This is Radio Free Sarawak...

 http://www1.malaysiakini.com/news/148260

7590 kHz - 6.30-7.30 am

15869 kHz - 6.00 -7.00 pm 
(15680) - the frequency given by M'sia-today

 
Sarawakians in the interior of the state will now have an alternative source of information with the Radio Free Sarawak beginning transmission today.

The broadcast is being transmitted out of London, and consists of only one hour of programming from 6.30-7.30 am Sarawak time on the short-wave frequency 7590 kHz.

The same news, current affairs and commentary programme will be repeated the same day from 6-7pm local time on 15869 kHz.

According to one of the organisers, Ong Boon Keong (left), the content will be produced by local NGOs and community leaders in Sarawak and sent to London to be transmitted.

“We started this project a few months ago. We had our first test broadcast this morning, and found there were still improvements to be made in terms of clarity,” he said when contacted.

He said many people in the interior of Sarawak get news via short-wave radio, which is largely defunct in developed parts of the world.

“We found that many use short-wave radios to tune in to RTM broadcasts,” he said, adding that Radio Free Sarawak intends to fill the gap created by one-sided content from the national broadcaster.

It is understood that this is not the first attempt to bring foreign-transmitted local content into Sarawak. However, previous attempts were unsuccessful.

Defence Minister Zahid Hamidi (pic above) reasoned that the low number of Chinese and Indian recruits in the military could be due to “lack of patriotism”.

The best comment to that is this:

written by ez24get, November 11, 2010 14:24:11

First ask how many of the Defense Minister own sons and daughters are in the army. Next ask how many sons and daughters of the PM, DPM, Ministers, Senators, Head of GLCs, etc are in the arm. The non-malays are the most resilient and are no strangers to hardship and discipline with ample proof like Nicole David, Lee Chong Wei and many others.

This Zahid is talking through his arse-hole and there seems to be no lack of arse-holes in UMNO!

 Thanks ez24get, I could not have said it better.

Closing the Books on Murder in Malaysia

http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2802&Itemid=189

Written by Our Correspondent

Friday, 05 November 2010

The episode of a sensational killing of a Mongolian translator appears to be about finished The closing of a case earlier this week by Malaysia's attorney general over allegedly false statements by a private investigator that tied Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to the 2006 murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu literally lets unknown persons close to the prime minister get away with murder. The closure of the case appears to write the final chapter in one of Malaysia's most sensational murder cases, one involving a gruesome death, intrigue in high places, more than 100 million euros in alleged bribes and a trial that appeared to be rigged to keep prosecutors as far as possible away from Najib, then the deputy prime minister, and his wife, Rosmah Mansor.

The private investigator, P Balasubramaniam, was hired in 2006 by Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib's best friends and a defense analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, to attempt to keep Altantuya away from Baginda because he had jilted her. She was demanding revenge and US$500,000 for her role as a translator in the sale of French submarines to Malaysia. A French prosecutorial team continues to probe the sale of the subs to Malaysia and whether kickbacks were paid to top French and Malaysian politicians.

In July of 2008, as the trial droned on, Balasubramaniam issued a statutory declaration alleging that Najib, then the deputy prime minister, was involved in the murder, only to retract the entire contents of the declaration a day later and issue a second saying he had made the first under duress (Note: Both declarations can be found here).

Balasubramaniam's lawyer, Americk Sidhu, denounced the closing of the case, saying that if the supposedly false statements were investigated thoroughly by police, they would have led to the conclusion that people close to Najib were involved in the murder.

De facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz, in a written statement to parliament, said the case was closed because Balasubramaniam had given conflicting statutory declarations, and that anyway, they didn't affect the trial of two of Najib's personal bodyguards and Abdul Razak Baginda, which ended in April of 2009 after a 159-day trial in which the bodyguards were sentenced to death. They are appealing the verdict, with suspicions running high that they will somehow be given their freedom in exchange for their silence on whoever ordered them to kill the woman.

