing out the numerous grievances of all Malaysians deserves our heartfelt thanks.Anyway,relax a bit and take care.
All right thinking people should continue to condemn the selfish and hypocritical BN moronic leaders who are relentlessly trying to push through policies such as SCC.
They are the real traitors who are implementing policies that are against the interest of the rakyat.
Uncle Kit
Great idea..would be fantastic if all of us could meet up to contribute online and now offline as a member of the civil society
Count me in..just let me know the time and place
I was present at the meeting. What a great speaker Tunku Aziz. He quoted “quiet outrage†not dissapointment that the original IPCMC was not implemented.
Tunku Aziz also said that how come the IGP and the ACA director general sitting as permanent member in the SCC. This SCC is to discussion against the police force and the IGP is sitting permanently in this committee.
Param Cumarasamy also highlighted that the government must listen to the voice of the people.
It was wonderful meeting. Kudos to YB Lim for organizing in short time.
I am for the gathering. YB Kit, you have the honour to chose the date, time and place. It may not be acceptable to all but we just need to start somehow.
50 years is ENOUGH
Vote For A Change
Vote For Any Opposition
Give Them A Chance To Change For A Better Malaysia
Remember bn Is A Useless Grouping Of Self Serving, Corrupt, Dictator, Power Crazy, Racist, Kris waving, etc, etc type of parties.
One suggestion for the get-together in Ipoh Timor? Ipoh is 2 hours drive from KL and 1 hour 15 mins from Penang/Kedah. Have it after christmas and before the new year.
A get-together is a wonderful idea and you can count me in, but please don’t make it a DAP event or any political forum. Just a consultation type of gathering is good among all concerned citizens without any elements of political agenda. We appreciate DAP’s effort to initiate it. However said, my support will always be for any political parties opposed to the current BN.
One item that I eagerly wanting to know is what is the fastest way to bring the truth as oppose to what are being said in the public media newspapers & TV to the last villager in Malaysia.
Please keep me posted.Many thanks!
Paris.
Guys, what about the….erh…police permit? Wouldn’t it then be an illegal gathering?
Don’t want to see DAP guys end up like the Hindraf guys at a crucial time like this.
a get together would be ideal to share opinions among us. And for me a good opportunity to improve my knowledge of Malaysia politics and share my foreign prospective (I come from a country which wasn’t very far from this one 40yrs ago!!).
Not a rally but a buffet dinner maybe….
I like the way Kit name the Special Complaints Commission Bill as Fake IPCMC Bill !