Posted on December 28, 2008
Pakatan Rakyat and Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA is planning a massive ‘BERSIH’ – type rally in March, 2009, called MANSUH.
You guessed it.
It’s to call for the repeal of the ISA and the freeing of all ISA detainees.
As a prelude to that massive rally, and with a view to disseminating information, a mini rally is scheduled for tomorrow.
Details appear below.
Venue : Stadium Bandar Baru Bangi
Date : 29th December, 2008
Time : 9-11pm
[…] Launch of MANSUH […]
[…] digress, I’ve had an earlier encounter with W231 at Haris Ibrahim’s blog (here and here) hence was not in the mood to entertain W231’s […]
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The People's Parliament 
Edi神
December 28, 2008
oh la la
there are so many movement against ISA but non seems to be effective at the moment!
sampalee
December 28, 2008
Nothing ever happens unless it is the will of GOD.The mini rellies and the massive one will bear testimony of the Truth in INSYAALLAH
sanjiun
December 28, 2008
Just found the place on the way back from PJ vigil. Easy to go via PLUS highway.
I’ll be there tomorrow!
kkitsam
December 29, 2008
Haris, the direction there is easy. Take the PLUS highway, exit from the Bangi toll. There’s a roundabout right after the toll, take 12 o’clock, go straight a bit and you’ll be able to see the stadium on your right hand side. Make a U-turn at another roundabout in front and you’ll come to the main gate. The name is Kompleks Sukan Bandar baru Bangi, the stadium is inside.
all-in-one
December 29, 2008
Rally time from 9-11pm? I believe its 9-11am, right?
Jeyapalan.T.S.Mahesan
December 29, 2008
Haris Ibrahim,
The Winter Solstice is considered
one of the most powerful times of the year by many cultures around the world.
In the Northern Hemisphere this celestial event
usually occurs on December 21st.
The timing of the solstice this year was
Sunday, December 21, at 7:04 a.m. EST,
4:04 a.m. PST, or 12:04 p.m. Universal Time.
The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year,
and it heralds the initial impulse of the annual return of
the Sun, the Light, to the Earth.
This year the spiritual effects of the solstice
will be more powerful than ever before.
This is due to the incredible influx of Light
that is pouring into the planet through
the heartfelt pleas of people everywhere.
Humanity is experiencing the most intensified
purging of the economic system,
the various other social structures that do not
operate with a consciousness of the highest good
for all concerned, that we have ever endured.
This is a necessary cleansing that is paving the way for the physical manifestation of the patterns of perfection for the New Earth.
The difficult part of this process is that
the masses of Humanity do not see the bigger picture.
Millions of people see only the painful situations
that are happening in their lives.
As a result of this limited perception,
they feel overwhelmed and hopeless.
This is very hard to observe, but it is not all bad.
We became so numb to the discord in our lives
that we just muddled through our Earthly experiences
accepting mediocrity as a natural state of being.
We fell into the terrible habit of using pain as our motivator.
Unless we were writhing in agony,
we did not feel that it would help to take action or
to ask for assistance from our Father-Mother God.
For millions of people on Earth,
prayer and an invocation for Light from
The Divine occurs only
when they are brought to their knees by their life situations.
This is exactly what is happening at this time
for millions of people all over the world.
The Universe is revealing to us
now that more people than ever before
are reaching a critical moment in their life experiences.
Beginning with August 98, when we were BLACKEYED,
We, Malaysians experienced a roller coaster EVOLUTION/RENAISSANCE,
Which completed its cycle March 08.
Consequently, millions of people are asking Divine Intervention.
Many of them are praying for the very first time.
This powerful event,
has created the greatest influx of Light
the Earth has ever experienced during a Winter Solstice.
This Heavenly assistance will greatly empower
the patterns of perfection for the New Earth,
and it will accelerate
our individual hopes and dreams by leaps and bounds.
This event will pave the way for a Victorious New Year.
2009 is going to be a year of miraculous changes.
These changes have been in the works for quite some time,
and now we are going to experience them tangibly in the world of form.
These changes will not happen by chance.
They will occur through the unified efforts of all of us
There are a lot of dire predictions regarding the global economy
and the challenges Humanity is going through,
but we are not the victims of circumstance.
We are the co-creators of our Earthly experiences.
If we do not like the way things are going in our lives,
we have the ability to change our circumstances.
This is what we have been preparing for aeons to accomplish,
and now is the time.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
2009 numerically is an 11 year.
Eleven is the master number that reflects
the transformation of the physical into the Divine.
