SOSMA–LTTE : Court throws ball back to PH Government
This afternoon, Justice Ahmad Shahrir Mohd Salleh ruled against giving bail to Gadek assemblyman G Saminathan and instead threw the ball back to PH’s court. The Judge ruled that The LTTE is gazetted under section 66B of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUA) gazette and the court has to uphold the gazette unless it can be revoked through a Home Minister’s review of the said gazette.
The ruling also says that other countries all over the world can say that the “LTTE” is not a terrorist threat but what matters most is what the Malaysian State thinks about the LTTE.
While PSM is disappointed with this ruling but basically the court is saying that the Ruling party has the final say on this. With this ruling, the PH has no choice but to do one of the following that is they can get the Home Minister to remove LTTE from the gazette list or they can repeal the SOSMA Act in the coming March 2020 Parliament sitting or at least remove the draconian part of the law which allows for detention without trial.
Unlike the Coronavirus, both these above task are within the powers of Pakatan Harapan. PH has also made an election manifesto pledge on this and therefore it is also within their promise where they have pledged to repeal draconian laws which allow for detention without trial.
Even the Prime Minister who is no stranger in using draconian laws was saying that the Government is concerned on the abuses. On November 5th, last year; Dr Mahathir himself said the government has decided to table amendments to laws that are considered draconian like Sosma. He was quoted as saying, “We will fix certain areas in these laws that allow for arrests without charges and “We will carry out these amendments as soon as possible, because if not, it is likely that they will be wrongfully used.” So what is actually stopping PH from carrying out these reforms which will definitely get the support of the people.
Now if PH leaders especially DAP, Amanah and BERSATU leaders think that by helping SOSMA-LTTE detainees, then they will be losing support of the Malay Muslim community, this is also not true. For the record, many Malay Muslim Malaysian are being detained under similar circumstances under SOSMA. Many of those detained were detained for supporting and sympathizing with things happening in Syria similar how those supporting the humanitarian plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Therefore it is critical that PH focus and raise the human right’s violation and the draconian aspects associated to these laws which goes against the notion of innocent till proven guilty. The campaign against SOSMA is no different to the campaign against the ISA. The only problem was then, these PH leaders were opposing the ISA while they were in the Opposition and now they have merely carried on this same role in spite of being in the ruling party.
This hypocrisy need to stop. The suffering of those detained without trial needs to stop. The PH has the all the power to do the necessary.
S Arutchelvan is the deputy chairperson Parti Sosialis Malaysia
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of The Leaders Online.