"Although there are contradictions between the two statutory declarations, the contradictions do not affect the outcome of the trial of Altantuya," Nazri said. "Moreover, the individual (Balasubramaniam) is still believed to be abroad." Nazri added that the decision to close the case was made after "careful consideration" of the results of the police probe and witness statements.

Although the two bodyguards were convicted of the crime, Baginda was acquitted under controversial circumstances without having to put on a defense. He then hurriedly left the country for England, where he has remained ever since. One of the two bodyguards said in a cautioned statement that they had been hired to commit the killing and were to be paid RM100,000 to do it. But the statement was never introduced into the marathon trial and never was anybody asked who had done the hiring or made the payment offer.

The 27-year-old Altantuya, the translator in some phases of the billion-dollar purchase of French Scorpene submarines that netted Baginda's company €114 million in consulting fees, was shot in the head and her body was blown up with explosives in a patch of jungle near the suburban city of Shah Alam. Before she died, she told Balasubramaniam she had been promised US$500,000 for assisting in the submarine transaction.

In the bodyguard's cautioned statement, it emerged that Altantuya, almost with her last words, told her two assailants that she was pregnant and begged them not to kill her. That has led to speculation that her body was blown up with C4 explosives to hide any DNA evidence of who the father might be.

Balasubramaniam, who remains somewhere in Chennai, has continued to insist loudly that Razak Baginda, who is married, had told him that the translator had been Najib's sexual companion before the then-deputy prime minister passed her on to Baginda because it wouldn't look good for a prospective prime minister to have a girlfriend.

After making the first declaration, Balasubramaniam was hauled into a Kuala Lumpur police station, where he was forced to recant it in a second under threat to his family, he later testified. After that, according to statements he made under oath, he was taken to meet with Mohamad Nizam Razak, Najib's brother, and Deepak Jaikishan, described as a "business associate" of Najib's wife, Rosmah Mansor, where he was promised RM5 million to leave the country and shut up. He later displayed cancelled checks showing he had been paid RM750,000 out of an account maintained by Jaikishan. According to his sworn statement, Balasubramaniam said Rosmah was "very pleased" that he had agreed to retract the statutory declaration and wanted to have breakfast with him.

Nazri told the parliament that Balasubramaniam was initially investigated for providing false statements, which would make him liable to three years in jail and a fine. That makes it a mystery why the case was dropped against him, since one of the statutory declarations was demonstrably false – either the one implicating Najib and describing the murder, or the one recanting it.

A team from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission first made an appointment to interview Balasubramaniam in the UK, where he was staying out of fear for his safety, but cancelled the appointment without an explanation.

"The evidence is staring you in the face," Sidhu said in a telephone interview from Australia. "A whole pile of witnesses can confirm the first statement and who have been investigated by the police have said the original statement was made of his own free will. If they had investigated, they would have had to interview Rosmah, Nizam and Jaikashan over the checks to Bala.They can't afford to charge him. If they do that, they would hang themselves. They had no alternative but to close the file to save Najib and his entourage."

To say Balasubramaniam's first statement was explosive is an understatement. In addition to saying Najib had been Altantuya's lover before he turned her over to Razak Baginda, Balasubramaniam wrote that Najib had a sexual relationship with the Mongolian woman and that she liked anal sex. Before she was killed, according to the statement, she told Balasubramaniam that she, Baginda and Najib had been together at a dinner in Paris during the transaction over the submarines.

Najib has repeatedly denied he had ever met the woman, swearing to Allah that no meeting had taken place. During the trial of the two elite bodyguards, a friend of Altantuya who had accompanied the woman to Malaysia said there was no record in immigration that she had ever been in the country.
---------------------------------

It is truly amazing in a country like Bolehland (a.k.a Malaysia) those in power can go scot-free while others can be dragged to court based on the flimsiest evidence or evidence that would not even stand in the most pariah court in the world. Just read through Anwar's ongoing trial.


Najib, the Prime Minister of Bolehland and his entourage have be accused with the most serious allegations yet they have been cleared of them all.

The police force, the courts and all other government agencies in Bolehland are working hand in glove to ensure anything related to Najib and his entourage are swept under their filthy carpet.

