Cops record journo's statement in defamation probe on 'eat pork' claim

Cops record journo's statement in defamation probe on 'eat pork' claim

Alyaa Alhadjri
Published: Sep 30, 2024 9:32 PM


Penang police have recorded statements from three individuals, including a journalist, as part of a criminal defamation probe based on a report lodged by a senator after he was accused of forcing his bodyguard to “eat pork”.

State police chief Hamzah Ahmad said the senator made the report last Thursday.

"Initial investigations were carried out by recording statements from the complainant, who is a Dewan Negara member (senator), as well as his bodyguard,” Hamzah told Malaysiakini.

"Investigations also involved recording statements from a journalist.

“The ongoing probe will also record statements from several other witnesses to assist in the case,” he added.

Penang police chief Hamzah Ahmad


Malaysiakini learnt that the senior journalist from an English daily had previously contacted the senator and a district police chief to verify a tip-off from an unnamed source.

The unidentified source accused the senator of forcing his bodyguard “to eat pork” and that the bodyguard had purportedly lodged a police report against the senator.

Malaysiakini understood that both the senator and the bodyguard, as well as the police, had informed the journalist that there was no truth in the allegation, and subsequently, no media report was published on the matter.

However, last Friday, Hamzah revealed that the senator had lodged a police report based on a phone call from an individual who contacted him for clarifications.

“The complainant had denied the allegations against him, and his bodyguard also lodged another police report (on the accusation against the senator),” Hamzah said in a statement.

The state police chief also confirmed that the bodyguard did not lodge a police report against the senator over the purported allegations.

Thanks 'MF':

al Jazeera:

Hezbollah deputy delivers defiant message following killing of Nasrallah

Sheikh Naim Qassem asserts that despite killing of leader, Hezbollah remains militarily capable and ready to meet any Israeli ground offensive.

Lebanon's Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers an address from an unknown location, September 30, 2024, in a still image from video from al-Manar TV/Reuters TV (Reuters)

Published On 30 Sep 202430 Sep 2024

Hezbollah’s deputy chief has pledged that the Lebanese armed group is ready to meet an Israeli ground offensive, despite the killing of its leader and many senior commanders.

Israel has not hit Hezbollah’s military capabilities, said Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday as he delivered a message of defiance in a public address. Despite the setbacks suffered during the bombardment of Lebanon in recent days, he insisted that the Iran-linked armed group will continue to fight.

Keep reading

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Israeli bombardment of Lebanon sends 100,000 fleeing to war-torn Syria: UN

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Photos: Israeli raids force 100,000 to flee Lebanon for Syria

list 3 of 4

Video: Hezbollah’s deputy leader delivers defiant message

list 4 of 4

What would a ground invasion mean for Lebanon and Israel?

end of list

Hezbollah’s operations have continued at the same pace and more since the killing of leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, Qassem asserted.

He added that Hezbollah will install a new leadership soon via “internal mechanisms”. The choice of new leadership is clear, Qassem continued, without offering further details.

‘Ready’

“We are quite ready, if the Israelis want a ground incursion, the resistance forces are ready for that,” Qassem declared.

Hezbollah will continue with its main goals despite Israel’s aim of creating chaos with aggression and massacres against civilians in Lebanon, Qassem continued.

“Israel is committing massacres in all areas of Lebanon until there is no house left without traces of Israeli aggression in it,” he said. “Israel attacks civilians, ambulances, children and the elderly. It does not fight fighters, but rather commits massacres.”

Qassem also underlined the role of the US, which he called “a partner with Israel, through unlimited military support – culturally, politically, financially”.

“We will win, just as we won in our confrontation with Israel in 2006,” said the deputy chief as he ended the video message.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said Qassem’s message was intended to reassure Lebanon’s Shia population, who feel vulnerable after losing Nasrallah, having seen him as a father figure.

“He was trying to reassure his people that Hezbollah still has the military capabilities to fight, telling Israel it’s not ready to surrender,” Khodr said.

However, Khodr also noted that Hezbollah needs to regroup after a wave of Israeli assassinations decimated its leadership.

The armed group will also have to assess whether and how to use its arsenal of weapons – including long-range missiles – against a military power which has already inflicted significant damage on Lebanon.

“The question is, if they do hit population centres in Israel, what kind of response will there be from Israel – carpet bombing?” Khodr said.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the past two weeks in a wave of ferocious Israeli attacks mostly on southern and eastern Lebanon.