The archetypes for the patterns of perfection for
the New Earth were securely anchored
into the physical plane in August 2008.
In 2009, through our creative faculties of
thought and feeling,
we will expand these patterns into our daily experiences.
The purging and cleansing of the obsolete behavior patterns
that have caused the maladies existing in Humanity’s lives will continue.
But the wonderful news is,
as these old archetypes crumble away,
the expansion of the patterns of perfection
for the New Earth will begin to manifest in ways
that will bring joy, fulfillment and great expectations
into the hearts and minds of people everywhere.
There is a new sense of hope flooding
through the hearts of people all over this Land/Bumi
Humanity’s hope is magnetizing Legions of Light
from the Realms of Perfection
into the atmosphere of Earth
in ways we have never experienced.
The Divine Intent of these Messengers of The Divine
is to assist Malaysians to move quickly
through the cleansing process
so that the bliss of the New Earth will manifest
in the twinkling of an eye.
2009 is going to be whatever we co-create together.
Do not let this opportunity pass you by.
Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
New Age Study of Humanity’s Purpose
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit educational organization
{unashamedly modified by The Phoenix Foundation}
Godspeed,Haris & Blessings for the New Year!
Jeya
twitch89
December 29, 2008
Dear sir,
If you can, please highlight the current massacre of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip in your blog. Thank you for your kind thoughts.
———————————————————
from http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk
Gaza today: ‘This is only the beginning’
By Ewa Jasiewicz – Free Gaza.org December 27, 2008
As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the house. Apache’s are hovering above us, whilst F16s sear overhead.
UN radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of Al Shifa hospital – Gaza and Palestine’s largest medical facility. Another was a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.
Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts that plunge the city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only perhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their lifetimes.
Over 220 people have been killed and over 400 injured through attacks that shocked the strip in the space 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and unable to cope. These attacks come on top of existing conditions of humanitarian crisis: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity, fuel and freedom of movement.
Doctors at Shifaa had to scramble together 10 make shift operating theatres to deal with the wounded. The hospital’s maternity ward had to transform their operating room into an emergency theatre. Shifaa only had 12 beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.
There is a shortage of medicine – over 105 key items are not in stock, and blood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.
Shifaa’s main generator is the life support machine of the entire hospital. It’s the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and lights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn’t have the spare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red Cross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.
Shifaa’s Head of Casualty, Dr Maowiye Abu Hassanyeh explained, ‘We had over 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the operating theatre, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were sending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital in the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short space of time.’
And as IOF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz said this morning, ‘This is only the beginning.’
But this isn’t the beginning, this is an ongoing policy of collective punishment and killing with impunity practised by Israel for decades. It has seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread, revenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza today. People are all asking: If this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?
11.30am
Myself and Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, had been on the border village of Sirej near Khan Younis in the south of the strip. We had driven there at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief Committees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided villages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents about conditions on the border. Stories of olive groves and orange groves, family farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for Israeli occupation force watch towers and border guards. Israeli attacks were frequent. Indiscriminate fire and shelling spraying homes and land on the front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us the grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would shoot into his fields.
Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile attack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire from resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by the border. Israel had rained rockets and M16 fire back. The family, caught in the crossfire, have never returned to their home.
I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us off our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F16 bombs slamming into the police stations, and army bases of the Hamas authority here. In Gaza City , in Diere Balah, Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit Hanoon.
We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to Gaza City , before jumping out to film the smouldering remains of a police station in Diere Balah, near Khan Younis. Its’ name – meaning ‘place of dates’ – sounds like the easy semi-slang way of saying ‘take care’, Diere Bala, Diere Balak – take care.
Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had soared through a children’s playground and a busy fruit and vegetable market before impacting on its target.
Civilians Dead
The aftermath of Israeli airstrikes
There was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead donkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and splattered blood covered the ground. A man began to explain in broken English what had happened. ‘It was full here, full, three people dead, many many injured’. An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh around his head threw his hands down to his blood drenched trousers. ‘Look! Look at this! Shame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kills us, they are killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are they, we are being killed here, hell upon them!’ He was a market trader, present during the attack.
He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking them up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a small tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his legs were bloodied. He couldn’t get up and was sitting, visibly in pain and shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.
The police station itself was a wreck, a mess of criss-crossed piles of concrete – broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree split the road.
We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four apache helicopters – their trigger mechanisms supplied by the UK ‘s Brighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares – a defence against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.
Turning down the road leading to the Diere Balah Civil Defence Force headquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road. ‘They’ve been bombing twice, they’ve been bombing twice’ shouted people.
