I'M READY TO WHACK SOMEBODY (updated)

It's only been hours since three Malaysian Appeals Court judges - Balia Yusof Wahi, Aziah Ali and Mohd Zawawi Mohd Salleh - overturned Anwar Ibrahim's 9 January 2012 acquittal and sentenced the Opposition Leader to five years' imprisonment on a 2008 charge of sodomy.

Everybody who's been observing the political soap opera unfold knows Anwar Ibrahim is our best hope for non-violent regime change. That's why he has been singled out for the dubious honor of being the only public figure ever to have been publicly accused of sodomy - not once, but twice since his unceremonious sacking in September 1998.

As finance minister and deputy prime minister under Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar came within an inch of succeeding the long-reigning despot as Umno president (and therefore the fifth prime minister). But in the end he was forced to openly rebel with his battle cry of "Reformasi!" which brought out close to 80,000 street protesters demanding Dr M's resignation, in the turbulent days before Anwar was arrested in his own house on the evening of 20 September 1998 by a balaclava-clad police commando team.

Beaten black-and-blue in police custody by none other than the then Inspector-General of Police, Rahim Noor, Anwar was paraded before a kangaroo court presided over by the late unlamented Augustine Paul, before being sentenced to 15 years in jail on trumped-up charges of sodomy (and abuse of power, just to add salt to gross injury).

Upon his April 2004 release after 6 years languishing in Sungai Buloh prison (and nearly succumbing to arsenic poisoning), Anwar swiftly resurrected his political career by weaving together a formidable opposition coalition comprising his own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which rode a political tsunami of discontent on 8 March 2008 to deprive the (mis)ruling coalition Barisan Nasional of its uninterrupted two-thirds parliamentary majority. Anwar then crowned that achievement by declaring that the newly resurgent opposition coalition (now known as Pakatan Rakyat or the People's Alliance) would dismantle Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) and replace it with Ketuanan Rakyat (Supremacy of the People) if voted into power.

For the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Malaysians, Anwar Ibrahim's idealistic vision of Ketuanan Rakyat was the promise of a political golden age. But for those who had, during Dr M's overlong tenure, fattened themselves off the riches of the land (at the expense of the uninformed masses), the notion of social equality, justice and greater participatory democracy sounded like their own death knell.

Get Anwar, Part Two

Behind the scenes a pernicious plot had been hastily hatched. Even before the fateful election of 8 March 2008, a secret weapon had been planted within Anwar's inner circle in the person of a winsome young man named Saiful Bukhari Azlan who volunteered his help at PKR headquarters in the hectic period leading up to the election. Saiful insinuated his way into Anwar's confidence by serving as his "coffee boy" and personal aide.

It was later revealed (by Malaysia Today) that Saiful Bukhari Azlan was, in fact, godson to Mumtaz Jaafar - former Malaysian athlete and a close associate of Rosmah Mansor. Saiful's estranged father, Azlan Mohd Lazim (Malaysia Today reported) was a long-time Umno go-between with a wide network of political connections. Indeed, Azlan Mohd Lazim was allegedly part of a high-powered Umno mission dispatched immediately after the March 2008 election to woo ambitious members of PAS into teaming up with Umno against PKR and DAP. This devious scheme had the financial backing of the Umnoputra elite - Malay entrepreneurs who had made billions with a little bit of help from Dr M and his finance minister Daim Zainuddin.

Even more shocking, the controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin asserted (again in Malaysia Today, in an article titled "The Real Dalang Behind The Anwar Sodomy Allegation") that it was Shafee Abdullah who masterminded the slimy and sordid 2008 sequel to Anwar's 1999 sodomy trial. 

If that turns out to be true, then Shafee Abdullah gets the award for Greatest Slimeball Of All Time. Imagine the ruthless cunning it takes to set up Anwar even before the March 2008 election - and then six years down the line to get himself appointed freelance prosecutor by nefarious arrangement with another contender for the same award, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail - the chief prosecutor who sent Anwar to jail in 1999.

