Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 30/3/2017 When the Romanian government planned to enforce a decree to make power abuse a crime punishable by jail only when the sum involved exceeds 200,000 lei, which is equivalent to RM210,000, an estimated half a million Romanians took to the streets to protest their government’s plan to legitimise corruption below the said amount. The Romanian police did not try their best to prevent the demonstration from taking place in the city of Bucharest by arresting prominent leaders of opposition parties and civil rights organisations. This is part of the democratic process which the Romanian security has abided by. But in Malaysia, the Umno-dominated Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government has very often viewed protests and demonstrations as acts detrimental to parliamentary democracy, thus enacting many kinds of restrictions under the Peaceful Assembly Act, Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), Prevention of

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 27/2/2017 Well, the so-called PAS-sponsored Himpunan 355 has come and gone. The rally was supposedly to garner support for PAS president Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill, which is expected to be tabled in parliament next month, to enhance punishments under the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, also known as Act 355. PAS’ long-time arch rival Umno has also come out in support of Hadi’s bill, citing the importance of uniting regardless of political affiliation in order to protect the religion from threats. Can PAS and Umno enlighten us on who is “threatening” Islam in Malaysia and how the “threat” has been initiated? Are they able to identify the culprits who have threatened the religion all this while? Prior to PAS’ decision to forward the bill to amend Act 355 to provide for stiffer shariah punishments, did they scrutinise the bill to look for measures that would enforce good governance and curb corrupt