Latest: Raja Petra out tomorrow morning
Raja Petra Kamaruddin will regain his freedom after his wife Marina Lee Abdullah posts his RM5,000 bail at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court tomorrow morning.

The candle light virgil will still go as planned at 8pm tonight in Dataran Merdeka.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Lord Denning in his book entitled ‘Freedom under the Law’ expressed the value which the law places on freedom of speech in the following manner: ‘We hold that no man has any right to dictate to another what religion he shall believe, what philosophy he shall hold, what shall be his politics or what view of history he shall accept. Every one in the land should be free to think his own thoughts — to have his own opinions, and to give voice to them, in public or in private … and free also to criticise the Government or any party or group of people …’.

In Malaysia, Raja Petra bin Raja Kamaruddin or more affectionately referred to as Pete or by the initials RPK, is putting this notion of Freedom under the Law to the test. RPK’s arrest under the Seditions Act, a law that is critized by human rights advocates.

RPK was charged on May 6, 2008 with sedition for allegedly implying that the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was involved in the sensational killing of a young Mongolian woman. RPK, who did not deny that he linked Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak to the slaying, pleaded innocent to the charge, and said he should have the right to hold the powerful accountable for wrongdoing. He was taken to a detention center after he refused to post the bail of RM5,000. The court set the trial for 6 October 2008. If convicted, he faces up to 3 years in prison. “I am not posting bail. See you guys in October, I will be out for Christmas. Don’t worry.”

His wife said she was “quite stunned” that RPK refused to post bail, and said she thought he wanted to make a statement by not posting bail, which he reportedly felt he could not afford to. She launched a campaign to solicit donations of RM1 from the public for the RM5,000 bail, but called it off a few hours later after the campaign raised over RM35,000.

Regardless of the actual reasons for the present government to arrest and charge RPK for sedition, many of his supporters are quite certain that he has an end game in mind. His refusal to post bail, and his refusal to meet or eat anything is in all likelihood part of his game plan to ensure that the media is tuned in on his case and keeping the spotlight on his accusers. And this case is more than just about RPK, it is also about a famous late Mongolian lady and her links to a certain Cabinet minister.

Having just met RPK recently at BUM2008 and have just heard his sharing about his journey in political activism in the last 30 years, I came away realizing what many have probably knew, that he is like the “Apostle of the new Malaysia”.

What I gathered from his little sketch of his journey is that he is casting a vision for new that is built upon returning the power to the people by building a strong information network that empowers the voters. In this new Malaysia, RPK wants to see a strong two party system.

“We want to use political parties to carry our agenda. Not their agenda. If they don’t carry out the people’s agenda, we vote the party out the next election!”, RPK said in his speech to the roar of approval of his enthralled audience.

Indeed judging from the results of the 12^th General Election, we all know that in some sense he has been one of the boulders that started the avalanche. And for that he has been targeted by the present government.

Unfortunately, the persecution of what many regard as a national hero, is likely to create a tide of anger far greater than the so called “political tsunami”. Is someone digging his own grave? And I am not referring to Pete.

RPK had expressed his wish to send the murders of Altantuya to Hell, but one wonders if he also had some other folks to bury at the same time.

The People’s Parliament is organizing another Candle Light Virgil for RPK.

It will be at Dataran Merdeka at 8pm on 8 May 2008.
Let’s flood the stadium with light. See you there!

Photo credits: Mob1900

Popularity: 25% [?]

My apologies for the long silence between my postings of late. That said, this blog really isn’t a daily blog like some.

After the euphoria of the election, I had to ‘catch my breath’ (like many of us) and gather my thoughts after observing such unprecedented changes to our political landscape. Just keeping up with all the latest news post election was already a time consuming effort, let alone blogging about it. Which is one reason I haven’t provided my perspective what’s been happening. I am quite happy reading what other bloggers and experts have to say.

That said, much of my initial intent for this blog had to be revised due to what we have witness over the last 2 months. It is now evident that the majority of Malaysians want a new Malaysia and have crossed over to a new polity.

Now that we have ‘crossed the Jordan’ as a nation, the focus of my writing will have to be changed. At this point, I am thinking of a few focus areas and I will share my thoughts in due course.

Of course there was the other matter of managing perception.

It came to my attention not long ago that my blog is giving me a negative impression with my (now former) employers. This happened despite the fact that i hardly post every day like some bloggers and have performed my work without compromise.

Even though I don’t blog at work apart from a few occasions when it was a matter of urgency to get the news of kidnapping out (and that was written over lunch break), my fears were confirmed when during the evaluation of my job appraisal the matter of blogging was mentioned.

At first I thought they were concerned about the presence of statements which may be deemed defamatory or seditious made in this blog (of which were meticulously removed or reworded) and that may cause them to be liable vicariously. I thought that matter was already resolved long ago where I have assured them that no where in this blog do I blog about my workplace, mention where I work, nor what I do nor my actual identity. Such concerns although real, are unfounded.

Although my blogging are my private hobby done on my free time (usually at home), it seems that they had unfortunately formed a negative bias (against my work ethic) and once such an impression once formed is really close-to-impossible to change.

I don’t blame them at all for this bias, as I appreciate that some people think that blogging is time consuming and may detract a person from actual work. All I can say is for the net savvy (like me), once a blog is set-up, blogging is just like writing an email and it just takes a few 10-15 minutes to write my thoughts. Which is why it is unedited and plenty of times, there are glaring spelling or grammatical errors. (But who bothers right, I am not writing an English paper!)

That said, there are plenty of other productivity quenchers and blogging is not the only one. Some people stare at stock market tickers, or chat with friends (while pretending to be busy with their doors closed) or go missing for long periods (lunch, tea or ‘phantom meetings’) without anyone knowing their whereabouts. I wonder if they suffered the same negative bias as I did?

Anyway, this caused me to stop blogging for a while, and after a lay off it becomes a bit harder to start again - with the inertia and all. If you are a blogger you know what I mean. Yeah, it is this quiet - mostly because of my disquiet.

Popularity: 26% [?]