With all the dramatic shifts happening around the world since 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn - financial meltdowns and devastating hurricanes and regime change occurring wherever you look - the indefatigably evil Attorney-General Gani Patail persists in pursuing the non-issue of whether Saiful Bukhari Azlan had his anus enlarged by Malaysia's popular PM elect. If only he had shown the same zeal in bringing to justice the cold-blooded killers of "that Mongolian woman" Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Well, I'm telling you, Mr Pink Lips: it's no use keeping up pretenses. You just don't cut it - not even as a crime minister - you are totally uninspiring and are saddled with way too much karmic baggage (especially in the grotesque shape of your obnoxious, witchy wife). And as for Dr Mahathir's Umno Baru... it has already transformed itself into Umno Basi (stale) and/or Umno Busuk (stinky).

Meanwhile, vile and pernicious maneuvers by ultrarightwing Umno-sponsored NGOs and religious goon squads like Jakim have issued oppressive decrees in the name of Allah, about the name of Allah.

Ultra-jingoist Utusan Malaysia goes unchecked, unreprimanded, and unpunished when it willfully goes on an orchestrated rampage in an attempt to reactivate dormant racial and religious tensions.

And provincial Umno loudmouths like Nazri Aziz, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, and Khairy Jamaluddin continue to swagger around in their own swiftly evaporating mudholes, making laughing-stocks of themselves and accelerating the inevitable extinction of race-based political parties.

Add to the mix the ritual slaughter of chickens in public places, the smearing of sacrificial blood on a poster of Chinese opposition leaders; the hurling of pork into mosque compounds; threatening critics with tiresome displays of wagging buttocks. Outsourcing the dirty work to rabid abnomalies like Ibrahim Ali and Ridhuan Tee, Umno regresses into the abysmal depths of depravity, falling back on feudal arrogance, anachronistic tyranny, and violent territoriality. .

More than five years ago Anwar handed the Anti-Corruption Commission documentary evidence that former IGP Musa Hassan and AG Gani Patail were involved in falsifying evidence to convict him of sodomy in 1998. So what has become of the investigation? We don't hear a thing. Nobody has been sacked and both have disappeared into their wormholes.

How about private investigator Balasubramaniam Perumal and his family? How convenient that Bala died of a heart attack just as he was ready to embark on a road show to tell his version of the macabre Altantuya saga. Are Bala's widow and their children still living in constant fear of secret police harassment? Who paid for their upkeep in Chennai? - and what did it take to silence Deepak Jaikishan, Rosmah's erstwhile "fixer"? Anyone remember Lingamgate? I certainly do... but I don't see anything being done about the terrible shape the judiciary is in, after Mahathir turned it into a weapon against his political opponents.


I'm not the only one who would love to throw a whole bunch of banana peels in front of Zahid Hamidi, archnemesis of Ultraman. And I'm sure I could raise a posse to capture Taib Mahmud and tar and feather him. I'd like to see Najib Razak led away in handcuffs for being such a terrible liar and hypocrite.

As for all those Status Quoists who still insist Umno/BN was "given a mandate" to rule for another four years - and who think Anwar should concentrate on strengthening the Opposition Coalition from behind bars - nothing short of the Japanese bamboo torture will suffice.

[First posted 29 September 2008; updated 8 March 2014]

Malik Imtiaz reports on what happened at the Putrajaya Federal Court last week...

Counsel Malik Imtiaz on RPK Habeas Corpus Appeal

PART 1


PART 2


The legalistic charade continues tomorrow. But let's pray that there are still enough honest judges left in the Malaysian judiciary to halt the march of unmitigated evil. Justice demands that RPK be free to speak his truth and defend his writings in an open court.

See you at the Federal Court Monday, 23 Feb 2009!

[Video courtesy of Pahlawan Volunteers, posted on 18 February 2009]

Morituri Te Salutant, Malaysia!

THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE YOU, MALAYSIA!


Late last night, a group of us met up and, very quickly, the conversation turned to RPK’s ‘Probably my last message’ post.

The discussion became very heated.

Tempers flared.

At the heart of all that was said was an earnest concern for a man who has come to mean so much to so many of us.

A man who has thus far displayed such tenacity in pushing for change, in pressing for greater transparency and accountability in governance, and tirelessly working to free so many from the mental bondage inflicted by a media so long subservient to their corrupt, political masters.

Yet, we feared that it was this same tenacity that would leave our friend dead in less than two weeks.

