By Lim Kit Siang, MP for Gelang Patah
It is the height of irony that Utusan Malaysia is complaining about selective prosecution and investigation when the UMNO-owned daily has been the biggest beneficiary of such criminal oversight and abuses of power by various enforcement agencies particularly the police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers as Utusan continues to enjoy both “immunity and impunity” for a series of seditious articles inciting racial and religious hatred and tensions in the country in recent years.
Now Utusan alleges that non-Muslims are becoming blatant in demeaning Islam because authorities are not pursuing them with the same vigour applied to Malays.
Utusan Malaysia further alleges that “the eagerness of non-Muslims to insult Islam can no longer be ignored” because of the “hesitance or fear on the part of the authorities to punish non-Malays for such activity”.
This is utter bunkum.
However, if Utusan Malaysia can produce evidence of selective prosecution and investigation in favour of non-Malays and non-Muslims to the detriment of Malays and Muslims, DAP supports a full investigation for we stand firmly and unabashedly for the constitutional guarantee in Article 8(1) of the Federal Constitution on equality before the law and entitlement to equal protection of the law to all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, gender or socio-economic status.
In fact, DAP would fully support a Royal Commission of Inquiry to conduct a no-holds-barred wide-ranging inquiry into all cases and instances of selective prosecution and investigation by the enforcement agencies which counter, contradict or diminish the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law for all Malaysians in the past one, two or even three decades going back to the 22-year Mahathir premiership.
Will Utusan Malaysia support this proposal?
Can the authorities (or even Utusan) explain the selective non-prosecution of Utusan Malaysia for some of the most irresponsible and seditious lies appearing on its front-pages (turning Utusan into a Lies-Paper instead of a Newspaper) falsely accusing the DAP of wanting to form a Christian State and have a Christian Prime Minister or the front-page headline and story of “Haram sokong DAP”?
But what takes the cake in the “Bising-bising Awang Selamat” in today’s Mingguan Malaysia is the comment that Islam is more “protected” in Singapore than in Malaysia, saying that the republic acted against all incidents of sedition firmly and consistently.
Awang Selamat demanded those responsible for policing the Internet to be courageous in protecting the interests of the Malay majority, whom he said were entitled to live peacefully, or to resign for failing to perform their duties.
The Utusan editors must be faulted for it should be the right of all Malaysians, and not just the majority or minority, to live peacefully and to have their religion, customs and way of life to be respected and accepted as an integral part of the diversity of the Malaysian national mosaic.
Utusan would have shown its inclusive Malaysian focus of loyalty instead of its narrow exclusive communal mindset if it had spoken up against all forms of selective prosecution and investigation against all religions and all Malaysians.
I have for several years been a victim of UMNO cybertroopers on the Internet and social media who make false, baseless, defamatory and even seditious allegations against me for being against the 3Rs – the Malay Race, the Islamic Religion and the Malay Rulers – including horrendous lies that I had caused the May 13 riots in 1969 and killed Malays.
Would Utusan agree that all the UMNO cybertroopers who had made these seditious and dastardly lies and attacks against me on the Internet and the social media should be hunted down by the authorities and brought to book?
If Utusan is not prepared to answer in the positive, then we are only witnessing a cynical display of hypocrisy and double-standards.
Selective prosecution and investigation are still being used as noxious and undemocratic weapons against dissent and the Opposition, which is why certain individuals, NGOs and groups continue to enjoy immunity and impunity for their seditious rhetorics of hate to incite racial and religious conflict and tensions while the Sedition Act and other repressive laws are used to cow or suppress peaceful and legitimate voices of dissent.
This is why in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning I will give a statement to the police in its investigations against me for committing the offence of sedition, when I said at the recent forum to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the death of Teoh Beng Hock at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Shah Alam on 16th July 2009 that Beng Hock had been murdered and that the killers are still at large.
No less a personage than the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar had ordered a police investigation against me on the ground that I had committed the offence of sedition.
When will the IGP show personal interest and stir the police from their slumber to conduct sedition investigations against Utusan Malaysia and the chorus of seditious utterances and threats by extremist individuals and NGOs inciting racial and religious hatred, including May 13 threats about racial riots uttered at least thrice this year alone?