Ex-Sabah AG laments native switch to Malay

http://www1.malaysiakini.com/news/146299
Joe Fernandez Oct 25, 10 12:14pm
Former Sabah attorney-general Herman Luping, is not surprised that a Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP or Language and Literary Agency) study has concluded that Malay is replacing native tongues in the state. Malay is a reference to the standard Johor-Riau Bahasa Malaysia and the local Malay-based Bahasa Sabah which plays a more prominent role than the former in the state.

Eighty percent of the Dusuns for example, along with the Kadazans (urban Dusun) and the Muruts, no longer speak their native tongues or the standard Kadazandusun based on the Bundu-Liwan dialects, according to the DBP study. The Dusuns are the largest ethnic group in Sabah and are in a separate linguistic group from the related Murut grouping.

“The survey is correct in its findings,” said Herman (right). “If you go to even the interior areas like Tambunan and Keningau, the rapid switch to Malay among the Dusuns and Muruts has been dramatic.”

He attributes this to parents dropping their native tongues and the Kadazandusun over the years, even when communicating with their children at home.

The former state AG was taking up the cudgels on behalf of maintaining “ethnic identity” following the on-going debate in the local media on the DBP study, which is actually an update on an earlier study.

Herman wonders whether the Dusuns and Muruts will become “extinct as an ethnic group one day, as a result of the loss of their mother tongues.

“The mother tongue can identify a person belonging to his or her ethnicity in this multiracial community,” said Herman. “Without their mother tongues, ethnic groups will risk becoming extinct.”

He did not dwell on the decline of Bahasa Malaysia, generally, as a language following its corruption by the English language.

The DBP study does not make a reference to this issue since the scope was confined to reconciling the status of the Malay language in Sabah vis-à-vis local dialects and languages, with specific reference to the Dusun and Murut communities.

Other natives like the Bajau and Suluk, generally Muslims, were not highlighted in the study. The DBP study also does not make a distinction between Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Sabah.

Grandparents as part of the problem?

Keeping the focus on the home, Herman sees even grandparents as part of the problem, rather than the solution. This is particularly true in Penampang, the KadazanDusunMurut heartland in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu.

He cites the “corrupting” role of the master of ceremonies during the Tadau Kaamatan - Harvest Festival - and traditional wedding ceremonies as a case in point. The emcee begins the ceremony by saying, for example, “Tuan-tuan and puan-puan, marilahlah sekarang ini menggagong tokou no dii (ladies and gentlemen, come, let's beat the gong).

He is just not able to understand why such things should happen when 90 percent of those present at such ceremonies would be either Dusun or Murut, or both.

“When they want to make a toast, they will use the Chinese 'yam seng', dragging out the words for as long as possible until they run out of breath,” said Herman. “This is actually shameful, if you really think about it. The younger people just laugh and think that it's all a big joke.”

Often there are two emcees at most traditional functions and wedding ceremonies, Herman concedes, but what happens in practice is that the emcee who is supposed to say everything in Kadazandusun ends up using only Malay.

“He or she starts off well in Kadazandusun and eventually seems to be unable to keep Malay out of the announcements,” said Herman. “Soon, everything is in Malay and Kadazandusun is forgotten.”

Being more comfortable in Malay, rather than in Kadazandusun, appears to be a peculiar problem too among those who play a role as masters of ceremonies.

One reason for the declining use of native tongues at home, Herman said, is that “parents are very ambitious for their children”. “Parents see Malay as the language spoken in the schools even outside the classroom,” he said. “They want their children to be able to communicate well with others and do well in Bahasa Malaysia in examinations.”

Herman opines that action must be taken by the Dusun and Murut communities, in tandem with the state and federal governments, to arrest the alarming decline in mother tongue use among native communities in Sabah. He does not make a distinction between native dialects and languages and Kadazandusun.

While efforts to preserve native tongues depend on usage at home and by the church in worship, Kadazandusun is a different matter altogether. Herman is not sure whether efforts to promote the language at the school and university level are bearing fruit.

He cites his own efforts in promoting Kadazandusun in the state, including a recent talk he gave at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

“Some 90 percent of the 100-odd people who turned up were Chinese orpeople of other races. So, this shows that we are not interested in our own language and culture,” said Herman. “Only the organising committee members were Dusuns and Muruts.”