We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from what could possibly be target number two, ‘a ministry building’ our friend shouted to us. The apaches rumbled above.
Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work smashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman’s hat, the ubiquitous bright flower patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around 20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverised walls and floors and a motorbike, tossed on its’ side, toy-like in its’ depths.
Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under the rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his Jawwal. ‘Stop it everyone, just one, one of you ring’ shouted a man who looked like a captain. A fire licked the underside of an ex-room now crushed to just 3 feet high. Hands alongside hands rapidly grasped and threw back rocks,
blocks and debris to reach the man.
We made our way to the Al Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the men of entire families – uncles, nephews, brothers – piled high and speeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without interruption.
Hospitals on the brink
Entering Al Aqsa was overwhelming, pure pandemonium, charged with grief, horror, distress, and shock. Limp blood covered and burnt bodies streamed by us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue was a scrum, tens of shouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. ‘They could not even identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who, because they are so burned’ explained our friend. Many were transferred, in ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to Al Shifa Hospital.
The injured couldn’t speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against the outside walls outside, being comforted by relatives, wounds temporarily dressed. Inside was perpetual motion and the more drastically injured. Relatives jostled with doctors to bring in their injured in scuffed blankets. Drips, blood streaming faces, scorched hair and shrapnel cuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area, wards and operating theatres.
We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting downwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.
A first estimate at Al Aqsa hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured. The hospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, playground, Civil Defence Force station, civil police station and also the traffic police station. All leveled. A working day blasted flat with terrifying force.
At least two shaheed (martyrs) were carried out on stretchers out of the hospital. Lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men to the graveyard to cries of ‘La Illaha Illa Allah,’ there is not god but Allah.
Who cares?
And according to many people here, there is nothing and nobody looking out for them apart from God. Back in Shifa Hospital tonight, we meet the brother of a security guard who had had the doorway he had been sitting in and the building – Abu Mazen’s old HQ – fall down upon his head. He said to us, ‘We don’t have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world? Where is the action to stop these attacks?’
Majid Salim, stood beside his comatosed mother, Fatima. Earlier today she had been sitting at her desk at work – at the Hadije Arafat Charity, near Meshtal, the Headquarters of the Security forces in Gaza City. Israel’s attack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, tube down her throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, ‘We didn’t attack Israel, my mother didn’t fire rockets at Israel. This is the biggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work’.
The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched Shifaa hospital are by turns stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We speak to one group. Their brother had both arms broken and has serious facial and head injuries. ‘We couldn’t recognise his face, it was so black from the weapons used’ one explains. Another man turns to me and says. ‘I am a teacher. I teach human rights – this is a course we have, ‘human rights’. He pauses. ‘How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of human rights under these conditions, under this siege?’
It’s true, UNRWA and local government schools have developed a Human Rights syllabus, teaching children about international law, the Geneva Conventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, The Hague Regulations. To try to develop a culture of human rights here, to help generate more self confidence and security and more of a sense of dignity for the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to as a common code of conducted signed up to by most states, and the realities on the ground is stark.
International law is not being applied or enforced with respect to Israeli policies towards the Gaza Strip, or on ’48 Palestine, the West Bank, or the millions of refugees living in camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate from rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary – both here and in Israel ? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by Irael , with Richard Falk the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights held prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported this month – deliberately blinded to the abuses being carried out against Gaza by Israel . An international community which speaks empty phrases on Israeli attacks ‘we urge restraint…minimise civilian casualties’.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet. In Jabbaliya camp alone, Gaza ‘s largest, 125,000 people are crowded into a space 2km square. Bombardment by F16s and Apaches at 11.30 in the morning, as children leave their schools for home reveals a contempt for civilian safety as does the 18 months of a siege that bans all imports and exports, and has resulted in the deaths of over 270 people as a result of a lack of access to essential medicines.
A light
There is a saying here in Gaza – we spoke about it, jokily last night. ‘At the end of the tunnel…there is another tunnel’. Not so funny when you consider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel and medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1000 tunnels running from Egypt to Rafah in the South. On average 1-2 people die every week in the tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education, see their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Others are reportedly big enough to drive through.
Last night I added a new ending to the saying. ‘At the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel and then a power cut’. Today, there’s nothing to make a joke about. As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring the children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take on another twist. After today’s killing of over 200, is it that at the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave?’ Or a wall of international governmental complicity and silence?
