I am speechless, really.

What other bloggers (and commentors) are saying…

Anilnetto ll Rockybru ll SK Thew ll Nuraina Samad ll Haris Ibrahim ll Nat Tan ll Daniel YKL ll CJCM ll Kenny Law ll KTemoc ll Susan Loone ll KS Lim ll Anwar Ibrahim

Basically, Justice Datuk H C Ian Chin, a high court judge in Sarawak, revealed yesterday that the former PM had threatened to remove judges that didn’t rule in government’s favour in a number of cases.

Also revealed are other attempts from the previous government to indoctrinate judges to hold the view that the (BN) government interest as being more important than all else when considering their judgement.

Another bomb to our judicial independence… another blow for TDM.

Lee Song Yong, a second-year computer science student is in a battle with Universiti Putra Malaysia to get back a notebook that security personnel confiscated on Aug 22.

UPM on the other hand is seeking disciplinary action against Lee for not cooperating with the varsity officers during the confiscation.

This is not the 1st time UPM is involved with similar confrontation; another student had his laptop confiscated in September but his issue is settled sooner with the involvement of some opposition politicians.

I don’t like seeing lawyers and politicians involving in university affairs, but the lack of transparency from UPM in handling these disciplinary issues has left me no choice but to believe that the student is being victimized instead of some political agendas.

The disciplinary proceeding is a really bad joke as Lee’s lawyer mentioned. Do UPM authorities really expect the students to just hand over their expensive belongings when told to do so without questions asked? Besides, do they have enough reasons to do so?

Update Nov 23 – Lee is suspended for one semester for ‘obstructing campus officers from performing their duty’. [MP Lim]

The article is biased in some sense, but lots of the things mentioned are fact. Their influx of illegal immigrants have caused some social issues for us, but on the other hand Malaysians in general are not treating our foreign labours with dignity.

To make it worse not only the workers that were discriminated recently, but visitors and students were harassed as well.

The author in the end suggested that Indonesian will have to resolve to military might to win Malaysia’s respect… it sounds radical but mind that Malaysia is upgrading our military force as well with the recent purchase of the submarine and fighter jets.

It would be stupid though, if these 2 countries get into war for these matters.

I copied the whole article below; their article link tends to be invalid after a few days…

Indonesian military might will win Malaysia’s respect

Diaz Hendropriyono, Washington, DC.

Despite sharing commonalities, the relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia has turned sour in recent years. A few years ago, the two claimed ownership of the oil-rich Ambalat sea block, situated near Sipadan and Ligitan islands off the coast of Borneo. Tension grew stronger when Malaysian naval vessel KD Rencong rammed into Indonesian vessel Tedung Naga while patrolling in the area.

The continued mistreatment of Indonesian domestic workers by their Malaysian employers poses another problem. These workers, who represent most of the 240,000 domestic workers in Malaysia, are often considered second-class humans. Not only do most earn less than 25 US cents per hour (500 Ringgit per month), if anything at all, many have also been physically, sexually and psychologically assaulted by their employers.

Because of abuse, lack of freedom and other dissatisfactions, thousands of Indonesian maids have run away from their workplace. In June, trying to escape her violent employer, a worker tried to escape from a 15th floor apartment with a rope made of towels and bedsheets. In August, another maid made a similar attempt before being rescued from a seventeenth floor ledge, while a bruised body of an Indonesian servant was found dead at her employer’s home in Kuala Lumpur.

The relationship between the two countries was further exacerbated when Malaysia decided to install harsher punishments for illegal immigrants in Malaysia five years ago, including longer jail time, heavier fines and caning. Such a practice was deemed “inhumane” and hurt Indonesia’s dignity, especially following the forced return of some 400,000 Indonesian workers.

More recently, there have been other cases that have worsened bilateral ties. An Indonesian referee visiting Malaysia for the Asian Karate Championship was confronted by four plainclothes Malaysian police officers over a minor misunderstanding, and was handcuffed, arrested and beaten.

A sophisticated phone-tapping device worth Rp 3 billion and destined for the Malaysian Embassy’s defense attache was confiscated at Soekarno-Hatta airport, where it was brought into the country by a Malaysian national. During an operation to weed out illegal immigrants, the wife of the Indonesian Embassy’s cultural attache in Malaysia was detained by a volunteer security force known as RELA, which treated her like an undocumented guest.

The robbing of seven Indonesian students on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur and the raid on the house of the chairman of the Indonesian Students Association in Malaysia by RELA members put these Indonesians in a state of fear and further strained bilateral relations.

Indonesia also accuses Malaysia of stealing the folk song Rasa Sayange, believed to have originated from the eastern islands of Maluku. Malaysia is also accused of having claimed ownership of other traditional Indonesian heritage, including batik and wayang shadow puppets.

Indonesia has made several attempts to respond to these various problems. For example, Indonesia believed that the Ambalat dispute must be resolved through negotiation.

Responding to the Malaysian government’s failure to act against errant employers, Indonesia’s House of Representatives has considered reporting the cases to the UN Human Rights Commission. The House has also asked the government to request clarification from the Malaysian government about the discovery of the phone-tapping device.

After the RELA incidents and the beating of the Indonesian karate referee, Indonesia demanded an apology from Malaysia. And many Indonesians now see the need to copyright all Indonesian folk songs, especially those with anonymous writers, to avoid further claim by Malaysia.

Unfortunately, however, these efforts are short lived. An article in The Jakarta Post by Rizal Sukma on Sept. 3 noted that “many Indonesians feel there has been a growing tendency in Malaysia to look down on Indonesia … [and] feel that Malaysia has become arrogant …. We are often hurt by the way our neighbor looks at us and perceives us”.

If this were true, as long as Malaysia still looks down on Indonesia, the aforementioned policies could not guarantee that any similar future problems would not emerge.

It is no doubt that these solutions are wise and necessary, and it is not my intention to argue against these courses of action. Yet, a long-term alternative must be found and employed to supplement, rather than replace, these ad hoc strategies. Such a solution rests in the power of Indonesia’s military.

Writing in the 18th century during the U.S. constitutional ratification debate, American founding fathers John Jay in Federalist No. 4 and Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 8 (essays supporting the Constitution over the Articles of Confederation), argued that a country’s healthy defense represses, discourages and thus prevents war rather than invites it.

Following this reasoning, it is vital to rebuild Indonesia’s defense system, improve the military’s professionalism and push other internal reforms. Indonesia is currently on the right track in its attempt to modernize its military. For example, it recently signed a US$1 billion arms deal with Russia to buy submarines, tanks and military helicopters.

Despite a legal problem which has stalled the administrative process since 2002, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono recently stated that Indonesia will continue with the procurement of Mi-17 choppers.

In an effort to increase the military’s professionalism, the House passed Law No. 34/2004 mandating that the government take over all the military’s enterprises within five years. Next, the military’s Rp 33 trillion current budget must be increased to its ideal level, around Rp 100 trillion. The bigger allocation would enable the military to increase the welfare of personnel and to provide better training. Finally, to contribute further to the military’s professionalism, the government of Indonesia should resolve the conflict between the military and the police, which according to the RIDEP Institute has seen at least 10 violent incidents this year alone.

Having a strong defense would change Malaysia’s foreign policy toward its “big brother”. It would remind the Malaysian government to be more committed to stopping the abuse of Indonesian workers. It would remind Malaysia not to encroach on Indonesia’s territory. Most importantly, Indonesia’s stronger defense would make the government of Malaysia and its citizens be more careful in their action toward Indonesia.

The writer is a PhD student at the Center for Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Tech University. He can be reached at dhendrop@vt.edu.

Friday night, 4 staff members of the student affairs department (HEP) in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, raided the room of Yee Yang Yang, a first-year student in Hostel 13 who is a member of a pro-student grouping.

He was interrogated from 11pm to 1am, and his laptop, handphone, MP4 player, 2 pendrives, leaflets and personal documents were confiscated. [Jeff Ooi]

It may seem as a daylight robbery for some people, but the irony part is that our Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 does allow some sort of action for universities officials to act (in a university compound) beyond what police officers could do in public.

The act itself is stupid in a lot of ways, and it becomes increasingly ridiculous when it is abused by university personnel.

Yee was told that the items would be returned last Saturday, this did not happen – and a 75-minute meeting with unit director Mej Othman Jailani today did not produce results either.

“They (security officials) wanted me to give them the password for my phone and laptop so that they could check the contents,” he told reporters outside the campus security’s office this afternoon (Sep 17).

“I refused. I want them to return my things and to apologise to me publicly because they did not follow proper procedures when they took away my belongings.

“Not only were they not in uniform, but they were also rude when I asked questions.”

Yee’s effort on Saturday was recorded in a nine-minute video by one of his friends.

It included a tense stand-off between the students and Zamali Samsi, the head of the university’s Special Task Unit, a student-monitoring outfit which is part of the campus security.

The students stood in front and the back of the vehicle carrying Zamali to stop him from leaving until they got their letter of acknowledgement [see video].

Yee also said two attempts to lodge a police report against the security unit had failed on Saturday because Sri Serdang police personnel had contacted the security personnel and were told that he would get back his belongings.

As at the time of writing, about 7pm, Yee was at the police station to make another attempt at lodging the report.

If the police cannot do anything about his predicament, Yee intends to serve the university a legal notice. [Malaysiakini]

Update Sep 29 – UPM has finally returned the belongings of Yee [Malaysiakini]

I have no clue if these people are corrupted or not, but I just felt that ACA could do better with their investigation methods.

According to reports ACA has done some investigations in those 3 cases by questioning the alleged parties and checking their bank statements and assets etc… nothing wrong with that; but do you think people will ever admitted to give or accept bribe? Do you think people will use direct banking to transfer money in bribery? Do you think people who accept bribe will put the assets they bought (with those money) under their own name?

Any person who watches enough Hong Kong series can tell that people are smarter than that… not just in TV, but in real life as well.

I can’t really suggest how ACA can improve their investigation, because I don’t have the expertise and resources to do so. However ACA should be filled with people and network that are capable to trace oversea accounts and accounts of people that are related to the alleged parties… not just investigations that can be done by amateurs like you and me.

I guess the biggest question though… is how independent ACA was acting when conducting investigations against those VIPs. ACA could be capable of conducting better investigations, but do they want to do so against the big guns? I don’t know.

Update July 31 – Former Sabah ACA director Mohamad Ramli Abdul Manan, who lodged the report against former ACA chief Zulkifli Mat Noor, claims that Zulkifli was cleared of corruption allegations only because the attorney-general failed to investigate the claims thoroughly. [Malaysiakini]

Mohamad lodged a report early this year alleging misconduct by Zulkifli by way of corrupt practices and sexual misconduct as well as irregularities and abuse of power.

Update August 2 – An anti-corruption watchdog (Transparency International Malaysia) has demanded full public disclosure of the basis for the government’s dismissal of corruption allegations against former Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Zulkipli Mat Noor and police chief Musa Hassan. [Malaysiakini]

Articles worth reading regarding this issue…

Wanted – White Paper on “All-Clean Verdict” for Musa, Zulkipli and Johari
Malaysia’s Attorney General Hears No Evil, Sees No Evil

What concerned me though, is on how he was arrested (I am not going into the arrest details, you can read it from Tian Chua instead) and the reason for his arrest…

Mohd Johari Baharom’s involvement

Nat was arrested on Friday afternoon (July 13) under Official Secret Act (OSA) and is remanded for 4 days under Section 8 of the Official Secret Act (OSA) over allegation of possession of documents pertaining to Johari Baharum’s alleged involvement in corruption. [Jeff Ooi]

It’s quite apparent that Nat’s arrest is a result of the order from Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharom, who has just been cleared of his corruption investigation a few days ago.

Johari actually has a decent point to fight against slandering, but the timing of the order make it extremely fishy, as if it’s a personal rage rather than act of wisdom. Besides, there are much more serious cases (rising crimes etc.) to be focused by the Internal Security Ministry and the police force.

Why is Nat arrested?

OSA is a joke, it is as rubbish as the Internal Security Act (ISA). The originally idea of OSA is to prevent leakage of confidential government documents (official secrets) that could harm the country. However the huge problem with OSA is that there are no clear definitions on ‘official secrets’…

Basically if an authorized person (cabinet, minister and some others) decided to name something official secrets, they are official secrets. It could be some really important documents or a love letter from the mistress… it will be protected under the act regardless; even the judiciary have no rights to question the decisions.

Samy Vellu has previously revoked the act when asked to present the documents regarding highway deals to the public. You can see how convenient the act is to protect the government VIPs from any corruption allegations, and how foolish the act is.

[Learn more about OSA from lawyer-blogger Malik Imtiaz Sarwar]

Back to Nat… there are no clear indications on what ‘official secrets’ he possessed, but since that the case is investigated by the Cyber Crime Unit, we can assumed that it has to be something related to his blog.

According to Susan, Nat was arrested because of a blog comment that linked to Johari’s alleged corruption. If this is true, it’s a real joke indeed.

Should we report on suspected corruption?

This raises another concern… should we report on suspected corruption if we somehow have some leads to some issues. It could come from an email, a blog comment, or some documents that were slipped through the door or mailbox, who knows… it might happen. So what are we going to do with those data? Should we report to Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) or what?

If we do report to the ACA and the alleged politician was found not guilty, we could end up like Nat thanks to the wonderful Official Secret Act… and if the proofs are solid enough, we could end up being blown off by C4 explosive before the case is actually opened. Wonderful.

All the best to Nat

I don’t know him, but I hope he is innocent of any charges, and my best wishes to his family and friends.

Update July 18 – Nat is released, but lots of questions remain unanswered.