[Read the rest at Haris Ibrahim's blog, The People's Parliament.]


Monday, 23 February 2009 marks the day the would-be Malaysian emperor Najib Abdul Razak gleefully awaits word that his wishes have been faithfully carried out and that his archenemy, Raja Petra Kamarudin, would have his freedom curtailed under the grotesque operation of an obscene and archaic law, by order of an utterly despicable and unscrupulous home minister named Syed Hamid Albar.

Raja Petra Kamarudin - the only truly royal and noble personage in our midst in that he wholeheartedly loves his country and all its people, regardless of ethnic origin or cultural imprint - has vowed that, if he be rearrested under the obnoxious ISA, he will not let his persecutors have the pleasure of encaging his spirit. Instead, he will refuse all food and drink and sit silent in his cell until his soul separates from his physical body; and by those ascetic and non-violent means he will set himself forever free.

Is it any wonder that Raja Petra Kamarudin (or RPK as everybody calls him) has won the hearts of all honest, truth-loving citizens; and has become Malaysia's greatest living hero, mobbed by fans wherever he goes? RPK's indefatigable support for Anwar Ibrahim and the Pakatan Rakyat government in the making helped swing the votes against Barisan Nasional on 8 March 2008. A large portion of the credit for the political tsunami of 2008 therefore goes to RPK - and that is precisely why the nefarious Najib Razak and his Umno supporters want RPK safely locked away.

Would it trouble Najib's conscience if RPK died within a couple of weeks of being reimprisoned? Not at all. However, if this scenario were to happen in the coming weeks, RPK's may not be the only death that symbolizes the death of participatory democracy in Malaysia. A handful of RPK's loyal friends and ardent freedom-fighters have sworn to accompany him on his fast-to-the-death, in protest against the travesty of justice brought about by a neutered judiciary, subservient to the political order of the day.

This would focus international attention on the tattered state of justice in Malaysia and put the spotlight on Najib Razak's immense unpopularity as a potential prime minister, making his bid for power an accursed and illegitimate one in the eyes of the rakyat.

I salute the courage and fortitude of those who are about to lay down their lives for freedom, justice and truth in Malaysia. And I spit upon the cowardice of those who continue to carry out unjust orders rather than risk their jobs by making a moral stand at this critical juncture of our history.

Why the home minister is coming down hard on ISA protesters

Michelle Yoon, a 22-year-old Malaysian student abroad, posed this pertinent question on her blog, I Am Malaysian:

THE ABOLISH ISA VIGILS: WHAT BRINGS THEM BACK?

Honestly, what brings them back, week after week?

This question, it seems, can be asked to both the public, and the police.

Every week, people still seem to be going back to attend the vigil demanding that the ISA be abolished. What goes on, perhaps those who attend such vigils can tell these stories. And there are plenty out there who do.

But every week, the police come to ask these people to disperse. Every week, that is, since November 10th last year.

[Read the whole post here.]

I LEFT A LONG COMMENT ON HER BLOG, THEN DECIDED I OUGHT TO RECYCLE IT AS A BLOGPOST. SO HERE IT IS...

Michelle, I'm sure you're aware we have a terribly benighted and insecure home minister who's only a first-generation Malaysian citizen. His father arrived from Indonesia and created a political niche for himself by becoming a rabid jingoist and espousing Ketuanan Melayu (even though he was in truth a Yemenite Hadhrami).*

Well, this guy (whom I prefer to call the Potatohead Gestapoman for obvious reasons) has taken the rakyat's defiance as a personal insult - especially since his ill-advised attempt to do a Mahathir and nab three people under the ISA on 12 September 2008. His heavy-handed move backfired, as to be expected. Instead of cowering in fear the rakyat let out a deafening roar of outrage while the whole world shook its head sadly or sniggered, seeing Malaysia's international standing go down the chute so tragically.

Potatohead had been instructed by the Umno Supreme Council to silence Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), and his botched attempt to block Malaysia Today yielded only a harvest of hysterical giggles from around the blogosphere. So he signed an order to detain RPK for two years.

RPK was out in two months - thanks to a sharp legal team who convinced the judge that the home minister had gravely erred on procedure and had, in fact, grossly abused his power. More embarrassment!