There is a light through, beyond the sparks of resistance and solidarity in the West Bank, ’48 and the broader Middle East. This is a light of conscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn a spotlight onto Israel’s crimes against humanity and the enduring injustice here in Palestine, through coming out onto the streets and pressurizing our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and occupation, broadening our call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and for a genuine Just Peace.
Through institutional, governmental and popular means, this can be a light at the end of the Gazan tunnel.
Warrior 231
December 29, 2008
Stop itlah Harris for enough is enough. You have lost the elections nd since you talk about upholding the constitution, you have to respect the decision of the rakyat. The ISA was part of that election package the BN proferred and though reality hurts and frustrates, you have to swallow the “bitter pill” that it is here to saty for the likes of you.
Why not channel your energies elsewhere, like against the bloody israelis who seem to have run riot. No joint communique from Pakatan about the carnage. Mmm…seems that they condone the violent pogrom against the Muslims. But then again you people must be closet ……….. (fill in the dots) and while at it desist towing along little girls and boys for your vigils, mini-demos, maxi-demos whatever unless you people are ………. (fill in the dots again)
Salam Muharram. (Here’s guessing, you will not dare to put this up as usual)
Warrior 231
Warrior 231,
Even if you are right ( and I am not conceding this ) that the majority had voted in favour of retaining the ISA at the last GE, the candlelight vigils, the impending MANSUH rally and all other efforts to communicate our concerns about the abuse of this law is a legitimate exercise of democratic rights.
sampalee
December 29, 2008
Majority equates to right is an inherent weakness in the so called democatic process.If the same rule is adopted for nature,the world would be flat.
nyonya khan
December 30, 2008
Right On Haris! You are focused!
shar101
December 30, 2008
Warrior231,
Excerpts from Mkini in reference to a Pro-ISA rally in Penang –
Many teenagers at the gathering carried banners with slogans written in both Malay and Jawi such as ‘Kesabaran Melayu Ada Batas’ (Malays’ Patience Has Limits), ‘Jangan Hina Nabi Muhammad SAW’ (Don’t Insult Nabi Muhammad), ‘Jangan Pertikaikan ISA’ (Don’t Dispute ISA). ‘Kekebalan Raja Raja Dipertahankan’ (Defend the Royal Immunity), and ‘Jangan Pertikaikan Hak Orang Melayu’ (Don’t Dispute Malay Rights).
Other banners included ‘Melayu dan Mamak Bersatu’ (United Malays and Indian Muslims) and ‘Jangan Ulang 13 Mei’ (Don’t Repeat May 13).
More here – http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/95555
And it was also reported that this same group is advocating for the BN government to consider revoking Malaysian citizenship.
Do you see these type of incendiary and/or unilateral ‘demands’ from the Anti-ISA proponents?
Meanwhile, whilst Jerit young supporters are condemned for their pro-justice activism, it appears 400 pro-BN/UMNO teenage participants do not suffer the same fate from the PDRM.
FYI, apart from the release of RPK from KDC, there’s been 17 others who were granted freedom ‘quietly’ in December ’08 with perhaps another 46 more, mostly malay, still incarcerated without legal recourse in an open court.
Suffice to say, twelve consecutive Sunday candlelight vigils in PJ (plus other prayer activities) have brought greater public awareness on the ISA issue for the above to transpire.
Fight blatant injustices, the ISA being one prominent example, at home before you start getting involved in battles elsewhere on the globe.
Honestly, what kind of ‘warrior’ are you, 231? Remember, wearing blinkers makes you an easy target for dotted lines too.
storm
December 30, 2008
Dear Haris,
Firstly to warrior 231, the isa is a draconian instrument horribly abused by the umno fu…( you fillin lah) to continuse to abuse so many legitimate human and democratic rights and to continue to put fear in the rest of us.i believe that its abolishment will really level the playing field …Right now it is horribly abused and used like a police truncheon on us malaysians.
Sorry but i think we have to worry about our own issed here back home rather than abroad.After all charity and such like begins at home.
I just got back from egypt.I only know that we really must move to change things for the better otherwise god help us we be like that…………..
Meanwhile harris i’ll see you sunday and god bless you and bernard , rpk , marina for your unceasing efforts and still keeping that wee spark of hope for us all.
God bless aND THANKS FOR US,
Gunumaro
December 30, 2008
People voted for PR to see changes and walla…. they
got their chosen representatives in Parliment and State
asemblies.
I am wondering why are the same people have to go to
the street to make demands from the government? What
happened to the new opposition wakil Rakyats? Are they
not the ones who should be doing all the demanding in
Parliment and State assemblies?
