Are Barisan parties, Sabah, Sarawak irrelevant, asks Kit Siang

The Sedition Act fiasco has shown that Sabah and Sarawak, as well as Barisan Nasional component parties MCA, MIC and Gerakan, are viewed as irrelevant, DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said.

None of the parties was consulted when Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak made the decision that the law would be retained, he said.

"MCA, MIC and Gerakan are utterly irrelevant in the Umno-dominated BN scheme of things, evident by the way the views of these three parties and their leaders were ignored and not even sought in Umno-BN’s major decision-making process.

"However, are the views and legitimate interests of Sarawak and Sabah also disregarded in the national decision-making process, especially in matters directly affecting the people in the two states?" he asked in a statement today.

The Gelang Patah MP wanted to know if BN leaders in the two states had been consulted and their consent obtained on the proposal to criminalise calls for the secession of Sarawak and Sabah in amendments to the Sedition Act.

He said DAP was also against calls for secession but he agreed with Sarawak Land Development Minister Tan Sri Dr James Masing that only a small group of people had advocated it.

"Instead of criminalising such calls, the wisest political and nation-building response is to engage these groups to find out what are the causes of their unhappiness. Don’t kill the messenger and miss the message."

Yesterday, Najib said at the Umno general assembly that the Sedition Act would be maintained and fortified to include provisions making it an offence to insult religions.

Calls for the secession of Sabah and Sarawak would also be included in a provision under the act, he said.

The Umno president also said that he would continue to champion the Malays and not allow them to be “damned” and “insulted” in their own land.

Najib has been widely criticised for buckling under pressure from the rightists and extremists in Umno and the party-sponsored non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to keep the act, which he had promised to abolish in 2012.

Lim also said Najib had rubbed salt into the wound by saying that the controversial Sedition Act would be strengthened, as that meant that the act would become "even more draconian and repressive".

He said this was a victory to those in the right wing, and now they were piling further pressures to put back the clock of democratisation and national transformation.

"Former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah wants offenders under the Sedition Act to be punished with a jail sentence of a minimum three years up to a maximum 10 years. Now, the penalty is a RM5,000 fine or a jail sentence of up to three years or both.

"Noor also wants the definition of sedition to be widened to any act that causes fear to the Malays. It is unbelievable that a former Court of Appeal judge has so little confidence in the discretion and judgment of judges when imposing sentences that he supports the removal of such discretion.

"What boggles the imagination is that he could be so blinkered, biased and sectarian that he could advocate that in a plural nation like Malaysia, sedition includes any act that causes fear to the Malays," said Lim.

Lim also cited Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar wanting the act to be "improved" to make it easier for authorities to prosecute those who violated the law.

He said it was already “shocking" that Najib had failed to address widespread concerns about selective and malicious investigation and prosecution under the Sedition Act against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, intellectuals and activists in the recent “white terror” campaign to create a climate of fear in the country.

"It would appear that even before any amendments to fortify the Sedition Act, there would be pressure for another dragnet of selective or malicious prosecution against PR leaders, activists and dissent."

Lim also said Najib would be mistaken if he thought buckling to the rightist and extremist pressures to keep the Sedition Act would also consolidate his position in Umno.

He agreed with former information minister Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin that Najib was regarded as a "liberal and weak leader" by his party as a whole.

Zainuddin wrote in his blog today that a “quiet revolution” was spreading among members of the party, fuelled by anger and loss of confidence in the Umno president, who is also country’s sixth prime minister.

He said if Najib was a smart politician, he would understand that the applause he got from delegates when he announced that the Sedition Act was here to stay was Umno’s rejection of his leadership that was liberal and weak.

"Ominous warning from the rightists and extremists in Umno and Umno-sponsored NGOs indeed," Lim said. – November 28, 2014.