With RPK walking free and leading the rakyat's call to abolish once and for all the repugnant ISA, these weekly candlelight vigils took on an almost religious aura as churches, temples, and folksingers were galvanized into hosting these community events where kindred spirits could meet and network, creating robust, organic interfaces between the virtual and actual world.

Unless nipped in the butt (I mean clipped in the bud) these Abolish-the-ISA gatherings would soon spread like candlefire across the nation and eventually attract thousands - because they were so sweet and significant and Malaysians were always at their lovable best at these rallies.

Everybody except Umno knows the Ketuanan Melayu party is on its last legs. The only weapon it has left is its control of the Polis Di Raja Malaysia and Petronas. The Hindraf protest of 25 November 2007 has shown that teargas and watercannons are a sheer waste of money (didn't stop people from marching by the thousands) and they make the police look really bad. In fact EVERYTHING they do - or don't do - makes the police look bad.


The only thing that can improve their image is if all the uncorrupt officers staged an overnight coup and arrested all their senior officers who have been accepting bribes from criminal syndicates and who were promoted mainly because they performed dirty tricks and broke the law on behalf of Dr M.

Anyway... these days it's hard to tell apart the Umno government and the PDRM. They appear to be run by the same bunch of hardcore crooks. In their puny brains they have computed that once the ISA is abolished by popular demand, people will feel free to express their true feelings. That will ultimately result in all the races realizing they share a common destiny and possess similar values and, in fact, pretty much desire the same things in life. Ketuanan Melayu will become irrelevant and nonsensical, along with the purulent source of this poison, Umno.

The ISA (they imagine) is their lifeline and insurance against being totally obliterated by the forces of evolution. In effect, Umno in its dementia senilis, perceives these harmless middle-class folks gathering every week with lighted candles as specters of its own imminent demise. They imagine people are celebrating the death of Ketuanan Melayu (any decent human being would, so what? :-)... which means, essentially, the end of THE REIGN OF ROBBER BARONS!

That, my dear, just about sums it up. Burrrp.

_____
*Syed Jaafar Albar was named by Tunku Abdul Rahman as one of the key conspirators behind the gory May 13 coup d'etat.

VIGILUS INTERRUPTUS... AGAIN!*

PJ Potluck Party Pooped by Potatohead Gestapomen...

Ooops... wrong party! There's no beach in Petaling Jaya...

Sorry... NOT this party either. Can't seem to find any photos of the 15th Candlelight Vigil in PJ...

The Selangor Police heard the Rakyat were illegally assembling in PJ to celebrate the People's Victory at KT with a Potluck Party, so they immediately sprang into action...

Protected by helmets & shields, they were ready to risk their lives preventing another riot. The cops were out of luck. They found no pot on the Potluck Party's pro tem leaders :-(

The Home Minister had issued clear instructions that the public cannot assemble in public places without a police permit.

There was to be STRICTLY no lighting of candles (better that people curse the dark!)

Above all, people are not supposed to have fun in public!

Then... and only then... will peace prevail in PJ.

Now... turn the other cheek!

[This blogpost inspired by STEEST!]

KEEPING THE FAITH ~ Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

Keeping The Faith

By Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

Over the weekend, the blogosphere was filled to the brim with posts and comments concerning Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy’s decision to release Raja Petra.

Many expressed surprise at the Judge having had the fortitude to rule as he did, going against the grain not being the easiest of options. Some were unfeelingly dismissive of the decision and its significance to Petra and his family, and to society as a whole. One of the theories advanced was that the decision to release Petra was engineered by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as part of a campaign of political maneuvering against Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak. Others cynically suggested that it was typical of the lawyers involved, myself included, to have made self-servingly positive statements concerning the Judge and the decision as we had won the case.

These comments made me wonder. Have we really been so thoroughly wrung that all hope and optimism have been bled from us? Are we so broken that we are incapable of appreciating the tiny and not so tiny miracles that happen in our lives every day?

Last Friday, as the first sob of joy escaped captivity in a courtroom that had been stilled by uncertainty, as the first tears of redemption rolled down cheeks that had been numbed by countless disappointments, I was reminded again that it is our collective faith in what is right that has consistently forged the way forward. As the cheers erupted from the many Malaysian throats present, and the Judge attempted to restore order, I understood that as our ties together as a community have strengthened so too has that faith. I saw, as Alice Walker pointed out recently to Barack Obama, it is we who we have been waiting for.

