MALAYSIA FIVE
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(The Malaysian Insider) - A recent Cabinet member and some of Datuk Seri Najib Razak's senior aides would have found themselves under investigation for homosexual "behaviour" if the government were on a morals campaign, according to a leaked United States diplomatic cable. The cable to Washington from the US embassy here cited the "non-heterosexual behaviour" of an unnamed Cabinet member and Najib aides in its primer for State Department officials to understand the alleged political act of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's Sodomy II prosecution. "Anwar's prosecution is not part of a morals campaign. The GOM does not aggressively target non-heterosexual behaviour; if it did so, a recent cabinet minister, senior staff associated with PM Najib and other prominent citizens linked to the government also would find themselves under investigation," US Ambassador James R Keith said in the diplomatic note to Washington that was leaked by whistleblower site Wikileaks through the Malaysia Today website. The cable did not name the Cabinet minister or Najib's aides. But Ambassador Keith pointed out that the facts of the case against Anwar made it clear that the prosecution was foremost a political act against the Opposition Leader. "The Malaysian government does not aggressively prosecute cases of sodomy; we find record of some 55 cases since 1991, or an average of 3 per year. The vast majority of such cases involve adults assaulting minors," Keith wrote. Keith also reiterated a long held view of the US government that Anwar's original Sodomy prosecution 1999 had been grossly manipulated by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He also pointed out that "keeping in mind Najib and Anwar remain bitter enemies, it is striking that Najib met personally with the complainant Saiful prior to the police report." The US ambassador also noted the involvement of senior politicians in the case as well as the leakage of information. "From the very early stages, the senior-most officials in the government, including then PM Abdullah, current PM Najib, cabinet ministers, the AGO and national police chief (the latter two having played important roles in Anwar's 1998-1999 flawed trials) and officials of the ruling Umno party have been intimately involved in decisions regarding the case, according to Embassy contacts and publicly available sources. "Senior government leaders provided law enforcement information on the case to leaders of Anwar's coalition partner, the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), in an unsuccessful attempt to split PAS from the opposition. A recent internet report claims that the government has provided some government-directed press editors with a 'sneak preview' of evidence against Anwar." The cable appears to have been written in 2009 just before Anwar's trial started. Anwar is currently facing sodomy charges for the second time in his life. He was charged with sodomy and corruption in 1998 after he was sacked from the Cabinet, and was later convicted and jailed for both offences. He was freed in September 2004 and later resurrected his political career by winning back his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat in a by-election in 2008, which had been held in the interim by his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. He later led the loose pact of PKR, the DAP and PAS to a historic sweep of five states and 82 parliamentary seats in Election 2008. |
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Posted: 09 Aug 2011 05:11 PM PDT
 (The Malaysian Insider) - Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) is investigating the organisers of a thanksgiving dinner held on church premises last week for attempting to convert Muslims. Lim Heng Seng, lawyer for 10 of the 12 Muslims present at the "1Malaysia Muhibbah Fundraising Dinner" at Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC), said the department confirmed this in a letter sent today. "Jais informed that they are investigating a case involving the offence of persuading, influencing or inciting a Muslim to change his faith under section 4 of the Non-Islamic Religions Enactment 1988," he said in a statement today, clarifying his client's absence from turning up at the Jais office. Section 4 of the enactment makes it an offence for a person to "persuade, influence or incite" a Muslim to be inclined to any non-Islamic religion, become a follower or member of a non-Islamic religion or forsake or disfavour Islam. Those found guilty of the offence face a jail term not more than one year or a fine of RM10,000 or both. Jais had been responding to a letter from Lim enquiring into the legal provision under which his clients were being asked to report to the state religious authority for "pre-counselling sessions". Jais enforcement officers raided the fundraising dinner last Wednesday night without a warrant after receiving an unspecified complaint, bringing with them a team of policemen. READ MORE HERE |
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Posted: 09 Aug 2011 05:02 PM PDT
