DAP to write to President Carter and Japanese and United States human rights organisations to ask them to petition the Prime Minister, Dato Hussein On, during his three week visit to the U.S. and Japan to remove the 14-year-old condemned boy from death cel

Speech by Ketua Pembangkang and DAP Secretary-General, Lim Kit Siang, at a dinner organised by the Penang Socialist Youth movement of the DAP at Jalan Station, Bukit Mertajam, on Sunday, 11th September 1977 at 7 p.m.

DAP to write to President Carter and Japanese and United States human rights organisations to ask them to petition the Prime Minister, Dato Hussein On, during his three week visit to the U.S. and Japan to remove the 14-year-old condemned boy from death cell

I will write to President Carter to ask him to take up with the Prime Minister, Dato Hussein Onn, and to seek the removal of the 14-year-old condemned boy from the death cell when the Prime Minister visits the United States early next month.

I will also write to civil rights organisations and legislators in the United States and Japan to ask them to join in petitioning the Prime Minister, Dato Hussein Onn, to get the removal of the 14-year-old condemned boy from the death cell when Dato Hussein Onn visits the United States and Japan for three weeks.

This will be part of the DAP’s effort to mobilize international and national opinion to restore basic civilized values into our society.

This will be an opportunity for the people to make their voice heard, and it would be the duty of the Government to heed the voice of the people.

In this campaign, we will need the support of all Malaysians who cherish moral and civilized values, and I call on all Malaysians to come forward and to help in this national campaign to get the 14-year-old boy removed from the death cell.

I will be able to announce on Tuesday the details of the mass signature campaign, which will be launched simultaneously throughout the country.

Let the people of Bukit Mertajam demonstrate their concern in this is issue by coming forward and help in this campaign.

In 1969, the DAP launched a nation-wide signature campaign to save 13 condemned youths for consorting with Indonesian confrontationists from the gallows, and the response of the Malaysian people to the campaign reached the Government, and the 13 condemned youths were saved.

This is another occasion for decent Malaysians to assert themselves and make their voices hoard. I want to reiterate: This is a campaign not only to save the soul of the 14-year-old boy, but to save the soul of Malaysia.

I will like to know what is the stand of the UMNO, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, PAS and other Barisan parties on this question of the condemnation of the 14-year-old boy in the death cell.

Malaysians will like to know whether UMNO, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, PAS and Barisan leaders have compassion, conscience and sense of humanity. If they have, let them show it in a concrete way so that the 14-year-old boy will not spend another day in the death cell