Asia Times: Malaysia's new rights commission starts on wrong foot


	April 25, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Malaysia's rights commission starts on wrong foot
By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - When police swooped on the peaceful April 15 "reformasi" rally and detained over 50 organizers and demonstrators, human rights workers turned their eyes to the newly set up Malaysian Human Rights Commission to see how it would respond.

They need not have bothered. The stony silence from the 13-member commission appointed on April 4 was deafening. Even before its first meeting this Monday, April 24, the commission has already come under fire for its silence during the crackdown on the "Black 14" demonstration.

The police blitz effectively crippled the rally, which was to mark the first anniversary of the sentencing of ousted deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim to six years' imprisonment.

''It is disturbing that the newly appointed Malaysian Human Rights Commission has nothing to say about the authorities' high- handed tactics in dispersing peaceful demonstrators,'' said P Ramakrishnan, president of the social reform group Aliran, at the height of the arrests on April 15. ''Why are they observing a day of silence?

''If it cannot speak up at this crucial time, its existence is meaningless. If it had spoken up, the skeptics would have been convinced that it is indeed an independent body with courage and commitment to defend democracy. Through its silence, the commission has condemned itself.''

Other activists worry that the credibility of the planned Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional human rights mechanism will be jeopardized.

''For Southeast Asian human rights defenders, the concerns about such mechanisms center on the fact that infamous human rights violators may be in a position to define what 'human rights' means,'' said rights activist Deborah Stothard in a commentary for the independent cyber-newspaper Malaysiakini.

''In the words of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, it is like expecting the fox to look after the chickens,'' she added.

Leading the Malaysian Commission is former deputy prime minister Musa Hitam, who headed the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1995. The 12 other panel members include three former judges, several academics, a former deputy minister, a consumer rights activist, a head of a foundation to combat drug abuse, and a member from a progressive Islamic women's group.

The composition of the panel itself drew flak from rights groups, who pointed out that only three women were on the panel. Excluded from the panel were prominent human rights workers and activists involved in highlighting squatters' problems, encroachment on to customary tribal land and the woes of exploited plantation communities and migrant workers. Few, if any, of the panel members have been particularly vocal against gross human rights violations.

For veteran opposition politician Lim Kit Siang, the critical question is whether the Human Rights Commission will end up as an ''alibi institution'' to legitimize human rights violations in the country. He said that the Human Rights Commission Act had right from the beginning crippled the commission by giving a very narrow and restricted definition of human rights.

The Act limited the scope of human rights to the ''fundamental liberties as enshrined in Part II of the federal constitution''. Lim said the commission should instead have been guided by international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Malaysia has not yet ratified the two covenants.

The Act also states that the commission is empowered to have regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 but only "to the extent that it is not inconsistent with the federal constitution".

That means the commission will have to recognize Malaysia's draconian laws, such as the Internal Security Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Sedition Act, the Police Act, and the Universities and University Colleges Act.

By recognizing such laws that are inconsistent with basic human rights principles, the commission ''runs the risk of being regarded as an alibi institution to legitimize human rights violations in the country'', said Lim.

When four prominent international legal bodies recently released a joint report titled "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000" expressing grave concern about the system of justice, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Malaysia, the commission again responded with stony silence.

''None of the Human Rights Commission members had dared to mention even once the report 'Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000' since its publication,'' said Lim.

Attempts to reach Musa Hitam at his office have proved futile. Indeed, the commission appears to be in little hurry to get on with its job. When an activist attempted to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in Kuala Lumpur last week, ''he was told by a foreign ministry official that the commission does not even have a desk or a chair'', said Stothard.

There are a host of rights issues crying out for the commission's attention: the treatment of migrant workers, prison conditions and custodial violence, arbitrary arrests, and the lack of freedom of expression, to name a few.

The commission will therefore have its work cut out for it when it meets on Monday. But rights workers and critics are not holding their breath in anticipation of any radical moves to uphold and protect human rights in Malaysia.

(Inter Press Service)

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