Asia Times: Anwar supporters vow demonstration, despite warnings


	April 13, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Anwar supporters vow demonstration, despite warnings
By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - ''Reformasi'' supporters are on a collision course with authorities, vowing to go ahead with planned demonstrations on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the conviction of ousted former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim despite police warnings they face arrest.

Police on Tuesday summoned opposition leaders, led by Anwar's wife, Azizah Ismail, and interrogated them about a demonstration they organized last weekend to celebrate the first anniversary of Anwar's National Justice Party (keADILan). Political gatherings without police permits are illegal in Malaysia.

But the move looks more like a warning to opposition supporters who vowed to push ahead with mass action on April 15. ''They are creating a culture of fear by trying to scare us all,'' said keADILan information chief Ruslan Kasim, who was one of those called in for questioning.

The organizers have dubbed the Saturday event ''Black 14'' - a reference to the April 14, 1999 sentencing of Anwar to six years in jail for attempting to influence police investigations into his alleged sexual misconduct.

The event comes as the latest trial proceedings against Anwar reach a crucial phase. The former deputy prime minister is now on trial for sodomy, punishable by up to 20 years' jail. His lawyers, who want to prove a political conspiracy to oust Anwar from power, are trying to get Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to take the witness stand. But Mahathir argues there is nothing new that he can add to the trial.

The Anwar saga drew even more world attention when his 19-year-old daughter, Nurul Izzah, addressed the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Right Commission in Geneva. In an emotional plea that earned rare applause from delegates, Nurul Izzah alleged that ''the entire administration of justice in Malaysia is in a severe state of crisis''. ''Laws are being abused to inflict injury on the innocent and protect perpetrators of human right violations,'' she said.

The mass action on April 15 will provide a clue as to how much support Anwar's young keADILan commands. Though it only picked up five parliamentary seats in last November's general election, the party helped the Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) to boost the opposition's tally of seats to 45 in the 193-seat Parliament.

But on April 1, the front suffered a psychological blow when keADILan's coalition partner, the Islamic Party (PAS), lost a state by-election to Mahathir's ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition.

Barely had the dust settled from that loss when plans for the April 15 mass action were made public. Reformasi supporters across the peninsula - from the northern states of Perlis and Penang to the east coast state of Kelantan and to the southern state of Johor - are expected to travel to Kuala Lumpur by train, convoys of buses and cars and converge at specific points before heading for the National Mosque.

That was where Anwar spoke to a 30,000-strong crowd hours before his arrest in September 1998. From the mosque, the gathering is expected to make its way to the National Palace to hand over a ''People's Memorandum'' to the King.

The memorandum, posted on the Internet, calls on the King, as head of Islamic affairs, to take firm action against Mahathir for ''discrediting the religion and splitting the community''. It also calls for more severe punishment for former police chief Abdul Rahim Noor, whose blows on Anwar in a police cell in September 1998 were deemed potentially fatal. Rahim was sentenced to two months in jail by a Kuala Lumpur court and is out on bail pending appeal.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Kamarudin Mohamad Ali warned the public against taking part in the gathering, saying that it was illegal as the organizers had not applied for a permit. But keADILan leaders say they are going ahead with the gathering anyway as freedom of assembly is enshrined in the constitution.

Mahathir has warned ominously that he had information that keADILan supporters were preparing to stage demonstrations and riot. ''I heard keADILan is going to hold demonstrations on April 15 aimed at commemorating something and they are prepared to assault the police, carry weapons and wood,'' the national news agency Bernama quoted him as saying. ''They even want to make molotov cocktails and all sorts of things.''

Political observers, however, suspect that provocateurs may resort to violence to discredit the reformasi protestors or try to sway the crowd into acts of vandalism. Reformasi supporters in previous demonstrations had claimed that such tactics were used to put protestors in a bad light.

The protest this Saturday comes less than a month before the dominant United Malays National Organization (Umno), the lynchpin of the ruling coalition, is to hold its party polls. Though Mahathir, in power for 19 years, is expected to be returned unopposed, he faces a major challenge in shoring up confidence in a party demoralized by eroding Malay support.

Many analysts see Mahathir as the principal reason for the decline in support for Umno by Malays. Umno, they say, has lost its relevance as many Malays still feel they have been left out of the mainstream of development. Others have been put off by Mahathir's treatment of Anwar, which has led to the expression of a host of other grievances by Malays.

If past protest gatherings are any indication, arrests and detentions can be expected on Saturday. That would be the first major test for Malaysia's newly formed National Human Rights Commission, the panel members of which were recently announced. Rights groups and opposition parties had questioned the composition of the panel and criticized the limited jurisdiction of the commission.

Analysts will be carefully watching events in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to gauge the level of opposition to Mahathir and to see what kind of support Anwar still commands. For Mahathir, it would seem that no matter which way he turns, the ghost of Anwar Ibrahim simply refuses to go away.

Anwar's trial has caught the world's attention and now it is Malaysia's entire system of justice that is under intense international scrutiny with the release of a scathing report by four international legal bodies. The report, entitled ''Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia in 2000'', alleges that ''the extremely powerful Executive in Malaysia has not acted with due regard for the essential elements of a free and democratic society based on the rule of law''.

It also said that ''the true spirit of justice under the law has been weakened'' because of the ''pressure of restrictive and . . . repressive legislation''.

Opposition politician Lim Kit Siang has called for an all-party parliamentary committee to examine the criticisms in the report, jointly prepared by the International Bar Association, Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers of the International Commission of Jurists, Commonwealth Lawyers' Association, and Union Internationale des Avocats.

As long as the existing legislative framework remains unchanged, the report says, proposals to improve the positions of the judiciary and the profession ''can be no more than palliative''.

''The judiciary has an important role to play in softening the effect of the laws through interpretation and application of the principles of justice and equity,'' it adds. ''We urge the judges to have the courage to rise up to this challenge. Otherwise, judges will continue to be considered as a tool to quell political dissent and free expression.''

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.