The dramatic escalation has come as Israel has shifted its focus from fighting Hamas in Gaza to its northern frontier where it has traded nearly daily crossfire with Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza in October.

Israel’s stated aim in its offensive in Lebanon is to allow the return of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians to their homes in the north of Israel.

However, its operations against Hezbollah, including the detonation of electronic communications devices that killed 39 and injured thousands, and its subsequent killing of Nasrallah, appear to have raised confidence that it could destroy its longstanding enemy in Lebanon.

For the first time since stepping up its attacks on Lebanon, Israel on Monday struck a central area of the capital Beirut, signalling further potential escalation towards an all-out war.

Wary

Hezbollah’s insistence that it can defend Lebanon was supported by backer Iran, which appears wary of the risk of a wider regional war that any direct confrontation with Israel would carry.

Tehran will not deploy forces to Lebanon or Gaza to confront Israel, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday, despite Israel’s bombardments of both.

“There is no need to send extra or volunteer forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, adding that Lebanon and fighters in the Palestinian territories “have the capability and strength to defend themselves against the aggression”.

However, with signs building of a likely Israeli ground offensive, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Monday in a news conference that the government remains committed to an immediate ceasefire.

With that in mind, he said, Beirut is prepared to deploy the army in the south of the country to implement a United Nations resolution aimed at preventing war with Israel by ending Hezbollah’s armed presence south of the Litani River.

Mikati said Lebanon was ready to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and deploy the army south of the river, which lies about 30km (20 miles) from Lebanon’s southern border.

Barbados PM’s extraordinary attack on Netanyahu for selective use of Bible in UN

 Thanks 'MF':

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on Friday launched quite an extraordinary attack on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for his selective use of Bible to justify atrocities against Palestinians and Lebanese.

Not all Chinese opportunists, says Nur Jazlan after acupuncture

Not all Chinese opportunists, says Nur Jazlan after acupuncture

Published: Sep 30, 2024 7:31 PM


Johor BN deputy chief Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who posted on Facebook about undergoing acupuncture treatment following the hectic campaign period for the Mahkota by-election, also shared his views on the lower turnout of Chinese voters.

Likening politics to the needles during the session, which he described as effective in addressing the sores and aches, the former deputy home minister said this does not mean that Chinese voters had “angkat tangan (given up)” on politics.

“On the contrary, I see it as a positive sign of the rising political awareness among Chinese voters, especially on issues other than the economy.

“So, not all Chinese voters are opportunists,” he added.

Last week, Jazlan piled the pressure on DAP to ensure that Chinese voters turn up to cast their ballots for the BN candidate and described this as an unexacting task.

Nur Jazlan Mohamed


“When we talk about Chinese voters and Chinese parties, we can see there is a group of voters who are opportunistic in making choices. It is not that the Chinese don’t care about politics but they lean more toward evaluating the benefit they would get before giving their support and votes.

“They will see first, who can offer something on the question of what is in their pocket and their opportunities to ‘cari makan’ (earn a living),” the former Pulai MP said.

In his latest post, Jazlan thanked DAP, especially Kluang MP Wong Shu Qi, for campaigning for BN.

He also recorded his appreciation to the media, including Malaysiakini “for being wise in quoting his views on the difficulties faced by DAP in distinguishing their grassroots voters from the opportunist Chinese voters”.

“It seems like Malaysiakini understood the essence of the article and that is the reason certain DAP leaders went on a rant because they knew it was their weakness.

“The issue I sought to put forth was that not all Chinese voters are opportunists but just a handful. But DAP failed to identify this grassroots group.

“The more than 9,000 (Chinese voters) who cast their ballots in Mahkota are the majority of Chinese voters who have political and economic awareness,” he added.


Remark has ‘big impact’

Jazlan also noted that his remark that it would be “easy” for DAP to resolve the halal certification saga appeared to have a “big impact” on the party leaders.

“Some claimed I was being sarcastic and belittling DAP. One or two of their leaders were quick to rant and attack me. However, the majority of DAP leaders were more rational. Perhaps they read my article until the end, my writing was replete with facts and not mere sensationalism.

“Amid the concerns of DAP leaders who were campaigning about the issue of (Umno Youth chief) Dr Muhamad Akmal (Saleh), (DAP vice-chairperson) Teresa (Kok) and the halal certification, they managed, to a certain extent, to convince (outstation) Chinese voters to return (to vote) or (those in Mahkota) to cast their ballots.

“What I saw is that the main issue DAP was upset about is not the halal certification but rather because one of their ‘expired’ leaders got hit, but (the issue) diverted to the halal certification (instead).

