A concerned Malaysian writes about Malaysian affairs. "You are the Change you Seek" Barack Obama

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Surely Malaysia is Better then the USA?

malaysiakini has this report entitled "Gov't rejects US criticism of detentions" in which the DPM has criticised the USA for holding terrorists without trial and daring to criticse the arrests of HINDRAF leaders under the ISA laws.

But why do we need to make such comparisons? Our actions should be based on conscionable thinking and we do not need to make references to any other state.

Otherwise it seems the authorities will deem it proper to justify any action by making a reference to the worst possible state.

After all the USA is officially a Godless nation whereas we are a self-proclaimed Civilisational Islamic nation.

3 comments:

multidimid said...

The spin doctors are working hard and now reported & distorted the IGP statement that “Hindraf held an unlawful assembly on Nov 25 and marched to the British High Commission to hand over a petition” Were they allowed to march to the BHC ? Did they hand in any petition?
Apparently DAP Karpal Singh has found out that the ISA Detention orders are defective and he has filed a test case for the release of the layer M Manoharan.
To charge them in court? Read the most sarcastic remark by Najib when confronted with the US demands that the detainees be given a fair trial:

“Can they give a fair trial to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, first of all? We will only response if they do so”
And this contrasted sharply when the Parliamentary Secretary of Foreign Affairs Shabery Cheek declared in Parliament in March 07 that ISA detention cannot be compared to the detention in Guantanamo Bay. The irony is that the Malaysian government had similarly requested the US Government for a fair trial of the two Malaysians who are suspected to be involved in the al-Qaeda terrorism activities.
More details at:
Go H E R E
and a Video Clip of Najib words and also Clips of Hindraf leaders last moments before they were ISAed and some satellite pics (not seen before) of the Fireworks at Batu Caves in the early hours of Nov 25 07

Trashed said...

Some (but not many) of the detainees have been tried or are undergoing trial. That is one difference. Some others were also released for lack of evidence.

A second difference is that these detentions come under the Patriot Act which (gasp) has a limited tenure compared to our open ended ISA. I believe that some provisions expired Dec 2005 but were reauthorized by Congress till Dec 2009. The point here being that there are sunsets to the US Act and none for the Malaysian ISA.

H J Angus said...

multidimid and thrashed
Thanks for yr comments.

In the USA, a few senior officers were brought to trial for the abuse at Abu Ghraib but in Malaysia the authorities lost a case for torture but no one like a prison commandant has been tried yet.