Day: February 24, 2015

The MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and the Gerakan President, Datuk Mak Siew Keong should explain whether MCA and Gerakan had agreed to Kelantan UMNO State Assemblymen supporting PAS’ hudud legislation for implementation in the Kelantan State Assembly next month as part of the UMNO strategy to break up Pakatan Rakyat?

Suspicion of such an agreement has been caused by three developments:

• firstly, the sudden increase in the number of speeches and statements by all levels of MCA and Gerakan leaders on this issue in the past few days;

• secondly, the sudden two-hour meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council last Friday night within 24 hours of the death of Tok Guru Nik Aziz on the night of Thursday, 12th February, necessitating the holding of a by-election in the Chempaka state constituency; and

• thirdly a statement by a UMNO Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Deputy Umno Youth leader Razali Ismail on Tuesday, 17th February that “despite the death of PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, UMNO will continue to support the Islamic party on the implementation of hudud in Kelantan”.

So is the stage set for a “big drama” from the Barisan Nasional component parties for next month’s Kelantan State Assembly, with Kelantan UMNO State Assemblmen voting in support of hudud implementation in Kelantan but ignored by MCA and Gerakan leaders and publicists who will concentrate on their attacks on the DAP and PKR for “selling out the rights of the non-Muslims in Malaysia” because of PAS Kelantan State Assemblymen and women voting for implementation of hudud in Kelantan?

In the uproar and din of multi-party attacks and counter-attacks, accusations and counter-accusations, the inability of the Kelantan State Assembly to implement hudud unless Parliament authorizes it will be temporarily forgotten. Continue reading “Let MCA and Gerakan Presidents explain whether MCA and Gerakan had agreed to Kelantan UMNO Assemblymen supporting PAS’s hudud legislation in Kelantan State Assembly next month as part of the UMNO strategy to break up Pakatan Rakyat?”

Many Malaysians must be asking whether the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has completely lost his sense of priorities in setting up a special sedition unit called D5 for him to twitter instructions to the police officers attached to the unit to investigate and harass Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGO activists while overlooking the real big national and international threat of Islamic State (IS) extending its tentacles in the country to vulnerable Malaysians, including 14-year-old girls?

Neither Parliament nor the country had been informed that sedition crimes have become so serious and ubiquitous that the Police have deemed it necessary to set up a special unit called D5 with special police officers who can and must respond immediately to the IGP’s twitter commands to act against PR leaders and NGO activists on sedition and whole variety of other speech crimes.

Undoubtedly, Khalid has made a name for himself in the international fraternity of No. 1 policemen in the world, for he must be the first head of police in a country to set up a special unit on sedition, as if Malaysians have just set a new world record as the most seditious people in the world!

At a time when the IGP’s eye must be unfailingly focused on the new real crime and threat not only to Malaysia and the world – the rise of Islamic State with its siren appeal to Malaysian Muslims for a Muslim Caliphate stretching beyond national borders and space – Khalid’s focus is fixed in the wrong direction.

This has caused him to set up D5 and arrogating to himself the supreme task of roaming the cyberspace so that he could tweet directives to D5 police officers as to who are the PR leaders and NGO activists to harass and investigate, and undoubtedly, laying down a deadline when the D5 officers have to comply to report to him as to how they had carried out their instructions. Continue reading “Has IGP completely lost his sense of priorities – setting up the world’s first police special unit on sedition for him to twitter instructions to harass PR leaders and NGO activists while overlooking the big national threat of Islamic State extending its tentacles to vulnerable young Malaysians including 14-year-old girls?”

Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi
Observer
21 February 2015

US air strikes have damaged morale in Raqqa, Syria, but a local anti-Isis activist says no one is expecting the group to be driven out

When Isis took over Raqqa, a wave of black swept over the city. The group’s dark flags were raised where its members lived or worked, women were required to shroud themselves in black, and black paint was daubed on buildings and in public spaces.

When US air strikes started, though, activists warned families not to dry dark clothes outside or on their roofs, in case they were mistaken for Isis flags. Perhaps Isis was worried, too, as it has started repainting everything. One central square, where crucifixion and other gruesome punishments are carried out in public, has been decked out in candy colours – pink, green and white. Another is golden.

Apparently, the pressures of publicity and the mundane and expensive business of ruling a city have pushed even Isis to make some compromises.

Last summer, crimes like smoking or failing to shutter a shop during prayer time would have earned transgressors several dozen lashes, but some religious police have started to accept fines in place of punishment from those who can afford it. There are even reports that they have been forcing traders to stay open through prayers, so that they can collect more money from them – around 1,500 Syrian pounds (around £5) each time.

It is not just money that they are short of. They lack blood for fighters injured in air strikes or on the frontline. People don’t want to donate, so they compel them. Anyone with business at the Islamic court is told first to go to a certain hospital, donate a pint of blood, then return with the receipt. Only then will the case be processed.

