A Malaysian human-rights lawyer has filed a US$4 trillion lawsuit against Britain for alleged atrocities suffered by Indians whose forefathers were brought as indentured laborers to Malaysia during colonial rule.
Seeking ?1 million (US$2 million) compensation for each of the currently estimated 2 million Indian Malaysians, the suit was filed in London earlier this month, Ponnusamy Waytha Moorthy told reporters while in Washington on a trip to brief the US Congress and rights groups on the issue.
"The colossal suit reflects the years of pain, suffering, humiliation, discrimination and continuous colonialization under the current Malaysian government," he said.
"It is also to highlight the negligence and failure of the British in not entrenching the rights of the minority Indians in the Constitution when they granted Malaysia independence," he said.
Many Indians were brought to Malaysia from southern India as indentured labor by the British, but their future generations "were left high and dry" when the colonial power left the country, Waytha Moorthy said.
"There has been segregation, discrimination, marginalization and other abuses of Indian Malaysians," he said.
Ethnic Indians and Chinese are minority groups in Malaysia, whose 26 million population is predominantly Malay.
The resource-rich country, which won independence in 1957 from Britain, has blossomed into one of Southeast Asia's top economies.
But Waytha Moorthy said 70 percent of Indian Malaysians were poor, with many in the middle and upper classes of the community migrating overseas.
"The future is bleak and we took this action because we have been pushed to the wall," he said.
Waytha Moorthy is also asking British courts to declare the Malaysian Constitution null and void.
He said he had three months to serve notice of the court action on the named defendant, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
H said that at least one British law firm was considering handling his case on a pro bono basis.
T. Kumar, Amnesty International's Washington-based Asia-Pacific advocacy director, refused to comment on the legal suit but noted that the British colonial power had indeed taken tens of thousands of Indians as indentured laborers to various parts of the globe.
Among the destinations for the laborers were South Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji and Mauritius, he said.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS