Death penalty to stay. Deputy Home Minister Abu Seman Yusop says there are 930 people on death row as of August, this year. KUALA LUMPUR: The government has no plans to abolish the death penalty, Deputy Home Minister Abu Seman Yusop said today. He was responding to Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh during the question and answer session at parliament. “The government had answered this question in the previous Dewan Rakyat session. However, we welcome the suggestion made,” he said. Abu Seman also said that there are 930 people on death row as of Aug 31, 2012.
He said those who received the death sentence are mostly those convicted of drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping and for being a threat to national security. He, however, said the inmates were yet to be executed as their cases were being appealed in courts and to the respective state Pardon’s Board. “A total of 725 cases are still being appealed in courts. The views expressed in the contents are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of FMT. Court’s ruling on cartoonist’s suit sets disturbing precedent for media freedom. Reporters Without Borders is disappointed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s ruling today in the civil suit that Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, the political cartoonist better known as Zunar, brought against the Malaysian authorities. The suit accused them of acting illegally and causing him material losses in September 2010 by arresting him and confiscating copies of the book of cartoons he was about to publish. Judge Vazeer Alam Mydin ruled that the authorities acted unlawfully by confiscating and keeping Zunar’s books but that his arrest was lawful.
“This decision sends a warning to all of Malaysia’s journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It could set a disturbing precedent for the fundamental principles of freedom of the media and expression, which should have prevailed in the High Court’s decision. If the court thought that the confiscation of 66 copies of Zunar’s book ’Cartoon-o-phobia’ was unlawful, it should have taken the same view of his detention.
Zunar’s lawyer, N. Police brutality more widespread during Bersih 3.0, says Bar Council @ Tue May 01 2012. Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee at the briefing. — Picture by Jack Ooi KUALA LUMPUR, May 1 — The Bar Council has blamed the police for the violence of last Saturday’s Bersih 3.0 rally, accusing the authorities of human rights violations and widespread brutality. Lim Chee Wee, who is Bar Council president, said that its monitoring team found more instances of police brutality compared to last year’s Bersih event.
A highly critical Lim said the authorities had failed to take heed of criticisms and recommendations outlined by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) with regards to police conduct during Bersih’s first two rallies, and lamented on how “little has changed.” “Police brutality this time around has been magnified, there is more police brutality (compared to last year.) There was arbitrary use of tear gas, water cannons,” Lim told reporters here. The Bar’s interim report found, among other things, the use of force by the police was far worse this time around. — file pic 1. 860 on death row for various offences. London riots: Student Ashraf Rossli's muggers jailed. 15 March 2012Last updated at 08:22 ET Kafunda and Donovan were found guilty of robbery and violent disorder Two men have been jailed for robbing a Malaysian student as they pretended to help him during the riots in London.
Ashraf Rossli, 20, had been in the UK for just a month when he was attacked on 8 August in Barking, east London. As he lay injured, John Kafunda and Reece Donovan, of east London, stole items from his bag. Both had been found guilty of robbery and violent disorder. Kafunda, 22, was jailed for four years and three months and Donovan, 24, received a five-year sentence. Footage of Mr Rossli being helped up before being robbed was recorded on a mobile phone and posted on YouTube. The accountancy student from Kuala Lumpur was on his way to a friend's house when his bicycle was stolen and he was punched in the mouth. The punch broke his jaw in two places and as he sat on the ground with blood pouring from his mouth he was helped up by Kafunda. Bar Council wants death penalty scrapped @ Sat Mar 10 2012. KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — Lawyers unanimously passed a resolution at the Bar Council annual general meeting (AGM) today calling for capital punishment to be abolished and replaced with life imprisonment instead.
Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee urged Datuk Seri Najib Razak to add this to his administration’s series of law reforms, saying the move should be “leadership driven”. “We, the (Malaysian) Bar, would like the prime minister to lead and say that the government will take the lead and put in an immediate moratorium on any death penalty sentences and act with speed to repeal all death penalty punishments in the statute books,” he told a press conference today after the AGM.
“We look to leadership by the honourable prime minister to actually say that in Malaysia, as a country that wants to be progressive and liberal, this is not something we want in our statute books.” “Death penalty has zero deterrent effect, so why keep it in our books?” He said. Recognising Malaysia's stateless Indians - Asia-Pacific. Human rights movement like Communism, says former IGP @ Wed Oct 26 2011. Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Mohd Nor chatting to Shazryl Eskay Abdullah at the Perkasa general assembly. – Picture by Jack Ooi KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 – The nation’s former top cop has likened the rise of the human rights movement in Malaysia to communism, and said this would lead to the questioning of “accepted truths” like the social contract. “Every century has its wave... and we cannot avoid being hit by this wave. “Now, it’s the human rights wave... Before that, it was the wave of Marxism, Socialism,” former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor said today.
He was speaking at the 2nd Perkasa general assembly at Dewan Centrum here today after officiating the event. Calling the human rights movement a new religion, Rahim warned that civil liberties activists saw the US and UK as their spiritual home and drew parallels to how the Comintern had engineered the global spread of communism from its Moscow base. National debt in 2010 at RM407b, says government audit @ Mon Oct 24 2011. KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24 — Malaysia’s national debt rose by 12.3 per cent to over RM407 billion last year, according to the Auditor-General’s report released today. Although the economy grew by 7.2 per cent in 2010, last year’s fiscal deficit maintained public debt at over 50 per cent of GDP for the second year running. The Auditor-General said in the report that the government owed 53.1 per cent of GDP, slightly down from 53.7 per cent last year. “The ratio of the federal government debt to GDP at the end of 2010 is 53.1 per cent, over 50 per cent for the second year running,” Tan Sri Ambrin Buang (picture) wrote.
The audit report stated public debt from domestic sources rose by RM41.76 billion to RM390.36 billion while loans from foreign sources rose to RM16.75 billion, up RM2.96 billion. The Loan (Local) and Government Investment Acts set a domestic debt ceiling of 55 per cent for the government while the External Loans Act 1963 limits foreign loan exposure to RM35 billion. Cops shoo away local ‘Occupy Wall St’ offshoot. Police direct attendees of the “Occupy Dataran” event to disperse, four hours after the even started. —Picture by Jack Ooi KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 — A 50-strong crowd gathered in Dataran Merdeka today to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, only to be dispersed by police after four hours of fun and games.
About 10 uniformed policemen cut short the “Occupy Dataran” event at 7.35pm after telling the organisers they could not gather in the public square without a permit from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL). The gathering, organised by the Kuala Lumpur People’s Assembly, had been scheduled to go on for 14 hours from 4.00pm today until 6.00am tomorrow. The police and DBKL officials kept close watch on the proceedings, which kicked off earlier this evening with sketches, a picnic, games and musical performances, including a spirited rendition of the Zee Avi hit, “Kantoi”, on the ukulele.
“The group there, you’re doing something, you must have permission from DBKL... Public forum on the abolition of the death penalty.