“To me, most Chinese are wise. They understand the real issue behind the halal certification,” he added.

Don't blame 'rogue cops' for Koh and Amri's kidnappings

Don't blame 'rogue cops' for Koh and Amri's kidnappings

S Thayaparan
Published: Sep 30, 2024 10:30 AM


“You can’t handle the truth.”

– Colonel Nathan Jessup (A Few Good Men)

COMMENT | The narrative that “rogue cops” are to be blamed for the kidnappings of Pastor Raymond Koh and Amri Che Mat should be rightfully dismissed by rational-thinking Malaysians.

Excerpts from the government's now declassified reports were read out aloud by Zamri Yahya, a member of the Home Ministry's Special Task Force (STF).

However, it was strange for Zamri, a former police Integrity and Standard Compliance Department director, to say that his testimony on the “rogue cops” - either acting alone or in collusion outside religious groups - was only his “view” because this was the findings of the STF which Zamri was a part of.

So what is he trying to say? That people should dismiss his views even though these are the findings of the STF?

We can easily dismiss that these were rogue cops working on their own because what would have been their purpose for kidnapping these two men?

Operatives from the state security apparatus do not simply go around kidnapping citizens, and there are always reasons, either legal or extrajudicial, for their actions.

In other words, operators in situations like these are merely the crude instruments of the state and not the minds behind the actions.

What have we learnt about the state security apparatus? The police force has become a culture of its own, succoured by religion, racialism, and handouts, riddled with corruption and sharing a symbiotic relationship with the criminal underclass of Malaysian society.

And they are also beholden to political masters who have always been engaged in protracted internal power struggles.

Now, of course, the second part of this equation, that these rogue cops were working with outside religious groups, is extremely plausible.


Not acting alone

First, it means that these cops were not going “rogue” but were acting under the instructions of these “outside religious groups”.

Now, why they were following the order of these outsiders is yet to be determined, but the Global Ikhwan Services and Business Holdings (GISBH) scandal has exposed the extent of how religious and political influence is hardwired into the state security apparatus.

We know from the Suhakam inquiry into the kidnapping of Amri, for instance, that his wife, Norhayati Ariffin, had claimed that her husband was taken by the Special Branch.

It was because this was relayed to her by Perlis Special Branch officer Shamzaini Mohd Daud, who later denied revealing any such information.

However, “…the panel accepted Norhayati’s version of events as they had found the police officer’s testimony to be ‘incongruous’ and ‘full of inconsistencies’.”

Keep in mind that the Suhakam found that not only were the two kidnappings similar, but the tradecraft displayed in both kidnappings were nearly identical.

So, what we can surmise is this was a professional removal, which is a far cry from how the state security apparatus treated these two cases of kidnappings.

Furthermore, Suhakam noted that a Special Branch asset, Saiful Bahari Abdul Aziz, whose car was present in both cases, has persistently refused to testify.

But wait. The task force created during the Pakatan Harapan regime led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was also a troubling read.

It’s because, as reported in the press, not only was Saiful a person of interest who needed to be questioned, but 10 other people attended a meeting in October, a month before Amri’s disappearance, which included “Perlis state mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin and several police officers.”

The fact that both men were under observation by the Selangor and Perlis state religious boards should tell us something about these kidnappings.

Keep in mind that the state security apparatus had attempted to paint Koh’s kidnapping as related to a 2017 shootout in Kedah, which the panel refused to accept because – “they had found testimonies on this operation from the police and former inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar to be distorted, illogical, and ‘full of inconsistencies and material contradictions’.”

Citizens of this country were kidnapped in a paramilitary style, and all circumstantial evidence points to the connivance of the state.

At this point, I am less interested in why Koh and Amri were kidnapped, but I am keen to know who ordered it.

While the former Umno state may be complicit in covering these crimes, what we have witnessed so far is that because the country was run by an incompetent kleptocrat, there have been factions within the government who may have been operating without supervision.

This is what happens when the machinery of government is used to cover up the alleged crimes of their political masters, and nobody is interested in minding the house.


Learning from GISBH scandal

What has the GISBH scandal taught us? It showed us that the state security apparatus, the religious bureaucracy and the political class, for whatever reasons, turned a blind eye or were wilfully ignorant of crimes and abuse going on in a big Muslim enterprise.

Now, you can either believe that these institutions were staggeringly incompetent (do not get me wrong, I could make a case for that) or they are elements within these organisations which were sympathetic to GISBH.