UMS has a Kadazandusun chair, headed by noted Australian academician Jacqueline Pugh-Kitingan, but the criticism against the chair, according to Herman, is that it has not made much headway in promoting the language at the university level. Most of the allocations for the chair, Herman charged, are used for other purposes, such as holding talks on customary laws.

He notes that the Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF) has been somewhat active on a modest scale in producing books and helping in promoting the language as a subject worthy of study among all in the state. However, the NGO has not been able to help address the shortage of teaching staff and the lack of material in Kadazandusun.

Elsewhere, the State Archives Department has an ongoing programme under which young people speak and sing in public in Kadazandusun.

The language is also taught in schools and a student can sit for it as an examination subject in the UPSR (Year Six) and PMR (Form Three) examinations. The language has not been made compulsory.

Fully-dedicated radio channel proposal

Herman wants the state and federal governments to initiate a fully-dedicated radio channel in the Kadazandusun and Murut languages. “At present, Radio Televiysen Malaysia devotes only one hour daily to Kadazandusun and or Murut,” said Herman. “This is too short.”

He points to New Zealand, where Maori is used alongside English as an example for Malaysia to learn from. New Zealand only has 500,000 native language speakers, out of a total population of four million.

“The Maoris in New Zealand are fewer in numbers than that of the Dusuns and Muruts in Sabah, who make up 3.2 million people,” said Herman. “Even the whites in New Zealand will introduce a speaker in Maori first, before doing the honours in English.”

What is Happening on The Ground (a personal observation of a shift in trend within the Malay community)

written by arazak, October 16, 2010 16:09:23
What is Happening on The Ground (a personal observation of a shift in trend within the Malay community).

Dear MT Readers,

Recently, during the Hari Raya holidays back home in Bolehland, I visited many friends and relatives. And sometimes they come over to our humble dwelling to visit us. I took this opportunity to conduct a somewhat loose observation study on the political scenario of Bolehland. Of course my samples in this loose observation study are Malays as the interaction with them are made during the visits throughout a period of 2 weeks during the Hari Raya celebration.

Usually, over ketupat, lemang and rendang on the first week of interaction and kuih raya on the 2nd week we will talk about anything under he sun. They will often talk about children education, their health condition, prices of goods, their maid who went back to Indonesia and never return, etc. (the usual mundane things). I will than steer them to talk about politics. As they are relatives and close friend, it was a no hold barred kind of conversation.

From my observation and fair judgment, 80% had openly declared their hatred towards UMNO. Surprisingly, out of this 80% some of them are known to me as government servants and previously hard-core UMNO supporters. To them UMNO was associated with “rasuah”, “penyamun”, “kebas duit rakyaat”, “tak sedar diri”, “menyusahkan rakyaat” and “barang semua jadi mahal”(corruption, thief, looters of the peoples’ money, forgetting itself, making peoples life difficult and increasing prices of goods). If you look at the key words they gave, most of them are about UMNO destroying the country economy.

Now here’s the catch with the Special Branch and Bukit Aman intelligence report to Jibby. The report only emphasize that UMNO has loose support. It does not emphasize the reasons why UMNO has loose its support. It does not emphasize UMNO loose support because they are corrupt, they are thieves or they destroy the country’s economy. That brings us to one important understanding on what is wrong with UMNO, and that is; UMNO do not want to change or mend its’ ways. What they want are people to change their ways and to support them no matter how corrupt or thieving they are. It is the people who must change . . . ., and not UMNO.

For those SB or Bukit Aman people out there reading his, tell your bosses that the problem lie within UMNO and not the people. We know UMNO will not change their corrupt ways and thieving activities. It is already in the fabric of their culture. For UMNO, ruling this country meant being corrupt and looting as much money as possible.

Even when UMNO's numero uno came up with the grand plans of "transformation" and the "NEM", people see it as a grand plan for looting and thieving and not a grand plan to change the country's economy. That is how bad people are thinking about UMNO now. Nothing seems right for them!

