The lawyer for former airman N Tharmendran today brushed aside the Defence Ministry's justification for a group of military personnel who went looking for Tharmendran at his family's home in Seremban last month.
N Surendran, who is Tharmendran's lead counsel, said they are outraged that the ministry insists that the visit was normal procedure in seeking out military personnel who go absent without leave.
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Lawyer and parliamentarian Karpal Singh, a prominent advocate for human rights and the Rule of Law, is wrong to call for child rapists to be hanged.
Probably, like a lot of Malaysians, he is horrified and angry over the recent incident involving the blatant rape of a student in a school bus in front of other students and the public.
The rising incidence of rape and violence against children and women is truly alarming, and indicates a deep-seated malaise in our society, a malaise that can be traced to our education system, the incoherent rules by which we live, the lack of respect for the Rule of Law, how our social and economic policies have abandoned large sections of our citizens to a hopeless, dehumanising and wretched poverty.
Our policing have gaping holes. People have no confidence in our policing; that i
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The recent rape of a 10 year old child in a schoolbus was a terible crime and the young victim and her family may be scarred for life as a result. The perpetrator, if convicted after due process, deserves a heavy prison sentence in retribution for his act. However, we deplore the violent and rash proposals that are emanating from various quarters in a typical knee-jerk reaction to this very disturbing crime. We are particularly appalled by the suggestion by DAP Chairman Karpal Singh that child rapists be put to death. An immediate practical consequence of such a law is that child rapists will then be encouraged to murder their victims in order to escape detection and avoid the gallows.
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Source : http://www.merdekareview.com/bm/news.php?n=10974 Sebagai kesinambungan artikel berkenaan hukuman mati yang dijatuhkan oleh Mahkamah di Singapura terhadap Yong Vui Kong, seorang remaja berusia 22 tahun yang merupakan seorang rakyat Malaysia, persoalan justifikasi hukuman mati tidak dapat dipisahkan daripada pandangan agama yang banyak mempengaruhi pandangan umum. Perdebatan yang berkisar tentang kesalahan yang mewajibkan hukuman mati akan dirujuk secara terus kepada sumber utama perundangan Islam iaitu Al-Quran. Ramai di antara kita yang beranggapan bahawa untuk memanifestasikan kesetiaan dan kepatuhan kepada perintah agama adalah dengan cara mengimplementasi hukuman mati dengan merujuk kepada interpretasi literal teks Al Quran yang berkenaan tanpa sebarang faktor-faktor pengecualian. Sebarang cubaan untuk membuka ruang-ruang perdebatan berasaskan adab proses perbezaan pendapat akan dilabel sebagai tidak Islamik, mirip budaya Barat dan oleh yang demikian memesongkan. Dalam Islam, falsafah dalam memartabatkan kemuliaan kejadian manusia dapat dilihat jelas dalam sistem keadilan jenayah di...
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Pada 10 Jun 2010 yang lepas, beberapa kumpulan aktivis hak asasi manusia dan perundang-undangan tempatan, antaranya Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), Jawatankuasa Undang-undang Perlembagaan Majlis Peguam, Amnesty International dan Lawyers For Liberty (Peguam untuk Kebebasan) telah mengadakan sidang akhbar di Majlis Peguam. Sidang akhbar tersebut bertujuan untuk mengiringi dan memberi sokongan kepada peguam hak asasi daripada negara Singapura, iaitu M. Ravi (gambar kiri) yang mewakili seorang warga negara Malaysia, Yong Vui Kong yang telah dijatuhkan hukuman mati oleh Mahkamah Rayuan Singapura. Yong Vui Kong baru berusia 22 tahun. (Bagi yang masih belum tahu tentang kes ini, sila rujuk pada tulisan di MerdekaReview yang berjudul Kerajaan Malaysia dirayu untuk Selamatkan Yong Vui Kong). Ketika pendengaran di Mahkamah Rayuan, saudara M. Ravi telah berhujah bahawa hukuman mati adalah tidak berperikemanusiaan dan melanggar perlembagaan. Artikel 9 (1) Perlembagaan Singapura memperuntukkan bahawa tiada seseorang...
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It was reported in The Sunday Star that almost 1,000 migrant workers hired by 130 sub-contractors to work on the RM800 million Istana Negara project on Jalan Duta had not been paid for the last five months and were living in fear and frustration either because they did not have work permits or could not afford to renew permits which had expired.