You can’t pay your way out of that donation, even if you do have money, which not everyone does. They have shut down many companies, including legal firms, for instance. Isis doesn’t believe in the old legal system, claiming that it tries to replace Allah’s law with the law of men. Continue reading “Inside the Islamic State ‘capital’: no end in sight to its grim rule”

Emma Graham-Harrison
Observer
21 February 2015

Unlike the slow and careful rise of al-Qaida, Isis is extending its global reach far and fast – sometimes to groups with very different beliefs

Marched on to a Libyan beach in now gruesomely familiar orange jumpsuits, the last moments of 21 Coptic Christians carried the vicious jolt of previous Isis snuff videos, but with an added charge of fear.

The setting, in Libya, suggested that the group was spreading further and faster than even their dramatic early advances seem possible, and it came after vows of allegiance to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by militants from Afghanistan to Yemen.

“With affiliates in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, the group is beginning to assemble a growing international footprint,” Marine Corps Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, warned the US House of Representatives this month.

The beheading of a tourist in Algeria, a meticulously videoed attack on an Egyptian army base, including the casual murder of surviving soldiers, a suicide bombing in Tripoli’s smartest hotel – all were recently masterminded by militants publicly loyal to a group whose name once defined its geography: “Islamic state in Iraq and Syria”.

Affiliates are adopting their slick media production along with bloody tactics, amplifying the influence of the violence. The murder of the Egyptian Christians has already drawn bombing raids on Libya by Egyptian jets, which may suit some Isis commanders keen to draw enemies into an expensive and draining war.

There are echoes of al-Qaida’s global expansion, even as its leader shrank into hiding, through loyal but virtually autonomous units in Yemen, north and east Africa, and other areas. But al-Qaida expanded slowly and carefully, vetting would-be allies that wanted to use its terrifying brand in their own battles.

Isis by contrast has already welcomed several would-be supporters under what seems to be a looser umbrella, among them Afghan fighters whom analysts say have significant theological differences with the group. Continue reading “How Islamic State is expanding its empire of terror”

Fa Abdul | February 24, 2015
Free Malaysia Today

How come freedom of speech is limited to a select few who can say what they please while the majority spend a night in the lock-up for doing the same?

COMMENT

When I was growing up, reading the daily newspaper and watching the 8pm news was a must in my home. And every day during family time, my dad would open the floor for discussion. We used to discuss (and sometimes debate) various issues – politics, social, religion, entertainment, the works. Sometimes we got too excited over certain issues that we continued the same discussion for a few days.

Thanks to my dad, my brothers and I grew up having the ability to form our own opinions on matters that concerned us. And having strong opinions meant standing up to it as well.

But lately, I’ve begun to wonder if my dad made a big mistake having raised us the way he did. Because of my dad, I now have a tough time keeping my thoughts to myself and my mouth shut.

Like the other day, when I wrote about why I wasn’t offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons – I received piles of hate messages.

And then there was one time when I politely advised the security guards in my apartment that it was against the law for them to hold a visitor’s important documents – and the head of security raised his baton over my head.

Since when did freedom of speech and expressing oneself become an offence?

This reminds me of an acquaintance of mine who was arrested recently on a sedition charge for criticising the Federal Court judgement over the Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy case.

All he did was to post his opinion of the case on Facebook. He had to spend one night in a lock-up filled with creepy crawlies simply because he had trouble zipping his mouth. I bet he too was raised to stand up for what he believed in.

Looks like we can no longer call a spade, a spade. Freedom of speech can get us into lots of trouble these days. Continue reading “Have an opinion? Stuff it!”

By Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Feb 23, 2015

Khairy Jamaluddin, the Umno Baru Youth chief, is smarter than we credit him. The fiercely ambitious Oxford graduate is taking the initiative and showing Umno Baru that he can lead.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is facing his worst nightmare. His spectre is a Malaysian in an Australian detention centre. Khairy needs to prove that he will be ‘prime minister material’ if the top post becomes vacant.

Khairy is showing signs of being bored with his day job as the youth and sports minister. After Malaysia’s dismal performance in the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, Khairy’s focus should be on promoting and improving our performance in sport. He should engage more young Malaysians.

Proving that he has too much time on his hands, the minister has instead organised a roadshow. His co-star is the lead prosecutor in the Sodomy II trial, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah (right). They are trying to convince the public that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s guilty verdict was a just one.

There is probably an ulterior motive to the roadshow. Shafee has his sights set on being the next attorney-general, whilst Khairy is taking pole position in the race to be the prime minister. Continue reading “Sport, sodomy and Sirul”

By Zurairi AR
The Malaysian Insider
February 13, 2015

‘Tok Guru’ Nik Aziz played a huge role in inter-racial reconciliations in Kelantan, and attracted even non-Muslim support for PAS and Pakatan Rakyat. ― File pic

OBITUARY, Feb 13 ― To others, he was known as Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat.

But to those who were fortunate enough to walk beside him, he was more fondly known just as “Tok Guru”.

It was an appropriate moniker for the soft-spoken leader, a quietly resilient man with an unassuming demeanour befitting his post as spiritual adviser of PAS, Malaysia’s largest Islamist party.

In PAS, Nik Aziz was revered as the party’s conscience and moral compass, often turned to for guidance.

Among fellow politicians, friend and foe alike, he was well-respected as a voice of reason and a symbol of humility. Continue reading “‘Tok Guru’ Nik Aziz, the conscience of PAS”