It does not matter what those who scoff say, justice was done last Friday.

No matter what we call it or how we dress it up, detention without trial is cruel. Stripped of everything, a human being has only his or her dignity and conscience. It is to these most fundamental of elements that the right to fair trial and the presumption of innocence speak. It is these elements that preventive detention aims to destroy. They are torn apart in the same way that the lives of those detained and their families are.

The due process of law ensures that the number of people who get shut away erroneously is small. A person charged with a crime in this country has at least two tiers of appeal. His conviction would have been scrutinized at least three times by several judges. A person detained without trial is detained with the stroke of a pen wielded by a Minister who is presumed to be objective enough to do what he needs to do in a way that ensures there is no possibility of error.

Where is justice? If the reasoning of the Minister is to be accepted, it does not enter the picture.

The Minister contends that detentions are a matter left by the law entirely to his subjective discretion. This means, he reasons, if he decides that an individual is a threat to national security, a court has no option but to accept this as a truth. This being the case, there is no need for the Minister’s conclusion to be justified. Extrapolating this analysis, the Minister is not required to argue that the justice of the case favours continued detention without trial. Justice is as such not a feature of the analysis and injustice an irrelevant consideration.

The Judge obviously felt otherwise. His observation, made in the course of his reasoning, that the law could not be understood as empowering the Minister to arbitrarily detain individuals for reasons that had nothing to do with the statute such as, for instance, simply having red hair, was illuminating.

Was his reasoning correct? I would like to think so. The Judge merely applied the law as framed by the legislature and in doing so gave expression to the intention of the drafters of the law: limiting preventive detention to the kind of exceptional “terror” situations described. The Federal Court may however take a different view, just as it may of the points of submission we made that the Judge disagreed with. We will get to argue these again if an appeal is lodged.

Was I happy that the Judge decided the way he did? I would have been foolish not to be, not least for Petra being reunited with his family. Do I think positively of this Judge? Most certainly for having shown me that it is not audacious for any of us to hope as we do. Would I have been disappointed if we lost? I would have but far less than if the Judge had not given us the excellent hearing he did. As we left court on the day we presented arguments, all of us understood that we had had the hearing that all of us wanted: a fair one.

And to those who suggest that the Judge was influenced, I say this. You do a disservice to yourself and to this nation. Had you been in court, you would have seen as we did a Judge keeping the faith.

[Malik Imtiaz Sarwar was counsel to Raja Petra Kamarudin. He is the current President of the National Human Rights Society and maintains a blog called Disquiet.]

EYEWITNESS REPORT: Orc Attack @ The PJ Uncivic Center

"None are more hopelessely enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Had a brand new pack of 6 candles ready & an improvised windproof holder, but arriving at Amcorp Mall around 9:15 I saw no activity on the padang. People were gathered in front of the Mall and it was great to be greeted immediately by a few fellow bloggers who recognized me. That's the nicest feature of physically attending these community events - every face you see, even if you haven't been introduced, is already a friend.

Of course a few could be undercover Mat Rempit, SB officers, or plainclothes defectives - I mean detectives - but they are easily sniffed out. Look out for the tell-tale signs: no sign of human vitality behind those humorless eyes. I bear them no ill will because their minds have been implanted during their rigorous and inhuman training, and the poor fellows had their empathy circuits removed so they are quite incapable of independent thought and lack human biofields. One could easily mistake them for Orcs or Uruk-hai .

Haris Ibrahim suddenly appeared and, this being our very first physical meeting, I just had to give him a big hug for inspiring so many with his gigantic spirit and outstanding mind.

Got a call from a friend who said the cops had forced her to turn back at a roadblock, so she decided to go home. She added that a few other buddies were with RPK at a club further down the street so I decided it would make my 3-hour commute to PJ worthwhile if I at least got to say hello to the national superhero in person. True enough, there he was, looking mellow and benign, a digital-age version of man-for-all-seasons Sir Thomas More, being interviewed by a couple of people with videocams. When they finished I gave him a very heartfelt hug (I've only met RPK once before, briefly, in 1999 when he was coordinating the KeADILan website, but after I dropped a hint he did remember our meeting).