 (Harakah Daily) - Muslim scholar Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin said Islam was built upon reason and sound argument, and as such did not need to prove its truth through enforcement agencies. In further remarks following the Selangor Islamic Religious Department's presence at a church dinner function over complaints that there were attempts at propagating Christianity to Muslim guests there, Asri told news portal Malaysiakini that the truth of Islam can be shown using sound arguments and not through preventive enforcement actions to stop Muslims from being influenced by non-Muslims. Saying Muslims in non-Muslim countries especially in the West were active in propagating Islam, Asri drew a comparison. "What if non-Muslim countries such as Thailand, United Kingdom, United States and other European countries decide to take similar action against mosques there?" Malaysiakini quoted him as saying. "We know Muslims there are active in Islamic outreach to non-Muslims at Islamic centres and mosques. Non-Muslims are invited to mosques and given copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature. "If they resort to laws such as ours, surely these mosques would be raided and prosecuted," Asri commented.  'Rethink Islamic education'According to Asri, in a Muslim country like Malaysia, there should not be a situation in which Muslims can be easily swayed by arguments against the religion. On the other hand, Muslims should naturally be able to exert their influence on adherents of other religions, he said. "I'm not questioning JAIS, but we Muslims in Malaysia should think about it. Until when should we depend on laws [to uphold Islam]?" said Asri, who was arrested by JAIS officials in 2009 for giving a religious talk without its permission. "If that is the case, there is a need to re-think Islamic education and propagation," he wrote in his SMS to Malaysiakini. Earlier, the former Perlis mufti trained his gun on Islamic authorities in the country for failing to achieve the objectives of zakat. This he said resulted in desperate Muslims turning to help from churches. Saying zakat offices were luxuriously furnished, Asri said Muslims should not be quick to blame others for trying to win over Muslims when they had themselves failed to help fellow Muslims. |
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Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:53 PM PDT
 Jais telah menyerahkan surat serta menelefon individu-individu terlibat dan mereka sepatutnya memberi keterangan semalam namun gagal berbuat demikian. (Free Malaysia Today) - Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais) akan mengeluarkan waran tangkap ke atas 12 individu Muslim kerana gagal hadir memberi keterangan bagi membantu siasatan berhubung pemeriksaan terhadap Gereja Methodist Damansara Utama (DUMC), Seksyen 13 di sini. Penolong Pengarah Bahagian Siasatan dan Penguatkuasaan Jais, Sharom Maarof, berkata pihaknya akan mengeluarkan waran tangkap terhadap mereka dalam tempoh terdekat ini. Jais telah menyerahkan surat serta menelefon individu-individu terlibat dan mereka sepatutnya memberi keterangan semalam namun gagal berbuat demikian. Tindakan itu katanya diambil selepas mereka enggan memberikan kerjasama walaupun pihaknya sudah menyerahkan surat termasuk menelefon untuk hadir. "Jais akan memohon waran tangkap dalam tempoh 24 jam daripada Mahkamah Syariah selepas surat dikeluarkan hari ini (semalam). Sepatutnya mereka hadir membantu siasatan, tetapi seorang pun tiada," katanya. Pada 3 Ogos lalu, Jais menyerbu gereja DUMC selepas mendapat maklumat ramai orang Islam menghadiri majlis di gereja berkenaan. READ MORE HERE |
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Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:48 PM PDT
 PENNY RED I'm huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight.
This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain's inner cities to go home. Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now?
In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron – who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as 'pure criminality,' as the work of a 'violent minority', as 'opportunism.' This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.
Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there. Unquestionably there is far, far more to these riots than the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting sparked off the unrest on Saturday, when two police cars were set alight after a five-hour vigil at Tottenham police station. A peaceful protest over the death of a man at police hands, in a community where locals have been given every reason to mistrust the forces of law and order, is one sort of political statement. Raiding shops for technology and trainers that cost ten times as much as the benefits you're no longer entitled to is another. A co-ordinated, viral wave of civil unrest across the poorest boroughs of Britain, with young people coming from across the capital and the country to battle the police, is another. Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don't know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"
"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere '''
There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they're paying attention now.
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