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©The Star by BAVANI M and JAYAGANDI JAYARAJ KUALA LUMPUR: Many foreign workers hired to build the new RM800mil Istana Negara claim they have not been paid over the last three months despite working seven days a week. Living in fear and frustration, the workers alleged they were exploited and cheated and held to ransom by their employers because many of them do not have work permits. There are more than 1,000 migrant workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal and Vietnam hired by more than 130 sub-contractors who are involved in the Jalan Duta palace project. Most of them stay in kongsi or long wooden houses near the construction site. According to workers interviewed by The Star, some employers threatened to call the police when they persisted in asking for their wages. Several workers even claimed they were harassed by...
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By Eric Paulsen If the ASEAN Inter-govermental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) lives up to the mark of the European Court of Human Rights or to a lesser extent the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, it will be the most curious thing I ever saw in my life! Military rule in Myanmar (Source: stolenchildhood.net) Sometime ago, I received an e-mail on a question by Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz at the Dewan Negara, seeking an explanation as to why the government was not lobbying for the establishment of an ASEAN Court of Human Rights. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that the government was not pursuing such a regional mechanism because ASEAN has adopted to establish the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights during the 15th ASEAN Summit in October 2009! ASEAN-human-rights what? Since when? Well, since November 2007 actually, when...
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It has been almost 12 years since Anwar Ibrahim, newly sacked as deputy prime minister, was first charged with trumped-up charges of sodomy and corruption, and subsequently put through two trials which were condemned around the world as manifestly flawed and politically motivated. He spent six years in detention, in solitary confinement throughout, after his conviction on the corruption charge. Later at the final appeal against the sodomy conviction, he was acquitted and released on 2 September 2004. Now, with Anwar once more poised to lead the opposition coalition into the next general elections – with good prospects of taking over the reins of government, the nightmare is starting all over again. On 16 July 2008, Anwar, then 61 years old, was arrested on a new charge of sodomy, after a police report was lodged by Saiful Bukhari, a...
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Lawyers for Liberty, a Malaysian group which is against the death penalty, has called on the Malaysian government to raise the case of Yong Vui Kong with Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who is on a one-day visit to the country. Prime Minister Lee is accompanied on the trip by Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, and Law Minister and Second Home Affairs Minister, K Shanmugam. Prime Minister Lee met with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, on Tuesday. “Lawyers for Liberty is of the view that there are good grounds for the Singaporean authorities to review the death penalty decision as there were flaws in the clemency process,” said Eric Paulsen, the group’s representative. “Since the case deals with a death sentence, and more so with a young person, it is incumbent on the...
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On 8.6.10, a Committee of Privileges of the Dewan Rakyat had denied opposition leader Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s right for his lawyer’s participation during the hearing of the complaint against him. Similarly, Selangor’s SELCAT (Select Committee on Competence, Accountability and Transparency) denied the right of Kapar MP S. Manickavasagam to have his lawyer participate effectively during the sand mining inquiry. These two incidents are a dangerous encroachment upon the inalienable right of the rakyat to legal advice and representation. It is particularly disappointing that the Selangor Pakatan Rakyat dominated State Assembly has taken this illiberal and retrogade position. The Selangor State Assembly had on 6 July 2009 amended the standing orders in order to downgrade the role of lawyers appearing before the committee to the role of “watching brief” only. This amendment is contained in rule 6(5) of the...
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Kakak Aminulrasyid Amzah – Tuty Shaniza Anum – dipanggil polis sekali lagi hari ini – kali ini oleh polis trafik – untuk memberi keterangan berhubung kereta yang digunakan oleh adiknya yang mati polis pada awal pagi 26 April lalu. Tuty Shaniza tiba di cawangan trafik IPD Shah Alam di seksyen 11, pada kira-kira jam 6 petang ini dan beredar dari stu kira-kira 15 minit kemudiannya. Beliau hadir memberi keterangan tersebut dengan ditemani peguamnya Farhana Abdul Halim. Ketika ditemui Malaysiakini, Farhana berkata, anak guamnya hari ini hanya disiasat berhubung kesalahan trafik melibatkan keretanya itu. Katanya, ini kerana terdapat laporan sebelum ini bahawa pada malam kejadian itu, sebelum Aminulrasyid mati ditembak polis, kereta tersebut telah bergesel dengan kereta dan sebuah motosikal. “anak guam saya ditanya soalan-soalan berkaitan trafik, contohnya, siapa tuan punya kereta dan adakah dia tahu keretanya digunakan oleh Aminulrasyid...
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