Also, from the observation done and through my assessment, UMNO will loose big time in the next GE. . ., unless the EC came up with a grand cheating and rigging exercise, OR. . ., UMNO change their ways.

But I do not think it would be the later, UMNO will remain as they are, i.e., corrupt, thieving and looting, “dulu, kini dan selamanya”!
-------------------------------------------

A great piece. I hope Malaysians will work hard to make sure in the coming GE we can send umNO into oblivion. 

Orang Asli community: Genocide in Malaysia?

I cried when I read this letter.......

http://www1.malaysiakini.com/letters/127019
"In view of the recent events concerning the Orang Asli, I am compelled to write this letter to testify personally to the difficult situations encountered by the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia.

My friends and I belong to a group of volunteers who have been visiting the interior of Pahang to provide basic healthcare and medical assistance to the Orang Asli over the last six years wherever we can. What we have seen and heard was heartbreaking.

Technically, health clinics have been set up across the country, including the state of Pahang, to provide healthcare services and basic medical assistance to the Orang Asli. In truth, however, most of these clinics have long been abandoned or are unmanned. The reason being, medical officers who have been assigned to these clinics never turn up for work at these clinics. At the same time, these same medical officers continue to claim payments and salaries for services which they have not rendered at these health clinics.

I remember an incident where a pregnant Orang Asli woman had to walk to a trunk road from her village at the edge of a forest to seek medical help. She was going into labour and there was no one in her village who was able to help her.

The 'tok batin' (title of the head of an Orang Asli village) told us, later on, that the health clinic at their village had been abandoned for a number of years because the medical officers assigned to the clinic had refused to turn up for work. As a result, this pregnant Orang Asli woman died on her way to the trunk road. This incident took place a few days before our arrival.

In our dialogues at a number of Orang Asli villages over the years, we were told that medical officers routinely refused to treat or work with the Orang Asli because they are of the opinion that the Orang Asli are a 'dirty' and 'filthy' people and therefore are not worthy of any help or assistance.

On another incident, we took an Orang Asli to a government hospital in a town in Pahang for treatment for problems related to hypertension and nearly had his medications thrown at his face. This doctor was unaware that my friend, who is a medical specialist from a hospital in KL, and I were waiting outside the consultation room. When we were told of the rude incident, my friend and I decided to confront this doctor for an explanation. Only then was the Orang Asli man given proper information about his prescription.

During a recent monsoon season where flood waters had nearly devastated an Orang Asli village, no one turned up to provide any form of relief or assistance to the villagers. Eventually, a small consignment of rice was sent to the village by the state government.

The rice was left at the home of the 'tok batin' who refused to distribute the rice to the rest of the villagers. The 'tok batin' claimed to be an Umno member, therefore, he was untouchable and could do as he pleased. Some villagers told us later on that the rice was never distributed and were sold to a third party.

Our team managed to transport about two dozen bags of rice to be distributed to the villagers. One of the villagers, a widow already weakened by hunger, succumbed to a fatal asthmatic attack while taking a bag of rice back to her hut. At her funeral that evening, our team was overwhelmed by a deep sense of desperation. Till today, a number of us in the team are still haunted by this tragic event.

Tragic incidences like these are just the tip of an iceberg. Land belonging to the Orang Asli, especially those in the lowland, are often leased out to oil palm plantation companies. In return, each Orang Asli household gets a small 'rental income' of up to RM500 per month on an average. Here again, this is at the discretion of the 'tok batin'. This 'income' is sometimes withheld from households that are widowed or orphaned. Largely illiterate, these widows and orphans have no legal recourse to claim their entitlement and are left to fend for themselves.

Furthermore, oil palm plantations sometimes destroy the Orang Asli home ground by allowing excessive fertilisers and pesticides to pollute the environment and to destroy nearby rivers. These are the same oil palm plantations which made promises of employment to the Orang Asli before the first planting but which usually reneged on their promises.

Indonesian workers are favoured over the Orang Asli. The main reason stated by oil palm plantation owners is that Indonesian workers are more reliable as the Orang Asli have a problem with alcoholism and do not turn up for work when required. Interestingly, some Orang Asli have found it easier to get jobs in Singapore than back home in Malaysia.