It seems that people continue to “serve” their wakil
rakyat instead of their chosen wakil rakyat “serve”
them.
Warrior 231
December 30, 2008
Haris
You may not concur with my assertion but the crux of the matter is that the ISA is provided for by Article 149 of the Malaysian Constitution. As long as that Article is not repealed, to call for the abrogation of the ISA would be tantamount to repudiating one of the cornerstones of the Constitution that you people continously pledge to uphold. But then again, i note the inherent contradictions in your stand for wasnt it not too long ago that the Pakatan (the hidden hand behind Bersih,Candlelight Fests and Mansuh etc.) was talking about wresting power after fomenting crossovers (a constitutionally odious machination, wont you agree). But then, i am not in your league to split semantics with, you being a champion lawyer and me, an unemployed farmer (the victim of the economic slowdown).
This brings me to my second observation: how come thrusts for power are most persistent during economic turmoil, the last one being exactly 10 years or so ago.In relation to such insurrections, wouldnt it be better if you people, for the sake of the downtrodden like me and other underpriveleged souls, desist from further exacerbating the situation with your demonstrations and other forms of street “dancing” that will leave remaining investors (foreign and local) gnawing their fingernails and render them nervous wrecks.I besseech your esteemed self to consider and contemplate the suffering that would ensue and in your benevolence, call off those planned street “dances”. But then again my humble plea and supplications may just be mossie drones for rich and connected lawyers and sundry middle/upper class snobs who are the brains behind such shenanigans blessed as they are with obscene wealth and inordinate amount of free time to trifle with. A thousand apologies if i had been presumtous.
sampalee
I humbly submit that the democracy is an inherently self-aborting system. Majority voice is its crux and to remove it would render the system a stillborn or deformed gargoyle. The only compromise would be a PR (proportional representation) system but even that is subject to problems and at times can render a nation ungovernable. The Italian connection would be food for thought.
I sincerely hope these humble observations will be spared censorship. Thank you.
Warrior 231
Warrior 231,
Respectfully, the entirety of your first paragraph calls to mind the adage that a little knowledge may prove to be a dangerous thing.
The contents of the second paragraph suggest that you are anything but underprivileged and more likely to be a member of the class of middle class snobs that you spoke of.
You wouldn’t by any chance be Revert, would you? Just had to ask.
Warrior 231
December 30, 2008
Apologies for pressing the despatch key rather peremptorily the last time around. The full version of my humble and unsolicited repartee for you kind perusal.
Haris
I did not expect that fulmination from the likes of you, a highly regarded legal eagle. As i humbly submitted in my comment, i am in no way in your league as i do not have the wherewithal nor the trove of knowledge to contest your informed and wise arguments. Hence, i am behoved to beseech the magniminity (ah!!! did i spell thar right)of your good self to clear the fog that i am now enshrouded in. For isn’t Article 149, the womb which gestated the ISA for that is what my fugued mind and my wretched eyeballs conjectured when i chanced upon the said article in that legal tome : The Malaysian Constitution authored by his eminence Allahyarham Tun Suffian. In light of your reply, i had to (and my apologies for that) to do a quickscan of Wiki and came across this:
“The power of preventive detention was however not relinquished and in fact became an embedded feature of Malaysian law. In 1960 itself, the government passed the Internal Security Act under Article 149 of the Malaysian Constitution. It permitted the detention, at the discretion of the Home Minister, without charge or trial of any person in respect of whom the Home Minister was satisfied that such detention was necessary to prevent him or her from acting in any manner prejudicial to national security or to the maintenance of essential services or to the economic life in Malaysia. The ISA is one of the most controversial Acts enacted under Article 149 of the Malaysian Constitution.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_(Malaysia)
and pray, my good lawyer how far is that different from what i wrote.
You said in your earlier comment :
You may not concur with my assertion but the crux of the matter is that the ISA is provided for by Article 149 of the Malaysian Constitution. As long as that Article is not repealed, to call for the abrogation of the ISA would be tantamount to repudiating one of the cornerstones of the Constitution that you people continously pledge to uphold.
My explanatory response as to why I had cautioned that this view served to remind of that adage that you appear to have take objection :
Your error, sir, in my humble estimation, was in suggesting that the repeal of a mere Act of Parliament might have the catastrophic effect of neutering the very constitutional provision that might have legitimised the enactment of such an Act in the face place.
