MyConstitution Finale Launch: Rock 4 Rights!

Since the first launch of the MyConstitution Campaign on 13 Nov 2009, the Bar Council Constitutional Law Committee (“BCCLC”) has launched seven more phases periodically. Each launch was accompanied by a specific theme inspired by the Federal Constitution, and was supplemented by its very own Rakyat Guide booklet and Rakyat Service Advertisement.

On 2 Apr 2011 (Saturday), BCCLC will launch its 9th and final phase at Fort Cornwallis, Penang, at 12 noon. The launch will be officiated by YB Prof Dr P Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang.

In addition to the 9th Rakyat Guide booklet and Rakyat Service Advertisement on “Elections and Democracy”, BCCLC has also produced a music album entitled “Radio Demokratika”*. The album contains 12 original songs, written and performed by 12 local independent bands. Each song resonates a message on human rights, fundamental liberties or democracy.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that BCCLC is organising a concert and carnival to celebrate the final phase of the MyConstitution Campaign. Some of the bands featured in the album will perform at the concert.

Many have asked, “Why a concert? What does it have to do with Bar Council?”

The reasons are:

• better outreach to youths between the ages of 18 and 35 on the concept of elections and democracy;

• improved awareness amongst local artists and youths on the concept of elections and democracy;

• increased participation of youths in the Malaysian political process through the conduct of voter registration drive during the concert; and

• greater media coverage and publicity for the MyConstitution Campaign.

Admission is free. Please come and join BCCLC for its final phase of the MyConstitution Campaign. It will be a fun, stimulating and uniquely refreshing experience. For more information, refer to the attached flyer.

Please contact Lim Ka Ea by telephone at 03-2231 7103 or 03-2031 3003 ext 127, or by email at kaea@malaysianbar.org.my, should you have any queries.

See you all there!

Thank you.

Edmund Bon Tai Soon
Chairperson
Bar Council Constitutional Law Committee

Sejak pelancaran sulung Kempen PerlembagaanKu pada 13 Nov 2009, Jawatankuasa Undang-Undang Perlembagaan Majlis Peguam (“BCCLC”) telah melancarkan tujuh lagi fasa secara berperingkat-peringkat. Setiap fasa mempunyai tema khas yang diilhamkan daripada Perlembagaan Persekutuan dan dilengkapi dengan Buku Panduan Rakyat dan Pesanan Khidmat Rakyat.

Pada 2 Apr 2011 (Sabtu), BCCLC akan melancarkan fasa ke-9 dan terakhir bertempat di Fort Cornwallis, Pulau Pinang, pada 12 tengah hari. Acara ini akan dirasmikan oleh Timbalan Ketua Menteri II Pulau Pinang, YB Prof Dr P Ramasamy.

Disamping Buku Panduan Rakyat dan Pesanan Khidmat Rakyat ke-9 yang bertemakan “Pilihan Raya dan Demokrasi”, BCCLC juga telah menghasilkan album muzik yang bertajuk “Radio Demokratika”. Album ini mengandungi 12 lagu-lagu hasil karya asal yang dipersembahkan oleh 12 kumpulan muzik bebas tempatan. Setiap lagu membawa mesej hak-hak asasi manusia, kebebasan asasi atau demokrasi.

Maka, tidak menghairankan yang BCCLC akan menganjurkan sebuah konsert dan karnival untuk meraikan fasa terakhir Kempen PerlembagaanKu. Beberapa kumpulan muzik yang telah menyumbangkan lagu untuk album ini akan membuat persembahan secara langsung.

Ramai yang bertanya, “Kenapa konsert? Apa kaitan konsert dan Majlis Peguam?”

Sebab-sebabnya ialah:

• lebih mudah mendekati belia dalam lingkungan umur 18 ke 35 tahun untuk mendedahkan mereka kepada konsep pilihan raya dan demokrasi;
• menambahkan kesedaran tentang konsep pilihan raya dan demokrasi di kalangan pemuzik tempatan dan belia;
• meningkatkan jumlah penyertaan belia dalam proses politik Malaysia dengan mendorong mereka untuk mendaftar sebagai pengundi ketika konsert berlansung; dan
• liputan media dan publisiti yang meluas untuk Kempen PerlembagaanKu.

Penyertaan adalah percuma. Marilah bersama-sama BCCLC menjayakan fasa terakhir Kempen PerlembagaanKu. Ia pasti menjadi satu acara yang menyeronokkan, disamping merangsang minda dan memberi pengalaman unik. Untuk maklumat lanjut, sila rujuk kepada risalah yang dilampirkan.

Sila hubungi Lim Ka Ea melalui telefon di 03-2231 7103 atau 03-2031 3003 sambungan 127, atau melalui e-mel di kaea@malaysianbar.org.my untuk sebarang pertanyaan.

Jumpa anda disana!

Terima kasih.

Edmund Bon Tai Soon
Pengerusi
Jawatankuasa Undang-Undang Perlembagaan Majlis Peguam

Pray for Sarawak

The NECF Prayer Commission is mobilizing churches and intercessors to cover Sarawak in prayer in preparation for their coming State Elections. We would like to stand together with our Sarawakian brethrens in prayer as they face their State Elections. We believe through united prayer, we can alter the course of a people. There are 31 Parliamentary Seats and 71 State Seats in Sarawak. We hope to cover every seat in prayer.

To participate in this initiative, kindly fill and submit theonline registration form with the selected seats you wish to pray for. In the mean time, you can start praying. Further updates, info and prayer alerts will be sent once we have received your participation.

If you have any feedback please provide them here.

NECF Prayer Commission

Walk and Rawk for Change

Penganjur: EMPOWER, Women's Aid Organisation, Sisters in Islam, Jaringan Rakyat Tertindas (JERIT), Suara Rakyat (SUARAM), Tenaganita, Centre for Independant Journalism (CIJ), Malaysia Youth and Students' Democratic Movement (DEMA), Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor and All Women’s Action Society.

Sambutan 100 tahun Hari Wanita Antarabangsa

Sabtu, 26 Mac 2011, 9.30pg – 12.00tghari,

Pasar Seni, Kuala Lumpur

Mengapa ‘Walk and Rawk for Change’

• Setiap hari, 10 orang wanita melaporkan kes berkaitan penderaan fizikal, seksual dan emosi;
• Sebanyak 9,575 kes perkosaan dilaporkan sepanjang 5 tahun;
• 4 orang wanita diperkosa di Malaysia setiap hari;
• Kes penderaan pekerja asing semakin meningkat;
• Kadar gaji minimum masih belum dikuatkuasakan di Malaysia;
• Gaji pekerja ladang wanita adalah jauh di bawah garis kemiskinan;
• Akta Pekerjaan telah diubahsuai sehingga mengenepikan hak wanita di tempat kerja;
• Perlembagaan Malaysia mengandungi klausa yang berterusan mendiskriminasikan wanita;
• Pengubahsuaian Akta Undang-Undang Keluarga Islam telah menidakkan hak-hak wanita Muslim;
• Penyertaan wanita dalam politik adalah kurang dari 10% sepanjang tempoh 20 tahun;
• Tiada peningkatan terhadap penyertaaan wanita dalam tenaga kerja, hanya 47% sepanjang tempoh 20 tahun;
• Isteri warga asing yang telah bermastautin di Malaysia selama 10 tahun masih dinafikan hak taraf penduduk tetap.

Mari sertai acara ini sekiranya ada ingin:-

- Dilihat, didengari dan diberi hak sama rata.

We want women’s voice and representation at all levels of decision making.

WILL YOU WALK WITH US?

Organisers: EMPOWER, Women's Aid Organisation, Sisters in Islam, Jaringan Rakyat Tertindas (JERIT), Suara Rakyat (SUARAM), Tenaganita, Centre for Independant Journalism (CIJ), Malaysia Youth and Students' Democratic Movement (DEMA), Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor and All Women’s Action Society.

100 years of women's struggles - in commemoration of International Women's Day

Saturday, March 26 · 9:30am - 12:30pm
Central Market, Kuala Lumpur
Why we MUST walk

• Everyday, 10 women report physical, emotional and sexual abuse;
• 9,575 statutory rape cases were reported over the past 5 years;
• Every day, four women are raped in Malaysia;
• Migrant workers are increasingly abused, tortured and enslaved;
• Basic, decent minimum wages do not yet exist for all Malaysians;
• Women in the plantation and informal sectors earn well below the poverty line;
• Amendments to the Employment Act remove work security and erode the rights women gained at work;
• The Federal Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land, have clauses that continue to discriminate against women;
• Amendments to the Islamic Family Law Act have diminished the rights of Muslim women;
• Representation of women in politics has been less than 10% for the past 20 years;
• Women labour force participation has stagnated at 47% for the past 20 years;
• Foreign wives with more than 10 years of residency still denied permanent residence.

We walk because it is our right - to be seen, heard and respected as equals.

We walk for all women who remain hidden, silenced and discriminated.

We call upon ALL parliamentarians, state assembly persons, government representatives

AND the PEOPLE of Malaysia -- Make the Change.

We want women’s voice and representation

at all levels of decision making.

WILL YOU WALK WITH US?

Talk on "Sri Lanka in May 2009: Then, Now and the Future"

Dr Dagmar Hellman Rajanayagam, who was in UKM from 1996 to 2001 and is now Acting Professor in the Chair of Southeast Studies (Insular) at the University of Passau, will be giving a talk on “Sri Lanka in May 2009: Then, Now and the Future”

When: Saturday, 26^th March 2011 at 7.30 pm

Where: President’s Room, Royal Selangor Club, Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur

Dr. Dagmar Hellman Rajanayagam is an expert in the contemporary developments in Sri Lanka.

Dr Dagmar studied Indology, History of Asia and Comparative Religion at the Universities of Hamburg and Heidelberg; Ph.D. in 1982; D.Litt. 1998; she has been among others a Junior Research Fellow in Singapore, 1982-83, Research Fellow at St. Antonys College, Oxford, 1985-86 and at the German Historical Institute London, 1986-1991, Acting Chair, University of Kiel, Dept. of Asian History, 1990-91, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, National University Malaysia, Bangi, 1996-2001.