Alcoholism and drug addiction among the Orang Asli are serious social problems among the younger Orang Asli. Aids/HIV is next. Marginalised by much of society and government policies, many young Orang Asli turn to drugs and alcohol to vent their anger and frustration. Most of the Orang Asli drop out of school by the time they reached Form 2.

While some hostels are provided at some secondary schools for the Orang Asli, the Orang Asli students are often told that they must convert to Islam if they want to pursue further education at the schools. Caught between a rock and a hard place, some Orang Asli students comply while others just slip through the cracks. The Orang Asli are basically animistic in their religious beliefs. Any other religion is a hard sell with the Orang Asli.

Concerning the Orang Asli Affairs Department, the JHEOA, itis becoming more like an extended Islamic affairs department than an Orang Asli affairs department. The unwritten policy of the JHEOA seems to be to proselyte and convert the Orang Asli to Islam. For example, if an Orang Asli village needs to build a community hall but is lacking the resources to do so, they can approach the JHEOA.

However, the Orang Asli must provide an undertaking that the community hall must double-up as a 'surau' before any approval is given. I have been told personally by two 'tok batins' that they will be paid RM100 to RM200 as a reward for every Orang Asli converted to Islam in their respective villages.

I have seen more 4WDs in the Klang Valley with the JHEOA logo painted on their doors in the than in the state of Pahang over the last isx years. Can someone in the JHEOA enlighten me on this? To me, the JHEOA had long outlived its purpose.

Finally, the problems facing the Orang Asli must be dealt with quickly and in a humane manner. Sweeping the dirt under the carpet is not going to make it all go away. The denial mentality among our politicians must be arrested. The Orang Asli are facing the real risk of extinction as a people. To deny otherwise is nothing more than a systematic act of genocide."

An Eye-Witness
Mar 19, 10
7:43pm

The Fight Over ‘Allah’ ~ Malaysia's delicate balance is at risk.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/232054

The interethnic chaos Malaysia has long feared moved closer to reality this month when 10 churches were at-tacked around the country. The attacks followed a civil-court ruling on New Year's Eve declaring that a law prohibiting non-Muslims from using the word "Allah" to describe their God was unconstitutional. Strangely, though, Christians have been using "Allah" for "God" in East Malaysia since the 1920s without much controversy. So why the sudden spate of violence in a nation long viewed as a model of tolerance in the Muslim world?

During the 1980s and 1990s Malaysia transformed itself from an agrarian-based economy to a manufacturing one. More recently it has struggled to shed its low-value-added, low-wage structure. Private investment, now at 11 percent of GDP, is down more than two thirds since the late 1990s at least in part because of investor concern about the social tension. Efforts to create a high-tech innovation economy have been set back by the flight of talent: opposition leader Lim Kit Siang says 300,000 "top brains" have fled to Singapore since the last general election. Now Malaysia's reputation for stability is under threat, and investors are jittery amid reports that Malaysia saw the biggest foreign-exchange outflows in Asia last year. Though some an-alysts give Najib high marks as a liberalizing economic reformer, sectarian unrest won't help, and could well thwart the country's aim of becoming a fully developed nation by 2020.

The church attacks also threaten regional stability. Indonesia's Muslim leaders have cautioned Muslims there not to take their cue from Malaysia. The U.S. government issued a travel advisory warning that the court ruling could trigger criminal or terrorist attacks on foreigners in Malaysia's eastern Sabah province, which borders the southern Philippines, home to the Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf. And so it is that in a few short weeks Malaysia has gone from pointing the way for Muslims in neighboring countries to joining the list of regional hot spots.

Last week the government took a step to undo the damage, saying Christians may use "Allah" in the states of Penang, Sarawak, and Sabah, and in the Federal Territory, which includes Kuala Lumpur. That, along with Malaysians' tendency to avoid racial confrontation, may stave off wider violence. But it hardly addresses the festering racial resentments that precipitated the attacks.

