{"id":1642,"date":"2008-03-30T02:54:24","date_gmt":"2008-03-29T18:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2008\/03\/30\/deaf-goverment-and-limp-members\/"},"modified":"2008-03-30T02:54:24","modified_gmt":"2008-03-29T18:54:24","slug":"deaf-goverment-and-limp-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2008\/03\/30\/deaf-goverment-and-limp-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Deaf goverment and limp members"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We can expect the support from the Indian community for the government to continue sliding downwards if the hearing problem is not rectified. As Lim Kit Siang challenged, would the Gerakan, MCA and MIC ministers and MPs talk &#8220;behind doors&#8221; or openly to demand for release of the 5 people? Or would they continue with their old style?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I think the reps won&#8217;t have any success. They are a minority in the parliment and cabinet. Then, there&#8217;s the matter of the Whip in the parliment as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lim: PM didn&#8217;t get the people<sup>&#8216;<\/sup>s message<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.malaysiakini.com\/news\/80585\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><br \/>\nMar 29, 08 5:30pm<\/p>\n<p>The government&#8217;s refusal to release the five Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) leaders detained under the Internal Security Act is proof that the administration has not heard the &#8220;message&#8221; of the people in the March 8 political tsunami.<\/p>\n<p>This was the view of DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang who criticised Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar for denying the five &#8211; P Uthayakumar, V Ganabatirau, K Vasantha Kumar, R Kengadharan, and M Manoharan &#8211; their freedom.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hamid&#8217;s explanation is <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">completely unacceptable<\/span><\/strong>. (His refusal shows) that the second (Prime Minister) Abdullah (Ahmad Badawi) administration has not really heard the voice of the people in the March 8 political tsunami for change towards a more democratic, accountable, just and progressive Malaysian society,&#8221; he said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Hamid said the government cannot simply react to political parties&#8217; call in releasing Manoharan who won the Kota Alam Shah state seat by a 7,184-vote majority over incumbent Ching Su Chen of Barisan Nasional. &#8220;We have to react towards what is public safety and peace and will make due considerations if there is no threat to national security,&#8221; he reportedly said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">No proof of links<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lim commented that Hamid&#8217;s reluctance to release the detainees is because the ISA detention of the Hindraf quintet last December, was the result of calls by Barisan Nasional component parties and had <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">nothing whatsoever to do with national security<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>After the Hindraf rally on Nov 25, the five were <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">subjected to a slew of charges for sedition and illegal assembly<\/span><\/strong>. They were eventually detained <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">for being linked to terrorist organisations<\/span><\/strong>. However the <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">police or the PM has yet to disclose any proof<\/span><\/strong> of these links.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Having myself being detained twice for a total of 35 months under the ISA, I can vouch that ISA detentions <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">had been used as political instruments<\/span><\/strong> to suppress dissent which have no relationship whatsoever with national security,&#8221; the DAP stalwart asserted. In 1969, Lim was detained under the ISA for 18 months. He was again victim to ISA during Operation Lalang in 1987 and was held without trial for 17 months.<\/p>\n<p>Lim also said that releasing the Hindraf five will serve as a litmus test <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">whether BN component parties will speak up<\/span><\/strong> against the arrogant, undemocratic and unjust policies and attitudes forced on them by Umno Ministers and leaders.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let the immediate and unconditional release of the Manoharan and the other four Hindraf leaders from ISA detention be the first test of MCA, MIC and Gerakan post-March 8 political tsunami.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Firstly, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">whether the MCA, Gerakan and MIC ministers and deputy ministers are prepared to ask the Cabinet next Wednesday to end the ISA abuse and detention of the five Hindraf leaders<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Secondly, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">whether MCA, Gerakan and MIC national leadership are prepared to submit a joint memorandum to the prime minister for the immediate and unconditional release of the Hindraf five from ISA<\/span><\/strong>,&#8221; he challenged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We can expect the support from the Indian community for the government to continue sliding downwards if the hearing problem is not rectified. As Lim Kit Siang challenged, would the Gerakan, MCA and MIC ministers and MPs talk &#8220;behind doors&#8221; or openly to demand for release of the 5 people? Or would they continue with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[119,70,21,133,24],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-dap","tag-gerakan","tag-hindraf","tag-isa","tag-mic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}