Press Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Friday, 11 November 1994
The Barisan National Government should not be the accused, prosecutor and the judge against Malaysians with regard to foreign media reports but should set up an Independent Commission to investigate whether there is violation of fair and free press, both locally and internationally
The Barisan National Government should not be the accused, prosecutor and the judge against Malaysians with regard to foreign media reports but should set up an Independent Commission to investigate whether there is violation of fair and free press, both locally and internationally.
The attemps in the last eleven days by the Barisan National Government to discredit opposition leaders like Semangat 46 President Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and DAP MP for Bandar Kuching Sim Kwang Yang in alleging that they had acted in a treacherous and anti-national manner in their comments and interviews with the foreign mass media must be a matter of grave concern to all Malaysians who are concerned about human rights and democratic freedoms.
All Malaysians who have the opportunity to see both Australian television programmes in full without any biased input or misleading distortions must conclude that both Razeleigh and Sim Kwang Yang should be entitled to their views although there are those, especially in the Barisan Nation al, who would strongly disagree with them.
Razaleigh’s comments on money politics for example, is in fact milder than many other comments on the same subject whether in Parliament or outside. The very fact that UMNO had to convene a special general assembly to curb money politics is the best proof of the seriousness of this disease in the Malaysians body politic.
The politics and corruption of logging in Malaysia and abroad is another well-recognized and documented aspect of modern politics.
However, what the Barisan National Government had tried to do recently is to distort and misrepresent the issues discussed by opposition leaders in the foreign media by creating a most feudal, undermocratic and stifling culture where any views or comments by opposition politicians in the foreign media are treated as equivalent to disloyalty or anti-national behaviour regardless of the truth or validity of the comments.
Is this the new human rights concept which the Barisan Nasional Government is advocating for the world in its call for “redefining human rights” – where the people in the developing countries have no right to speak the truth about what is happening in the country but must tell lies to the foreign media.
The world needs a human rights theory which will allowed all peoples whether in the West, East, North or South to speak up against domestic injustices and inequalities in international forums and media
The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir had been the most vocal critic of the weakness and abused of the system of government in the West. But Mahathir could only make a strong case against the weaknesses and the abuses of the system of western government precisely because there is freedom for the people in the West to speak up against such injustices and inequalities, not only within their own country but in international forums.
If the new Barisan National doctrine that Malaysian cannot make any critical comments against the Malaysian Government in the foreign media had been accepted as an universal principle, than Nelson Mandela would never have become President of South Africa and Yassir Arafat would have fought a completely lost cause for the restoration of the Palestinian homeland.
There cannot be double standards for the rights of peoples whether in developed or developing countries to speak up against injustices and inequalities in their own countries in international forums and international media.
Malaysian do not want a human rights theory aimed at allowing the West to dominate the East, but we also cannot accept a human rights theory which while purportedly claiming to resist perpetuates the unfair and unjust dominance of the East by the West, actually perpetuates the unfair and unjust dominance of the people in the East by an authoritarian elite.
If there are injustices and inequalities in the systems of government whether in the West or East, North or South, they should all be exposed and fought not only at the local and national levels but also internationally.
A fair, just and democratic human rights theory must allow westerners to speak up against domestic injustices and inequalities in international forums as well as allow Malaysians to criticize unfair and unjust government policies abroad.
In the present information era and technological age, the Barisan National Government will be behaving like dinosaurs if they try to seal the Malaysian nation from the international society.
It is for this reason that DAP calls on the Barisan National Government to stop its irresponsible campaign to brand opposition leaders as traitors for speaking up in international media or international forums in order to fight injustices and inequalities anywhere.
If Razaleigh and Sim Kwang Yang had commited treason as alleged, then they should be charged in court and allowed the full opportunity of self-defence and not as present, convicted and sentenced in a mass media trial where the Barisan National Government is the accused, prosecutor and judge all in one.