Twists And Turns On The Human Rights Trail Some Kuala Lumpur episodes and a fragment of a poem
by D J Muzaffar Tate
Over the last couple of months, the issue of Human Rights has been the subject of a number of events in one form or another in Kuala Lumpur. Some received more publicity than others.
Preface:
If this was true in the nineteenth century, it is just as true today. The latest evidence of this was provided by the successful appeal of the six reformasi activists - now detained for over a year at Kamunting under the ISA - against their arrest and detention. Three judges, including the Chief Justice himself, sitting in the Federal Court in Kuala Lumpur on 27 August found unanimously that the six had been arrested mala fide, were not told the reason for their arrest, and were denied access to their lawyers. In short, they had been denied their rights under the constitution, and had been arrested and detained illegally.
So the six reformasi activists had won their case: but when the judges were asked to issue the order for their release, they replied that they could not do so. Their reason for refusing: the detention had been ordered by the Deputy Home Minister under a provision that gives him the power to do so under another section of the same Act, even though the activists had been illegally arrested and detained in the first place.
To lay people, common sense tells us that such reasoning defies logic. But lawyers (including those for the reformasi detainees themselves) agree that going by the letter of the law, the DPM has that right as the law stands, and that the only recourse is to appeal against that section of the law that empowered the DPM to issue the detention orders. In making the appeal, the detainees’ lawyers will of course use the same arguments that succeeded in the original appeal, and unless the Court of Appeal is going to go against its own judgment, the appeal must succeed. So, legalistically speaking, the detainees are free – but not free to go. Malaysia Boleh! The law is indeed an ass! But even asses are of use to the Government.
Side-stepping the Issue
Once again, SUHAKAM celebrated its birthday and Human Rights Day by holding a two-day conference on 9-10 September at the PWTC in Kuala Lumpur, this time on the theme of human rights and education. Some 400 people attended, drawn – as the organizers told us – from all works of life. Those invited were truly representative of the world of education, including names of distinction and expertise in their particular branches of the profession, and by no means restricted to those who tend to be politically correct. They also included a handful of senior student representatives from upper secondary schools, who were allowed to and did participate fully in the discussions. From this point of view, at least, the seminar promised to be an interesting and fruitful one.
And so it was from several points of view. The Conference was broken into four successive symposiums over the two days. Each symposium covered six topics, each one chaired by a person of authority in the field, and the papers were presented by highly qualified speakers. Since two topics (for obvious reasons of time constraint) were held simultaneously, this meant that in fact no person attending the seminar could cover more than three topics for each symposium. But not to worry. Most topics were of even interest and the only problem was that of deciding which of the two to attend.
The SUHAKAM organizers supplied each participant with a questionnaire seeking an evaluation of the whole proceedings. Was the conference well organized? Yes. Were the papers presented interesting and informative? Generally, yes. Were there too many papers and were the choices difficult to make? Yes and no. The number of papers was justifiable in view of the wide range to be covered, but choices were difficult to make because of competing levels of interest. Perhaps here the main problem was time. All the other questions – was the food good, the refreshments okay, directions easy to follow, conference organizers friendly?, etc, Yes, yes, yes…
The real question is – did the Conference serve any useful purpose? If thought of in terms of a conference on education per se, the conference was stimulating and worthwhile. A number of good points appeared to find general acceptance - that morality is not a classroom subject to be taught, but an ethos to be created by society (including the home and the school) and imbibed. There were many home-truths about teaching methods, about the application of discipline, and the paucity of male teachers in schools. One of the most moving aspects on which light was shed and discussed was the problem of educating the disabled, the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the appalling backwardness of our approach to these problems.
But when considered in terms of the relationship between education and human rights, although this was discussed (and generally agreed that human rights, like morality, was something that had to be inculcated by precept and example and not taught as part of a classroom syllabus), the Conference was less successful. It was the feeling of many of us that in this respect SUHAKAM was essentially side-stepping this main issue, for there can be no progress in human rights in education without, in the first place, the absolutes of human rights being firmly embedded in our national society as a whole.
Priorities And Possibilities
If the SUHAKAM Conference on 9-10 Sept appeared to have fenced around the main issue without actually touching it, another SUHAKAM occasion on 25 Sept held high on the 30th floor of Menara Tun Razak, off the respectable end of Jalan Raja Laut, went more directly to the point. This was a more select gathering consisting of representatives from thirty NGOs invited to attend and to give their opinions as to what the proper priorities of SUHAKAM should be for an action plan for the next three to five years. Once again, the SUHAKAM organizers were not squeamish about inviting people who have established a name for themselves as outspoken critics of repressive government policies and legislation. The meeting was held in an atmosphere conducive to free and frank discussion.
This was not a point that any other NGO representative took up. Someone argued that to take this confrontational approach was unrealistic and impractical under existing conditions, and would get us nowhere.
Several representatives stressed the importance of getting Malaysia to become a signatory to the United Nations main human rights instruments (a copy of which we were all supplied with) as an essential preliminary step.
Others stressed the importance of human rights in education in terms of language and opportunity, including with respect to the physically disabled. The meeting lasted for about two hours.
After these two contacts with SUHAKAM in action, it appears that the commission is staffed by people who understand the issues at stake, and who seem sympathetic and sincere in their desire to see change and improvement in the country’s human rights situation.
However, politics is the art of the possible, and SUHAKAM, whose members are seasoned enough and close enough to the corridors of power to know what the political possibilities in Malaysia at this time are and are not, choose to tread softly and advance little by little. They are willing to listen to complaints and are open to new ideas. But some activists wonder whether this non-confrontational “softly-slowly” approach will get the commission anywhere.
Still, the NGOs should give Suhakam all the moral support that it needs, without sacrificing our own demands and strategies where we consider them to be more effective.
Postscript:
A salutary reminder of what the realities of Human Rights are was provided to the small band of one hundred or so who went to the Chinese Assembly Hall on the evening of 1 Oct to join in a meeting to protest against the refusal by the Government to release the six reformasi activists despite the success of the Federal Court appeal against their arrest and detention. The main guests were the wives and families of the detainees in question.
While the race remains lulled by tales
Needless to say, no mention of this minor but significant episode appeared in the national dailies or on TV the following day.
Now tell us what you think. E-mail us.
|
||||||||||||||||||
The Aliran point of view on human rights that was put forward was simply that the top priority of SUHAKAM must be to secure the right of the citizen to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention without trial. Our position is that as long as the ISA and other repressive legislation against the liberty of the subject remain, any broader discussion of human rights is virtually meaningless.