Almost 40 years ago the government introduced a policy of positive discrimination for Malays, a move that helped reduce income disparities between the Malay majority and the big Chinese and Indian minorities. But it also heightened communal identification, restricted educational and economic opportunities for non-Malays, and bred dependency among the Malays. Until now, all that was hidden by political sloganeering, tightly controlled media, and billions spent on eye-catching infrastructure projects in-tended to make Malaysia appear both modern and progressive. But the at-tacks have blown the cover off the myth of racial harmony. Now Malaysia must get down to the nitty-gritty of building a truly pluralistic society. As the church bombings make clear, it can't afford not to.

Gatsiounis is a Malaysia-based journalist and author, most recently, of Velvet & Cinder Blocks, a story collection detailing a planned attack on a Christian landmark in Malaysia.

God and Allah in Malaysia

Justice Lau Bee Lan

A justice's ruling goes against the government


The decision by Malaysian High Court Justice Lau Bee Lan giving the Catholic Herald newspaper the right to use the word Allah to represent God in its Malay-language edition has been met with jubilation among the country's 850,000-odd Catholics and outrage on the part of Muslims. As many as 10,000 protesters had signed onto a Facebook group page objecting to the Dec. 31 judgment.

A flock of United Malay National Organization politicians have got into the act as well, including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamd and his son Mukhriz as well as former Selangor Chief Minister Mohamad Khir Toyo and others. Moderates including Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim are being called traitors to Islam for agreeing withg the decision, which is all but certain to be appealed to a higher court by the government as soon as possible and, if past practice is any gauge, a stay of execution will probably be granted.

The decision by Justice Lau, however, focuses attention on another matter entirely, and that is the growing independence of Malaysia's lower courts to issue decisions contrary to the government after nearly three decades. Her decision against the government followed another major one in May 2008 when High Court Judge Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim ruled that Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, who headed the opposition in the state, was wrongly removed as the chief minister of the northern state of Perak. Najib Tun Razak, then the deputy prime minister, engineered the defection of three lawmakers from the national opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat, bringing the government to a halt in a 28-28 tie.

In that case, Judge Abdul Aziz ruled that Perak Sultan Raja Azlan Shah did not have the power to order Nizar to vacate his position as chief minister and instead to install Zambry Abdul Kadir, a longtime Umno stalwart, in his place. An appellate court almost immediately stayed the decision. It is still being fought out in court.

In another notable case, High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad in November of 2008 freed Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the editor of the internet publication Malaysia Today after the editor was ordered jailed on a series of charges, mainly in connection with a series of scathing editorials and articles that sought to link Najib to the 2006 execution murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, then 28, the jilted lover of Najib's best friend, Abdul Razak Baginda. Two of Najib's bodyguards have been convicted of the murder.

In general, according to a think-tank source in Kuala Lumpur, "Judges in High Court have been giving very independent judgments that have been overturned by the Court of Appeal. So let's wait and see whether this will happen again."

The judges, according to another source, were appointed during the six years when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was prime minister. Badawi in 2003 succeeded Mahathir Mohamad, who had ruled as premier for 22 years and whose reign was notable for his emasculation of the country's judiciary. Lau Bee Lan was one of Badawi's appointees, in December of 2004, as was Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim.

Although Badawi was roundly criticized for appointing Zaki Azmi, a former UMNO lawyer, as chief justice, Zaki has evolved into an effective jurist, a Kuala Lumpur source said, making strides to clean up a backlog of cases and engineering the appointment of independent judges.

"It was one of the few things [Badawi] did do right," said a Malay businessman in Kuala Lumpur. "For once - after two decades - even the Bar Council is becoming optimistic about the judiciary. But there's still a lot of rot left over from Mahathir to clean up. It's a daunting task."

Mahathir's subjugation of the judiciary began in 1988 amid an intraparty revolt against Mahathir's leadership of the United Malays National Organisation, when a Malaysian high court ruled that UMNO was illegal. With the case going to the Supreme Court, now known as the Federal Court which had issued other adverse rulings against the government, Mahathir in effect fired Salleh Abbas, the Lord President, along with three other Supreme Court justices. From that time forward, there were few if any decisions that went against the government.