Magnificent Marina was there too but got only a quick hug from me because Polis patrol cars were cruising up & down and the crowd started walking slowly towards the PJ Civic Center. Decided to WALK WITH RPK (literally) and when I got to the Civic Center, the Red Helmets were already lined up and beating their shields to scare people. Polis sirens were wailing just for effect. It appeared they had been instructed to intimidate & terrorize the peaceful rakyat gathered there simply because we value democracy and love this nation too much to allow it to be turned into a pirates' lair by a bunch of Scumno scoundrels.

I could sense the FRU guys pumping up their adrenaline - and for a moment thought it would be wise to not linger. But RPK was speaking under a cluster of yellow balloons and I moved closer to hear him describe what an emotional torture it is for some ISA detainees who don't even get one visit from family in 3 months - because the families are too poor or live too far to make regular trips to Kamunting.

We felt a ripple of aggression emanating from the Red Helmets - some Polis officer must have received a call with instructions to nab a truckload of law-abiding taxpayers just to show the Rakyat you can't mess with the Biggest Bodoh in Bodohland. A voice said, "Let's sing Negaraku before we disperse!" and with surprising sweetness & authentic sincerity, the national anthem was sung wholeheartedly by the 250-300 souls gathered around RPK. Before we could finish, I heard batons banging on shields and knew the Red Helmets were about to charge.


"Let's split," I said to my companion, "it's rather inconvenient to spend the night in the copshop!" As we turned to walk away, what sounded like Orcs on the rampage reached our ears. I turned around and saw the crowd being shoved around like waters in a lake being churned up by a descending helicopter. Good thing I was wearing a black shirt over my red No Holds Barred T-shirt. I remembered to blow out my candle so as not to draw unwanted attention and vanished into the shadows between some large bushes and then got back onto the path leading towards the main road. I could hear harsh voices and the sound of batons smashing on shields (or heads, I couldn't be sure and wasn't inclined to turn around and find out).

We managed to get safely back to New Town and found a coffee shop still open - a few of my friend's friends were already there. They, too, had been at the vigil and were outraged and shaken at the unnecessarily violent turn it had taken.

Home minister Hamid Albar vehemently denied any knowledge of the heavy-handed Polis action until this morning. What an incompetent home minister, to be entirely clueless about an event so politically significant - and to have so little control over the behavior of his own Polis force! Deserves to be sacked on the spot! Everybody knows that only a couple of days ago Hamid Albar suffered the humiliation of being ticked off by an honest judge, when the home minister was accused of abusing his power and bending the law to malicious and partisan political ends. It was nothing less than a public slap in his fat face.

No doubt the Usual Suspects were frothing at the mouth because RPK had the audacity to even exist - what more as a free man and evidently the most beloved, respected and celebrated Son of Malaysia!

Within 15 minutes I was receiving SMSes filling me in on the details - two DAP MPs pulled in (heard Tony Pua and Lau Weng San had been roughed up). Abolish-the-ISA activist Angela Ooi nabbed, along with a Malaysiakini videographer, and around 20 others, including Ashok Kandiah, a member of the legal team that had sprung RPK on Friday. One guy had apparently made a run for it but was chased by eight Red Helmets who knocked him down and pinned him to the ground before whacking him up. Now this is what the public would like to see being done to child rapists, snatch thieves and kidnappers - not to peace-loving citizens doing their democratic duty; assembling to call for the repeal of a tyrannical & oppressive law by lighting candles and singing the national anthem.



This video reveals that the red-helmeted Orcs not only failed to show respect for the national anthem by standing to attention - they actually attacked unarmed citizens in the middle of expressing their patriotism and rudely clobbered some of them, arresting others. I know a few of us did sing Negaraku offkey but is there a law that says the punishment is to be kicked in the stomach and truncheoned in public? Selangor Chief Police Officer Khalid Abu Bakar stated that those arrested were wearing red and yellow T-shirts. I know those are the colors of the Selangor state flag - but since when has it been a crime to wear those colors on a Sunday night?

What now, Malaysia? From Bodowiland to Mahathirville via Najibia? Or will the Sun break through the clouds sooner than we expect, signalling a New Dawn?