As to the contention that the validity of the ISA might be founded on Article 149, it may have escaped your attention, your having already very candidly admitted that you do not have the ‘wherewithal nor the trove of knowledge….’, that the very constitutionality of the ISA, measured against the constitutional provision that you now speak of so fondly, was challenged in the recent RPK habeas corpus. That the arguments taken in support of this contention did not find favour with the learned judge will not operate as a bar to the point being re-visited before another coram on another date will not be lost on those with the requisite wherewithal and trove of knowledge.
Damn, I would have sworn you were Revert.
In fact, i was compelled to insert the above extract to vindicate, nay, clear my good name from your scurrilious rant that has besmirched my good character and reputation and that has brought me into public odium.(rest assured, i will not pursue this slur into the hallways of justice, as i am not endowed with the pecuniary means to embark on any such pursuit notwithstanding the fact that i am probably entitled to register any such claim against you subject to the sagacious advise of a pro-bono lawyer)
I also had the good fortune of having an historical tract at hand while checking on the above tract and it explicitly elucidated much of the above with the additional caveat that the ISA was in fact the successor to the Emergency Ordinance (1948).
Hence, i was totally flummoxed by your response and your imputation that i am from the petty bourgeoise (middle class snob) when in reality, my goodself, is a mere peasant in Mao nomenclature or a proletariat in Lenin’s weltanschung. An unemployed one at that, having lost my farming vocation due to the infernal economic climes, and am now surviving off the benevolent largesse of my son who himself is a factory proletarian (a machinist by vocation) struggling to make ends meet. It was his situation that moved me to supplicate your goodself from channeling your immense wealth and oodles of leisure to organise street insurrections for i fear such actions may scare away the remnants of the foreign capitalist class who are already fidgeting nervily on tenterhooks in view of the uncertain political climes enveloping this blessed land, fearful as they are of the dwindling returns that are flowing into their coffersfrom their gross exploitation of us proles.
My dear sir, i beseech you to exert your influence and use your vaunted oratorical skills to call for the abandonment of the Mansuh undertaking for to proceed would ‘mansuh’ us the underprivilieged and the downtrodden, living as we are under the yoke of poverty and the constant visitations of misfortune. Pray sir, i hope you will benevolently consider this request which is the very echo of the unvoiced pain of my fellow kindred souls. May the milk of kindness pour forth from your gentle heart to save us from the vagaries of poverty and the viccsitudes of unemployment. Bless you, Godspeed.
Me a Revert, no honourable sir, i am, and always been a Muslim and Malay from birth, Alhamdullillah. i sincerely and unquestioningly accept your apologies perchance if you had mistakenly confuted me for some other perfidious character for never have i been an extrovert, introvert, revert or a pervert who diverts his fellow man down the garden path to ….
I sincerely hope this laboured discourse, i penned in the fading light flooding the bowels of my family’s hovel will see the light of day in the corridors and aisles of your august parlimentary chambers. Forgive me for my poor language and Dickensian style.
Thank you
Warrior 231
foodforthought
December 30, 2008
Good one Haris, right on the goolies
Warrior 231
December 30, 2008
Shar101 and Storm
I humbly beseech that we desist from using vile language and ad hominem attacks as we pursue our relentless quest for justice and a better Malaysia. It is indeed galling for an ex- army commando like me (b4 i went into farming and subsequent unemployment)to witness fellow Malaysian castigating the ISA as a vile piece of legislation when it has done so much to ensure the peace and relative prosperity they enjoy today. The fact is the ISA is a preventive form of legislation not a punitive law designed to respond once the horse had bolted the stables. Its judicious application (sans the journalist’s detention) has spared us many a conflagaration and social upheaval, a fact attested to by even LKY (for Spore have a similar piece of legslation there). Further, any abuse of power is subject to judicial review and can be overturned in a court of law as recent judicial decisions attest.
Yes, the police should apply the law with regard to the teenagers in an evenhanded manner but do bear in mind, the observations were made by a highly discredited cyber rag reputed to be in cahoots with …….. (fill in the blanks). It would be advisable to take such reports with a pinch of salt..subject to eyewitness verification and other corroborative facts/testimony.
Thank you
Warrior 231
tkterimakasih
December 31, 2008
The Star front page today, ‘Be good tonight’ & Picture of ‘Thai red tide’ inspired a naughty idea in me.
If our New Year Eve’s revellers all turn up in one colour call it ‘Anti ISA colour’ eg yellow to orange
Imagine: “WOW” get my point?
Revelries are expected everywhere, can we get them to come in unison in one colour?
HAPPY NEW YEAR ANAK BANGSA MALAYSIA.