Bersih 3.0 in Johor Bahru @ Dataran Bandaraya JB

New Protest Rally Planned in Malaysia

By Celine Fernandez and Shibani Mahtani. Published by Wall Street Journal on 10 April 2012.

Last July, Malaysian activists –collectively known as the Bersih 2.0 movement– brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, demanding electoral transparency.

With the country’s next general election widely expected to be held this year or early next, activists are planning another rally scheduled for the end of this month, continuing their push for free and fair elections.

The “sit down” protest is planned for April 28, with Bersih (“clean” in Malay) to show the activists’ dissatisfaction with what they say is a lack of commitment by the government to implement measures for free and fair elections. Although the government is considering new rules to reform election processes in the country, the activists say the ideas floated so far don’t go far enough. The activists’ demands –ranging from the establishment of an independent body to help clean up the electoral roll and inviting election observers to monitor the vote– falls short of calling for a boycott of the upcoming election, which must be held in or before 2013, even if their aspirations are not met.

However, the decision to call a fresh rally does raise the heat on the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak as he tries to build momentum for what he hopes will be a successful re-election. Last year’s rally was more than just a quiet sit-down, turning messy after police fired tear gas and water cannons on protestors, including prominent leaders of the country’s opposition parties. Many people were injured and some 1,600 people were detained, including Bersih’s co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan. All were subsequently released, but human rights groups including Amnesty International condemned the action as the “worst campaign of repression we’ve seen in the country for years.”

Organizers of this year’s rally do not envisage a repeat of last year’s crackdown, given how unpopular the police action was. “I am assuming that sensible advisors of the Prime Minister will tell him to refrain from using the same tactic,” said Ms. Sreenevasan at a press conference announcing the rally.

After last year’s rally, an opinion poll by independent research firm Merdeka Center showed Prime Minister Najib Razak’s popularity dipping to 59% in August, compared to 65% in May. It has since bounced back to 69%, according to Merdeka Center. The rally is not for a couple of weeks, but already political leaders are warning Malaysians away from the event, arguing that the choice of location –Dataran Merdeka, the historic square where the flag of an independent Malaya was raised for the first time– is illegal.

Government minister in charge of legal matters Nazri Aziz said in Parliament last Wednesday that the square had not been gazetted as an area where assembly is allowed. Other government officials have been quoted in local press as saying the activists need not bother holding a protest because the government is already responding to their concerns.

Organizers insist the rally will go on as planned unless they get a commitment from the government that their reforms will be implemented before the next general election. After last year’s rally, Mr. Najib announced the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to look into electoral reform. The committee included five members of the governing coalition, three from the opposition and one independent member. The committee drew up 22 recommendations around electoral procedures – including that the electoral roll only list eligible voters, and that election bodies function independently of the government.

Last Tuesday, their report was adopted by Parliament without debate, though the government is not obliged to implement any of the recommendations. The country’s Election Commission will discuss the report’s 22 recommendations in a meeting next week. The report failed to address one of Bersih’s sticking points, though – international observers coming to Malaysia for the general election.

Countries across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Thailand, are open to international and domestic observers. Malaysia sent observers to Myanmar to monitor its most recent by-elections held earlier this month. Chair of the Election Commission Abdul Aziz Mohd Yosuf, speaking to the Wall Street Journal after the announcement of this month’s Bersih rally, said that the body would be in favor of both international and domestic observers for the upcoming election since electoral authorities “have nothing to hide in [their] election systems and processes.”

Analysts, however, say that for many Malaysians the rally is about more than just elections. They say it’s also about general dissatisfaction with the state of politics in the racially-fragmented Southeast Asian nation, including concerns over corruption.

“Bersih represents opposition [broadly], not just opposition parties. These are quite separate issues,” said Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin of the National University Malaysia, who labels the movement as a “third-force” in Malaysian politics. He and some other analysts have said the movement’s organizers have been too hasty in calling for a protest without first exhausting other means of settling the issues they are unhappy about. “On the street [action] alone invites a certain kind of negativity, and both sides become very defensive,” said Professor Shamsul. Ultimately, demonstration organizers say it is not up to them to decide how the rally will end.

“At the end of the day, the Najib administration and the police have to decide what kind of outcome they want. The last time they arrested 1667. This time, if [they] want to go that way again, I am sure many Malaysians will come forward and turn ourselves in and say ‘put us in’,” said Mr. Wong Chin Huat, a member of the Bersih 2.0 steering committee.

Christianity’s Via Dolorosa

Published by Free Malaysia Today on 8 April 2012.

By Fiorello Provera

BRUSSELS: Recently, the human-rights activist, former Dutch politician, and Somali exile Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote about a global war on Christians in Muslim countries. She discussed at length the appalling phenomenon of violent intolerance towards Christian communities, and cast blame on the international community and prominent NGOs for failing to address this problem.

In almost every part of the world, reports emerge on a daily basis of Christian communities falling victim to harassment and persecution.

In Nigeria, on Feb 26, three Christians were killed and dozens wounded after a car bomb exploded close to a church in the northern town of Jos. At least 500 people have died during the last year in attacks attributed to the violent Islamist group Boko Haram, which has called for all Christians to leave northern Nigeria.

In East African states such as Sudan, Christians have been given an April 8 deadline to leave the north. The ultimatum will affect up to 700,000 Christians who were born in South Sudan before it became independent last year. In Eritrea, it is reported that 2,000-3,000 Christians are in detention, and that many have been tortured.

But the Middle East remains the most dangerous place for Christians to live, and attacks occur with frightening regularity. Egypt’s Copts and Iraq’s dwindling Christian community feel the pressure the most.

Depending on the outcome of events in Syria, many wonder about the fate of that country’s vibrant Christian community. In Iran, members of so-called “house churches” (independent assemblies of Christians who meet in private homes because of their fear of oppression) are rounded up and imprisoned.

In 2012, the organization Open Doors, which is devoted to focusing on the plight of Christians, designated Muslim-majority countries – including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and even the Maldives – as some of the world’s worst offenders.

In Pakistan, the country’s notorious blasphemy laws are frequently used against Christians to settle personal scores or extort financial gain. The shocking assassinations of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minority affairs, and the governor of Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, ensured that anyone who speaks out on this topic can expect swift retribution.

Top offender Yet the problem is not limited to the Muslim world. In China, according to the organization The Voice of the Martyrs, persecution of Christians rose significantly from 2010 to 2011.

Unofficial house churches are especially vulnerable to official harassment or raids by the authorities.

But the world’s top offender remains North Korea, where Christians are subject to the worst forms of abuse, with reports that at least 25% endure slave-like conditions in labor camps.

In Vietnam, the indigenous Degar people, also called Montagnards, are viewed with suspicion for their Christian faith, and the government is responsible for numerous cases of torture and abuse, while hundreds of Degar women have been subject to forced sterilization.

Even in countries that are heralded for their openness and tolerance, such as India, Christian groups have been subject to attacks. During 2011, at least 1,000 cases of anti-Christian violence were reported across the country. In January, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Hindu fundamentalists attacked an evangelical pastor whom they accused of forcible conversions.

As bad as anti-Christian violence and intimidation is, indifference to the plight of Christian groups under threat is widespread among governments, the media, and even ordinary citizens.

A smattering of Christian NGOs works to publicize the issue, but mainstream human-rights organizations have largely neglected to highlight cases of explicit anti-Christian attacks and persecution.

Tying to trade deals There is an obvious reticence by international bodies even to acknowledge the problem. But according to the Pew Forum, at least 10% of the world’s Christians – 200 million people in 133 countries – live in societies as a minority group. Unless action is taken to address the issue, hundreds of communities that simply wish to practice their religion peacefully will face profound psychological and demographic consequences, fleeing into exile to preserve their faith.

The European Union, the United States, and the world’s other democracies have the capacity to raise the issue of religious persecution; what they lack is the will.

The EU should follow the example of the US State Department, which publishes a comprehensive annual report on religious freedom around the world.

Another possibility is to raise the issue through bilateral agreements with countries where Christians are persecuted.

That way, it would become clear that these states cannot operate with impunity when it comes to their religious minorities, whether they profess Christianity or any other faith.

- Project Syndicate Fiorello Provera is Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs [From Wikpedia: The Via Dolorosa (Latin,"Way of Grief" or "Way of Suffering") is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of Jerusalem, held to be the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to his crucifixion.]

The Suffering and Glory of the Servant

Isaiah 53

¹ Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.