That ultimately blew up in late 2007 with an enormous scandal with the publication of a videotape that purported to show VK Lingam, an influential lawyer friend of Mahathir's, in conversation with Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, then the country's third-ranking judge who was in charge of most senior judges. The conversation seemed to indicate that Mahathir was closely involved in the appointment of malleable judges favorable to the then-prime minister's closest cronies, particularly gaming tycoon Vincent Tan. Syed Hamid, the Shah Alam High Court judge who ordered Raja Petra freed, was appointed to his position during the reign of one notorious Supreme Court head, Eusoff Chin, who himself was accused of a host of judicial irregularities. The Attorney General in December said Lingam was probably only bragging and declined to prosecute him.

The current case began in January of 2008 when the Malaysian cabinet reinstituted the cancellation of the Roman Catholic newspaper's publishing license for using the word "Allah" interchangeably with "God" in its Malay language section. The Herald, which prints in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Tamil and Chinese, was first notified that it would no longer be allowed to use the word "Allah" on October 18 and November 1, 2007. But after informing the publication of the decision, a representative from the Internal Security Ministry later delivered a letter with the permit to print without restrictions, the publication's editor, Father Lawrence Andrew, told the media at the time.

The permit was withdrawn, however, a week later, when the ministry approved the paper's publication permit only on condition that the word "Allah" be prohibited and that the paper only be circulated to Christians. The church responded that the Malay-language edition of the paper is mostly read by tribes who converted to Catholicism or other Christian faiths, the preponderance of them in the East Malaysia states of Sabah and Sarawak, and that no other word would suffice to describe the deity.

Numerous religious scholars have pointed out that since Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same god, calling the deity "God" in English means exactly the same thing as calling him "Allah" or "Yahweh" in other languages.

The issue has become intensely political, however, with Malaysia's increasingly assertive fundamentalist Muslims concerned that the Christians are proselytizing Malays in an effort to lure them away from Islam.

In her decision, Justice Lau, however, said the federal constitution allows the church to use "Allah" in the Herald as an exercise of its right to practice religions other than Islam. The constitution, she ruled in an oral opinion, gives the church "the right to use the word 'Allah' in the Herald in the exercise of his right to freedom of speech and expression."

Critics have charged that Justice Lau is a Christian, which influenced her decision. One website stated that she takes at least 15 days per year to teach Bible studies throughout the country. Others have pointed out that if the case had been passed to a Muslim judge, the chance for influence was as great if not greater.

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I truly do not know what is becoming of this pariah country. It is truly going to the point of no return. It is beyond redemption.

Even the most fanatical Muslims, even the most populous Muslim nations, even the most Arabic Muslims do not claim that the name "Allah" is solely for the use of Muslims. And here umNO-nazi party Malays want to do just that. May I suggest they go copyright the word to be solely used only umNO-nazi party Malays? And go on a crusade against the Christians Arabs who have been using the world even before Islam came into being.

Oh! Allah the Almighty, will You give these people real brain cells to think and reason. Give them some brain cells so that they can learn Your wisdom. I pray to You Almighty Allah. Amen.

Christian Love of Allah

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo650897.htm

Some cultural and religious information for today's picture (not intended to offend).
Quote:
"The photo shows a cross and an Arabic inscription above the entrance of a convent in Coptic Cairo, next to the Hanging Church (al-Muallaqa). Beneath the cross, the inscription says "Mahabbat Allah," which means "Love of God." Many non-Arabic speakers are misled by Western media to believe that Allah is a Moslem god different from the Christian God. In fact, the word Allah in Arabic, simply means "The God" (i.e., with a capital "G") for Christians and Moslems (and Jews too). When Christian Arabs read the Bible and recite prayers, they refer to Allah in much the same way as the Koran and Moslems do. So those in the West who may have occasionally ridiculed Allah have, most likely, done it to their own God..."

May I suggest to umNO-nazi party Malays to send a squad of jihadist bombers to bomb the convent in Coptic Cairo, next to the Hanging Church (al-Muallaqa)?
Or sue the the convent for using the name "Allah".