My apologies to the canine kingdom

Those of you who have been reading recent posts on this blog will know I've been poking fun at Malaysian home minister Syed Hamid Albar by comparing him to a bullmastiff. And when MP Teresa Kok complained about being served "dog food" during her week in ISA detention, I extended the canine metaphor to the entire police force - who appear to be so limited in intelligence they can't distinguish between a political party and the government of the day.

And so they end up carrying out the criminal orders of their corrupt political masters in Umno, even when these orders are detrimental to the interests of the nation and utterly ruinous to the professional reputation of the police force itself.

Case in point: two members of the Unit Tindakan Khas (Special Action Unit) have been on trial for over a year, accused of murdering the 28-year-old Mongolian paramour of both Abdul Razak Baginda and Najib Abdul Razak. Despite the latter's vehement denials that he ever met "the Mongolian woman" (he has never dared to utter her name in public, not even when swearing in a mosque during the Permatang Pauh by-election campaign), the facts indicate otherwise.

After all, Altantuya Shaariibuu was in Paris with Razak Baginda during negotiations on the French submarine deal which earned his company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, a staggering RM534.8 million commission. It has been established beyond doubt that Najib Razak, in his capacity as defence minister, was also present in France at the time and was personally involved in the 1.4 billion euro deal. To deny that he knew Altantuya stretches the boundaries of credibility.

Especially when Najib has been caught out on more than one occasion telling a bare-faced lie: for instance, when he initially denied knowing Anwar's accuser, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and subsequently admitted to having invited Saiful to his residence several days before the police report alleging sodomy was lodged.

Now there is absolutely no way any member of the police force will undertake to murder a foreign national in cold blood - unless acting on specific instructions from their superiors. In this instance, the commanding officer could only be DSP Musa Safri, ADC in charge of security to DPM Najib Razak. In his affidavit (which has yet to be admitted in court as evidence), Razak Baginda states that Musa Safri was assigned to assist him in resolving the Altantuya "nuisance." Musa then introduced Razak Baginda to Inspector Azilah Hadri and Korporal Sirul Azhar Umar, which led to the UTK officers staking out the hotel where Altantuya Shaariibuu was staying with her cousin and friend. Altantuya was last seen alive entering a car driven by Insp. Azilah Hadri on the evening of 19 October 2006.

The fact that DSP Musa Safri, Rosmah Mansor and Najib Razak have managed to avoid being subpoenaed as key witnesses in the Altantuya murder trial incriminates the entire Umno/BN government as accessories to a cover-up of gargantuan proportions.

This is where our rebel prince Raja Petra Kamarudin comes in, both guns blazing, to blow away their cover. He puts his own neck on the chopping block by signing a statutory declaration on 18 June 2008 and publishing it on Malaysia Today for the whole world to read. Raja Petra minces no words in his SD: Rosmah Mansor, wife of deputy prime minister Najib Razak, was present at the crime scene along with others named as Lt. Col. Aziz Buyong and his wife Lt. Col. Norhayati Hasan. Both parties named are attached to Mindef's Engineering Corps and Aziz Buyong is an explosives expert, while Norhayati Hasan is reportedly a personal aide to the defence minister's wife.

What are the police doing about this explosive information? Right now they are busy grilling 25-year-old rapper Wee Meng Chee aka Namewee, producer of Negarakuku, the satirical video more than a million Malaysians have seen on YouTube. Earlier today, they were busy transferring Raja Petra to Kamunting to begin a two-year detention under Section 8(1) of the Internal Security Act.

I APOLOGIZE TO THE CANINE KINGDOM FOR HAVING ASSOCIATED DOGS WITH THE HOME MINISTER AND HIS POLICE FORCE.

Dogs are loyal and serve as watchdogs, we all know. But some dogs are capable of great courage, nobility and intelligence. They are also very lovable and make excellent companions. Such qualities, alas, appear to be completely absent from Syed Hamid Albar and the PDRM. Indeed, judging from their recent behavior, it may be more appropriate to compare them with carrion-eating, cowardly hyenas.


[Dissected hyena images from Ask Doctor Vector]

Is Syed Hamid Al-BARK and No-BITE?