And we have to apply the same kind of thinking to the disappearance of Koh and Amri.

Who had the power (if this allegation is true) to order a tactical squad to kidnap Malaysians for whatever reasons?

Who had the authority to issue such commands, and who felt secure enough that their crime would go unsanctioned by any elected government?

And who had the political influence to concoct such a manoeuvre that bypassed the traditional state security apparatus and mete out whatever fate befell these people?

Whoever these people are, they are confident that the narratives of the state security apparatus would shield them from whatever repercussions or sanctions of the Madani regime.

And so far, they are right.



S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

Subsidising rich kids for top govt funded schools must stop, says PM Anwar

Subsidising rich kids for top govt funded schools must stop, says PM Anwar

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today hinted at the possibility of ending the practice of assisting students from wealthy families in enrolling in top government-funded public schools. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin

Monday, 30 Sep 2024 11:06 AM MYT


PUTRAJAYA, Sept 30 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today hinted at the possibility of ending the practice of assisting students from wealthy families in enrolling in top government-funded public schools.

Anwar suggested that the government plans to revamp anti-poverty programs, which will include safeguards for stricter allocation usage, as he acknowledged the legacy problems with socio-economic funding that often end up “subsidising the elites.”


This hint comes amid the Anwar administration’s push to plug leakages through major internal reforms.

For poverty alleviation programmes, his government continues to phase out various blanket aid distributions and has moved towards targeted interventions under a broader attempt at cutting wastes that Anwar said has mostly benefited the rich.


“How is it that many students in the science schools or Malay institutions, which are meant for the poor, come from elite families?” Anwar asked at the National Symposium to End Poverty here.


“They benefit the families of top civil servants, politicians, and elite businessmen; their children are all sent to the best schools funded by the government at a very high rate, making it very unfair,” the prime minister added.

“By right, if a wealthy child is sent to an engineering faculty (as an example), it doesn’t matter if they’re Malay, Chinese, or Kadazan; if they’re rich, they should pay more.”

Top publicly-funded universities and schools like the Mara Junior Science College were founded to help good students from middle and lower income families only to become a seedbed for children from wealthy families, whose enrolment is usually aided by the connections their parents have.

Critics of the patronage system said the culture has kept children from disadvantaged families from moving up socio-economically compared to the wealthier ones, fueling calls for the system to be eradicated.

“Leakages, including students who come from the wealthiest families, being allowed to enroll in top science secondary schools that are heavily subsidised by the government, must end,” Anwar said.

“This is a hint I’m giving early before I announce the next federal budget next month. If the country is really to be just, we must be fair to those who most need it, such as vulnerable groups,” the prime minister added.

Malaysia objected to Israel joining Asian Development Bank, says govt source

 

FMT:

Malaysia objected to Israel

joining Asian Development

Bank, says govt source

FMT Reporters

-30 Sep 2024, 11:14 AM

The source says Malaysia was the only country among 64 member nations that voted to oppose Israel’s admission to the ADB.

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The ADB was set up in 1966 with the goal of establishing prosperity among Asia-Pacific countries while eradicating hardcore poverty. (Reuters pic)

PETALING JAYA: 

Malaysia opposed Israel’s admission to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last Friday, says a well-placed government source.

The source said Israel’s application to join the bank was approved by the ADB’s board of governors in April 2022, more than a year before the Gaza war erupted.

At the time, Malaysia was the only one among 64 member countries that voted to oppose Israel’s admission to the ADB,

 the source said.

The source said 60 governors representing their respective nations voted in favour of admitting Israel, while three others abstained.

The government is fully aware that Israel’s admission as an ADB member is a sensitive matter at the present time. However, it is in no position to act unilaterally, the source said.

The government is also mindful of the need to act cautiously as any knee-jerk reaction may have a negative impact on the economy,

 the source added.

The ADB was set up in 1966 with the goal of establishing prosperity among Asia-Pacific countries while eradicating hardcore poverty.

Each of the 69 member countries has a seat on the ADB’s board of governors. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, as the finance minister, is Malaysia’s current representative.

The source said the board of governors elects 12 members to the board of directors, responsible for the general operations of the bank.

The director representing Malaysia, Brunei, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand is Supak Chaiyawan from Thailand, with Nurussa’adah Muharram of Brunei as the alternate director.

Other Muslim majority nations in the ADB are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Maldives, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Turkey.

Is DAP mis-painted or deserving of its image?

 

FMT:

Is DAP mis-painted or

deserving of its image?