Major Publications: Peace Initiatives Towards Reconciliation and Nation Building in Sri Lanka. An International Perspective. Proceedings of the Workshop 13-15th July 2001 Bangi, Malaysia (Ed.), Kuala Lumpur 2002; The Tigers - Armed Struggle for Identity, Beiträge zur Südasienforschung 157, Stuttgart 1994, repr. 1997; Nationalstaat und Sprachenkonflikte in Süd- und Südostasien (ed. together with Dietmar Rothermund), Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, Stuttgart 1992; Tamil - Sprache als politisches Symbol, Wiesbaden 1984; also a number of articles, among others: Religious Ideology Among the Tamils, in: Barrie Morrison et al. (Eds.); Struggling to Create a New Society: Sri Lanka in the Era of Globalization, Sage India, in press; From Differences to Ethnic Solidarity Among the Tamils, in: ibid., in press.

She has organised several conferences on nationalist and ethnic questions, including the one in 2001 in Bangi, Malaysia, on Reconciliation in Sri Lanka together with Dato Dr. D. M. Thuraiappah the then President of the Malaysian Ceylonese Congress. Leading scholars on the situation in Sri Lanka and well known persons and journalists from both sides of the divide from various parts of the world attended including prominent lawyer Mr Visvanathan Rudrakumar who came all the way from New York.

Please donate generously to the Tamil Forum (Malaysia).

Dangerous liaisons - no thanks to hidden cameras

Published by MSN on 17 March 2011. By The Star.

A local syndicate is believed to be involved in the activity by hiring attractive men and women to lure the victims to bed before threatening to upload the material on the Internet, said Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) Public Services and Complaints Department chief Michael Chong.

"Five victims of the syndicate have come forward since last year," he said, adding that many other victims contacted him but refused to reveal their identities, fearing exposure.

He said most victims were involved in brief affairs instead of one-night stands.

Chong said one of the victims, a 68-year-old retired businessman who wanted to be known only as Vincent, met 35-year-old "Winnie" in December last year.

During their brief relationship, Winnie insisted that their sexual trysts be held in hotel rooms.

Three months later, Winnie claimed she was pregnant and demanded 300,000 ringgit from Vincent.

When he refused, she produced video recordings of them having sex and threatened to put it on the Internet.

"The video clearly showed Vincent engaged in the act while it hardly had any footage of the woman," said Chong, adding that the syndicate was careful to protect the identities of their "workers".

Vincent claimed Winnie was backed by a syndicate because she knew information about him and his family although he had never revealed anything personal about himself.

Chong said the syndicate targeted successful professionals and business tycoons who could afford to pay the amount extorted.

Most victims were married and would rather pay the crooks instead of coming clean to their spouses.

He said the right thing to do would be for the victims to own up to their mistakes with their spouses.

He said the crooks could easily duplicate the videos and photos, which meant that victims could face multiple blackmails over a single incident.

The Roles & Challenges of an MP

Get to know your MPs!

Date: 27 March 2011 (Sunday)

Time: 3 to 5.30 pm

Venue: Leonardo’s Restaurant, Jalan Bangkung, KL

Register by 23 March 2011.

Read more:

http://www.perlembagaanku.com/2011/03/launch-of-tngs-mp-watch-guidebook/

Parable of the man who chose hell – Shanker

Published by The Malaysian Insider.

MARCH 16 – Once upon a time, a man died and was met at the Pearly Gates by an angel. The angel then explained that the man had arrived on a day of special offers: today, he gets to choose whether he wishes to spend eternity in heaven or hell.

“We’re going to let you have a day in hell and a day in heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend eternity in.” The man then replied, “Why not? Ok, I’ll take the offer.”

And with that the angel put the man in an elevator and it went down straight to hell. The doors opened and the man found himself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course.

In the distance was a country club and standing in front of him were all his friends – they were all dressed in splendid evening attire and cheering for him.

They ran up to him and they talked about old times. They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where they enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner.

He also met the devil who was, surprisingly, a really nice guy and he had a great time telling jokes and dancing.

The man was extremely excited! He was having such a good time that before he knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook his hand and waved goodbye as he got on the elevator. It went up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and he found the first angel waiting for him.

“Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven.” So the man spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. He had a great time and before he knew it, his 24 hours were up. The first angel came up to him.

“So, you’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity.” The man paused for a second and then replied, “Well, I never thought I’d say this, I mean, heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in hell.”

So the angel escorted him to the elevator and the man went down back to hell. When the doors of the elevator opened, he found himself standing in a desolate and dark wasteland covered in garbage and filth. He saw his friends were dressed in rags and screaming in pain. There were hot flames all around and it felt slimy and the smell was awful.

The devil then came up to him and put his arm around him. “Wait a minute! I don’t understand,” stammered the man. “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now what I see instead is a dark wasteland and all my friends are in misery.”

The Devil looked at him and smiled, and then he explained: “That’s because yesterday, you met our marketing team.”

Read more:

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/breakingviews/article/parable-of-the-man-who-chose-hell-shanker/