Not too long ago I left a comment on somebody's blog comparing our clownish home minister, Syed Hamid Albar, to a bullmastiff. Turns out there may be more than a little truth in that remark made in jest. The home minister, after all, is ultimately responsible for the behavior of our police force and the way our "correctional facilities" are managed. There is absolutely no way Hamid Albar can escape being fully accountable for the thuggish tendencies of our infamous PDRM - and the bad rep the police have gained from long-standing reports of inhuman treatment of detainees. To date, these horror stories of ill-concealed sadism and various forms of psychopathological misbehavior encountered by anyone unfortunate enough to be arrested by the Malaysian police have mostly been limited to those of dark complexion, "low social standing," and those unfortunates detained without trial under the diabolical ISA.

If Teresa Kok's complaint is proven to be true - and I see no cause for her to lie about something like that, knowing her excellent track record for candor and frankness - it is evident that the level of psychosis within the home ministry has now reached alarming proportions. YB Teresa Kok is a respected and greatly admired Member of Parliament - not a snatch thief, kidnapper, rapist or bank robber. This is not to imply that it's all right to mistreat prisoners of lesser social status. Every human being deserves to be valued and treated with civility and compassion - even those suspected of serious crimes and venomous villains like that Javanese Toyol who keeps escaping from his botol and raising hell.

I shudder to think what hideous discomforts and distresses poor RPK may be enduring even as I type these words. His predilection for raw language notwithstanding, Raja Petra Kamarudin is a Yang Mulia, a member of the Selangor Royalty, albeit reputed to be a bit of a maverick. RPK has made extremely serious allegations against certain Umno warlords. Instead of investigating the truth of RPK's courageous accusations, the police have further justified public resentment against the Umno/BN government with their senseless flurry of political arrests.

Ten years ago, what police chief Rahim Noor did to sacked and arrested deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim while he was blindfolded and handcuffed was an act of unpardonable cowardice, compounded by the ugliest species of malice. Rahim Noor initially lied about the whole thing but when a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the shameful affair caught him out, the IGP said he lost his temper because Anwar called him Bapak Anjing (The Dogfather). Other witnesses present during the vicious attack testified that all they heard Anwar say was "Stop hitting me!" Rahim Noor's "Freudian slip" reveals that deep down these rabid cops are ashamed of their own canine lineage, which is why they fear and hate dogs so intensely. Think about it: what other species is so unquestioningly loyal to their masters?

As home minister as well as prime minister at the time, Mahathir Mohamad has yet to be held accountable for suggesting Anwar inflicted the black eye on himself just to gain public sympathy. It is reasonably certain that an attempt was made to kill Anwar slowly by arsenic poisoning while he was in prison. The Umno/BN government is not only corrupt and inept - it is also deplorably cruel and, occasionally, even murderous. We are morally bound to demand that the ISA be abolished and all political detainees be unconditionally released from custody with immediate effect. By extension we are also morally bound to INSIST that Umno/BN surrenders the reins of government to whoever commands the majority of seats in Parliament - without resorting to barbaric acts of sabotage, just to cling on to power misappropriated from the public.

And if the home minister refuses to heed the surging groundswell of public opinion - local as well as international - and persists in his rabid efforts to keep biting bloggers, government critics, protest organizers and opposition politicians - then we really are left with no option but to go beyond simple castration. We shall have to have him put down with a lethal injection.

Of course, we would greatly prefer that he hands in his resignation without further ado or fuss - and we can hardly expect a public apology from someone of his ilk with such poor pedigree.

This preposterous report in today's Star about the police serving dog food to an honorable Member of Parliament brings to mind a classic story I've retrieved from my blog archives...

THE PURINA DIET
by Hamid Albark

I was at the supermarket buying a large bag of Purina for my dogs and was in line to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog........Duh!

I was feeling a bit crabby so on impulse, I told her no, I was starting The Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care unit with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's in both arms. Her eyes about bugged out of her head.

I went on and on with the bogus diet story and she was totally buying it. I told her that it was an easy, inexpensive diet and that the way it works is to load your pockets or purse with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The package said the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a tall guy behind her.

Horrified, she asked if something in the dog food had poisoned me and was that why I ended up in the hospital.

I said no..... I'd been sitting in the street licking my butt when a car hit me.

I thought the tall guy was going to have to be carried out the door.