Shankar R. Santhiram

-28 Sep 2024, 07:30 AM

While its leaders present a new dynamic face, bizarre internal practices and a dynastic leadership model give the party a parochial image.

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Chauvinistic politicians regurgitate the story that the Chinese community, and especially DAP, is out to usurp the dominance of the majority race in our country. They posit that Malay cultural and religious sovereignty must be protected at all costs. These politicians repeat, at every opportunity, that losing to DAP is tantamount to betraying their race and religion.

They do not offer any solutions, or present a comprehensive plan for good governance, or social and educational reforms. The sole focus for these types of politicians, and by extension, their political parties, is that DAP is simply the bogeyman.

A little thought and reflection on anyone’s part in our country will clearly show that the Chinese community is not to blame for any of the dystopian problems Malaysia has. The biggest financial scandals in our nation that caused our economic decline, the breakdown of public services, the lacklustre performance of our national airline, universities, and pretty much every infrastructure project, were not caused by either the Chinese community or DAP.

Bleating on about the Chinese and DAP being at fault for this or that, is both false, and severely damaging to our fragile race-relations. And these bigoted politicians, who are bankrupt of new ideas and innovative solutions, lazily fall back on this nonsensical storyline.

Blame the Chinese and DAP for every damn thing. The implicit racism here is just shocking.

DAP has long sought to debunk these stories by narrow-minded political operatives. The party tries so hard to show a multiracial countenance. In its most rudimentary form, modern DAP leaders like Loke Siew Fook, Steven Sim, Nga Kor Ming and others, present themselves as erudite in our national language, and speak with the pizazz of native speakers.

In fact, the newly minted Penang DAP chief, Sim, speaks like a Malay laureate.

Coupled with the reality that DAP has had nothing to do with past national financial scandals, it is really mystifying for neutral observers that the party is still presented as some 

monster

 that must be kept in abeyance.

But here’s the thing though.

Unfortunately, DAP simply does not do itself any favours in sustainably repudiating this. While their leaders present a new dynamic face, their bizarre internal practices, and their dynastic leadership model, keeps the party married to this parochial image.

As an illustration, of the 40 members of parliament in its caucus, only ten, or a paltry quarter, are non-Chinese. The party presses for national inclusiveness, but the reality is that they have a trifling three Malay members of parliament, and one Bidayuh from Sarawak. This just means that their internal selection process for candidates is heavily biased towards one community.

If pressed on this rather dubious statistic, DAP leaders will say that this is how modern Malaysia must evolve. They will argue that we do not need people of one particular race to look after their own people. Instead, we must actively propagate the 

Malaysian race

 ideology.

For example, the Chief Minister of Penang is not the CM for the 41% Chinese community in the state. He (or she, as the case maybe in the future) is also the CM for the 40% ethnic Malay community, and the other races. As credibility for their posturing, DAP leaders will ostensibly list out the large amounts of state money that has been channelled to mosques or the state Hindu endowment board.

But really, is this enough of a counternarrative to racist politicians who continue to harp on the 

Chineseness

 of DAP?

Let’s take the party’s archaic constitution, which just provides for individuals to be elected to a state committee or the national committee, and then amongst themselves, the ultimate leader gets mysteriously chosen. The candidate who secures the highest number of votes does not necessarily get to be the leader of that state chapter or even at the national level. Leaders are anointed by some 

inner star chamber.

Only two out of their 15 state chairmen are non-Chinese, and not all of them secured the highest votes in their own state party elections. The same goes for their national chairman and secretary-general. They did not come out as the top two in the party’s national elections.

Party members are aware of this, but isn’t the optics pretty dismal for the rest of us?

Again, when questioned, DAP leaders will spin a yarn about 

grassroots sentiments

 dictating their internal selection of leaders. How much more grassroots can you get when ordinary party members give the highest number of votes to a candidate?

Within its ranks, there is incontrovertible disquiet amongst the 20% Indian membership. The sentiment is that strong Indian leaders systematically get dumped for compliant lackeys. So, the opaque nature of control within the party, and the undeniable familial-politics in the selection of DAP leaders is like an 

open-goal

 for critics.

Perhaps before whining about how the party is being painted in the wrong light by miscreant xenophobic politicians, or even talking about countrywide reforms, DAP should start by reforming itself, with a modern and transparent process of electing their own leaders.

Then maybe, just maybe, the party stands a chance of being accepted as a true Malaysian political powerhouse by all communities. Right now, it just comes across as a racially biased political entity controlled by hereditary warlords.