The Ugly Select Persecution

Injustice is the root cause of the social upheaval, uprising and unrest in the world. In many a case, we saw thousand of innocent people were sacrificed at the merciless hands of the police and military personnel. Yet, the lesson has not been sunk into the skulls of the governmental authorities. History keeps on repeating itself time and again.

Selective persecution is perhaps an euphemism for oppressive action targetted against those who do not toe the line of or who oppose the authority or who pose a threat to the stability of the government, which is intolerant and over-sensitive or reactive to public criticisms.

The UMNO-led government is feeling rather shaky and uneasy at the political strides and inroads made by the Pakatan Rakyat into the strongholds of the BN. It fears that it might lose its traditional rural support and the general election. It will be a shameful exit for the UMNO who have ruled the country for more than five decades since independence in 1957.

Ever since the last general election, the BN Government have been deploying the MACC set up by the outgoing PM Badawi to harass the PR leaders. Some were detained under the ISA while others had been reported to be subject to long hours of interrogation. One of the poitical secretaries by the name of Teoh Beng Hock died while under the detention of the MACC which claimed that he jumped over the window and committed suiside. A world renown Thai pathologist who conducted a post-mortem on the exhumed corpse of Teoh Beng Hock concluded that the demise of Teoh was likely attributed to one of homicide.

Five leaders of HINDRAF were detained under the ISA while one popular DAP lady politican Theresa Kok, a jounalist and Raja Petra Kamaruldin were arrested and since released over the flimsiest fo excuse.

Meanwhile, the Catholics weekly bulletin, Herald, was taken to task for using the word 'Allah'. Resulting from which, its KDN renewal was subject to undue delay until the last day of the year. The case was contested by the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam at the High Court presided by JusticeLau whose verdict found for the Catholic Church.

The ABIM stirred up the religious sentiments of the Muslims on one Friday afternoon immediatley following the court's verdict advocating and demanding for the reversal thereof through the political process. Its members were allowed to demostrate at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur after the mid-noon prayer with placards and banners that contained words and phrases there were racialisically sensitive and provocative. Utusan Melaya, a malay media newspaper, was fanning the fire with undesirable articles one after the other in an attempt to justify why the non-muslims should not be allowed to use the word 'Allah'. Unfortunately no action was taken against these miscreants.

Now the leader of the PR is facing a second charge of sodomy. The first indiction of the same offense was initiated during the premiership of Mahathir. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence. And now the second indictment - the public is just aghast at the way a leader - a human being - is being ill-treated while many of the UMNO leaders who committed worse crimes than sodomy were let off somehow.

This selective persecution is likely to be a hot topic for debate at the coming Hulu Selangor by-election. BN popularity and influence are likely to be affected by this injustice or unjust action(s) against the opposition.

The 1 Malaysia policy of Najib has not been thoroughly appreciated and assimilated by his colleagues. If it refers to unity under one Malaysia, then all and sundries must identify themselves as Malaysia first and then their race second. But this does not seem to be the case when the Deputy PM Muyiddin tried to play up to the gallery of the Malays by saying that he was a Malay first and Malaysian second. Our PM concurred with him. This situation was not well received by the masses certainly. In fact, the public is now questioning whether these two leaders are really sincere about the 1 Maaysian policy or not. By uttering what they did, they have contradicted themselves and causing confusing among the masses.

Now comes the sweetener NEM. Let us see what the UMNO-lead BN do during the next 12 months. Only time will tell whether the NEM does not approximate to that of the NEP which at best be described as a big failure in its efforts to redress economic imbalances among the races and eradicate poverty.

Well, the NEP was subseuently amended in words but not in spirit to the disguised National Development Policy, NDP and now NEM. As I see it, success can only come about if the leaders have the verve, moral courage and will to implement the objectives under the NEM.