It is not in the same league as Arab spring uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere, but Malaysia’s fancifully named “hibiscus revolution” has the potential, at least, to inflict a winter of discontent on the government of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. That’s something British Prime Minister David Cameron hopefully considered when Najib came touting for business yesterday. Bilateral trade and investment is important. Respect for basic human rights more so.
Najib reacted with characteristic heavy-handedness when tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur at the weekend demanding reformasi — democratic reform — and an end to a defective electoral system which guarantees that Najib’s party, UMNO, representing the Malay majority, stays in power indefinitely.
About 1,700 people were arrested and many injured as police used baton charges, water cannon and teargas to break up peaceful protests. One protester, identified as Baharuddin Ahmad, 59, collapsed and later died near the Petronas Towers in central Kuala Lumpur while fleeing teargas.
Amnesty International said police had beaten many demonstrators and demanded an investigation into claims they had failed to provide prompt assistance to Baharuddin.
“Prime minister Najib’s government rode roughshod over thousands of Malaysians exercising their right to peaceful protest,” Amnesty said. “This violent repression ... flies in the face of international human rights standards and cannot be allowed to continue. David Cameron should tell prime minister Najib that these human rights violations are unacceptable.”
The protests are the product of rising tensions linked to mooted early elections, spending cuts, political upheavals in neighboring Thailand and Singapore, establishment cronyism, curbs on public assembly and debate, and state-imposed censorship considered draconian even by regional standards.
Marimuthu Manogaran of the Democratic Action party, representing the ethnic Chinese minority, said many of the protesters were first timers. “Young people [are] coming out there to demand their rights ... and I think that is a good sign for Malaysia,” he told Luke Hunt of the Diplomat magazine.
Another report, denied by police, said a hospital where protesters had taken refuge was attacked by security forces. Bersih 2.0, the opposition “coalition for clean and fair elections,” called for a royal commission of inquiry and vowed to continue its reformasi campaign, come what may.
Far from admitting fault, Najib has threatened more strong-arm tactics.
“Don’t doubt our strength. If we want to create chaos, we can. UMNO has three million members. If we gather one million members, it is more than enough. We can conquer Kuala Lumpur,” he said.
Such threats seem ill-advised. When elected in 2009, Najib promised to bridge political, ethnic and religious divisions. Now he is in danger of exacerbating them, as his old boss, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammed, suggested in a recent interview.
Malaysia is not immune to the international zeitgeist, any more than its economy is immune to global trends. This latter consideration explains why Najib is in London and it gives Cameron and other European leaders leverage should they choose to use it.
Malaysians need only look north to see how Thai voters defied the political-military establishment and voted in a leader of their choice. If Malaysians look south to Singapore or east to Hong Kong, they see entrenched ruling elites under determined challenge by activists emboldened by the spirit of change.
Led intelligently and openly, Malaysia could be a paradigm for south-east Asia. Led repressively, it could fall apart. Najib must get on the right side of history. The Mubarak model doesn’t work.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS