Black is an offence...

our shadow is black...is Najib afraid of his own shadow?

On our way up north, SP mentioned she would like to attend this forum organized by Wong Chin Huat at the Central Market Annexe, in KL on Sunday to show our support. Coming from her, it was unusual. Anyway, back home, I was watching 9.30pm news on NTV7 when I briefly caught a glimpse of a portrait of Chin Huat. I sensed something bad but missed the brief mandarin news on him. So I checked Malaysiakini website and saw the headline that he was arrested under the Sedition Act. Susan Loone in her blog asked if he was missing. What better way to confirm than to check his Nutgraph? This is what was reported:

Wong Chin Huat arrested for sedition

5 May 09 : 8.34PM

By Jacqueline Ann Surin
jacquelinesurin@thenutgraph.com

PETALING JAYA, 5 May 2009: Political scientist Wong Chin Huat has been arrested for sedition and taken to Bukit Aman tonight.

His personal computer has also been seized by the police.

Lawyer Edmund Bon said he received a phone call from the academic at about 7.45pm to say that the police were at his apartment in Seri Sentosa, Kuala Lumpur.

Bon said he spoke to the police officer on the phone and was told that a police report had been lodged against Wong for sedition.

"However, the officer refused to say who lodged the report and over what," Bon said in a phone interview tonight.

Bon also said that Wong was in his car park and as of 8.15pm, was refusing to follow the police until someone arrived to accompany him.

"I'll be asking the police to record Wong's statement tonight and to release him immediately," Bon said.

However, under the law, the police can detain a person for 24-hours after arrest before bringing him or her before a magistrate.

Earlier this morning, Wong, as a representative of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih), held a press conference to launch the 1BLACKMalaysia campaign, and urged all Malaysians to wear black on 7 May to protest the "ongoing Perak coup" by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

Wong teaches journalism at Monash University (Malaysia). He is also a columnist with The Nut Graph.

So, this looks like the beginning of Dr. M's style of government under his protege.

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Unwanted attention from the Police...

days before the much awaited (legal or illegal, depends on which side you are on) State Assembly sitting on May 7. With the Police deemed as pro-Government instead of being independent, their unsolicited attention is cause for concern to Pakatan state assemblymen.

In today's The Star:

Pakatan reps: Cops harassing us by photographing homes
IPOH: Five Perak Pakatan Rakyat assemblymen are claiming harassment after some men, identifying themselves as police personnel, snapped photographs of their family houses.
The incidents allegedly took place between 5.30pm and 7pm on Saturday, with the group visiting the homes of Thomas Su (Pasir Pinji), Lim Pek Har (Menglembu), A. Sivasubramaniam (Buntong), Loke Chee Yan (Kepayang) and Chang Lih Kang (Teja).

Loke said he was at home when a neighbour alerted him of the presence of two white vans outside, sporting the logo and word “Polis”.
“From the upper floor of my home, I saw someone in uniform take a picture of the house and another picture of my house number.
“He then left in the van,” he said at a press conference at Wisma DAP here yesterday.
“This happened at about 7pm.” Lim said a plainclothes policeman, who came with several others in two marked police vans at 5.30pm, told her husband that they were taking pictures “for the assemblyman’s protection”.
Su called on the police to explain themselves and denounced it as a move to intimidate him and his family ahead of the coming May 7 state assembly sitting.
“They (the police) gave us no notice at all. The police should stop this and concentrate on solving crime, and not be a tool for Barisan Nasional,” Su added.
When contacted, Perak police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah said police were only carrying out crime prevention duties ahead of the May 7 sitting.
He clarified that this was just a precautionary measure, considering the intensity of feedback from blogs, newspaper reports and ceramah.
“We are carrying out patrols and doing our rounds for all assemblymen,” he said, adding that he would hold a press conference today on the security measures for the Thursday sitting.



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Is Najib willing to lose the battle in Perak and win the war?

For pro-Pakatan Perakians, we are resigned to ‘might is right’ being played out by the powers that be who control practically every institutions in the country. We have to console ourselves that BN might win the battle in Perak, but lose the war in the country's next general elections.

But then again, we have Nathaniel Tan’s notion that Najib might be slick enough to be popular, almost at all costs by giving in to popular demands, just to keep his position as PM of Malaysia.

Now, it is Matthias Chang, Dr. Mahathir’s former special aide on Chinese Affairs, who in his open letter to Najib, actually suggested that he give up Perak to ensure victory at the next general elections! Please give up Perak by letting the people decide on who should govern our state:

Malaysia-Today - Get out of Perak: Lose the Battle but Win the War (excerpts):
Learn from the experience of the Badawi regime. Those who shouted loudest in defence of Badawi and attacked Tun Dr. Mahathir actually “killed” Badawi.
By Matthias Chang, Suara Keadilan

DEAR PM

You have just set up a new Cabinet. Even the brightest and the most hard-working needs time to settle into his job and discharge the awesome responsibility. On the average it takes from six months to a year to formulate policies and get them implemented.

The key word is FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!

DON’T BE DISTRACTED. HAVE PATIENCE. THE PEOPLE WILL BE GRATEFUL WHEN THEY REALISE THAT THE ECONOMY IS THE PRIORITY AND NOT ANWAR.

Drop Perak immediately, it is a political death-trap
The greatest military victories were built on simple ideas and plans.
Give Perak to them and it will be their quagmire! Believe me. Don’t waste time in Perak. The Royal Household has created a big hole. Get out of it now!
…
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Has our country become a mature democracy...like in USA?

Honestly, I could not wait for NH Chan’s rebuttal of Roger Tan’s ‘No room for double standards’ in the New Sunday Times, which criticizes his recent criticisms of the Federal Court and other lower court decisions in connection with the Perak power grab.

As a layman, going by Roger’s logic of ‘no room for double standards’ Pakatan has to behave like saints and accept whatever unfair means Barisan Nasional throw at them. I wish to refer to his examples in the article with my two-cent’s worth in brackets:

“If you say you are for a strict separation of powers, then Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo should not even have sued Pandikar Amin albeit the applicable laws and facts are poles apart from the Perak fiasco.”
(yes, the applicable laws and facts are poles apart, but to the laymen, a decision by a committee of the state legislature is not good enough whereas the Speaker in Parliament alone can decide on suspension of a member.)

“If prior to Sept 16 when Pakatan and their legal experts held the view that the king could dismiss the prime minister without a vote of no confidence in the Dewan Rakyat if the king was satisfied through other means that the prime minister had lost the confidence of the majority in the Dewan Rakyat, then these same people should not be so critical of the very same means employed by the Sultan of Perak when he decided to appoint Zambry as menteri besar.”
(The big difference here is prior to Sept 16, it was all talk and I would give credit to Anwar and those who might have thoughts of crossing-over, for being responsible enough for not creating serious national security problems if they have done so. If the Perak situation could cause such upheavals in terms of administration and security, what more on a national scale?)

“If Pakatan strongly believes in freedom of association, then they should not be using pre-signed letters of resignation to stop their elected representatives from disassociating and crossing over to other parties.”
(Under the current laws, the pre-signed letters might not be legally effective but are meant to be a means of controlling party representatives who are supposed to honour what they have signed willingly before they were elected. Furthermore, we must not forget that two out of the three state assemblymen were charged with corruption and their cases seemed to be held over conveniently which led to speculation about deals to let them off if they listened to BN!)

“Having lost the party-hopping game which they first started, they should learn to accept their defeat gracefully and wait till the next general election or for some other representatives to hop over to their side just like in America, where criss-crossing by the Republicans and Democrats is accepted without any question if one truly believes in freedom of association.”
(I wish our country had reached maturity in democracy to be on par with that of America! Either Roger is being naïve politically or just an idealist. Many people believe BN will not handover power easily even if they had lost in a general election, though again, it is merely conjecture and we will have to wait and see. Only after BN is dislodged from their seats of power, held for more than half a century, can a two-party system be possible. I am sure if we were a mature democracy like in America, the MPs in Sabah and Sarawak would have crossed over without having to fear for the consequences of their intended actions.)

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Baby-sitting maid, literally, is bad enough...

to kick and stand on is not only inhuman but very cruel indeed.

It is surprising how many of today’s young working couples would trust their maid, someone they hardly know, to look after their most precious – their baby or toddler.

It is like leaving it to chance, not knowing how the maid would treat their child. I know it is not fair to generalize, but for those who found out too late, either the child would be dead or would have suffered irreparable trauma of being physically abused by their ‘carer’. Some are known to have drugged the kids to save them trouble of looking after.

It is not surprising to know that some lucky couples do have their parents who are able and caring enough to keep an eye on their maids.

But according to this video clip which has been going round, I feel sorry for the parents of this poor child, who had to go through this video, presumably from a closed circuit television system installed without their maid’s knowledge:

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