Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

We are very certain what the Penang Umno youth chief had previously quote, "There will be trouble, not from Umno, but we cannot control them" . These are the word uttered by the said Umno leader in a press conference earlier at Penang after he received some rumours of a PKR leader who criticized the role of the security forces in handling the Sabah crisis. As promised by the Umno youth chief, the trouble starts in a timely manner. Umno members and supporters started to run out of control, turned violent and began to issue life threatening messages onto the PKR leader in his number of ceramah series recently. We wonder if this is what the Umno youth chief had warned. It shows that Umno leaders are incapable of controlling their members and supporters for being too emotional when come to issues that touches their mind or whatsoever. Will Umno leaders come out and sincerely admit that being party leaders, they had indeed failed to educate their party members and supporters ...

With the latest case of police brutality has been exposed. It has already caused another death as the result of police torture. It is simple that the police top brass would respond to such cases. They would just say the force would conduct its own internal investigation, domestic inquiry, or the policemen involved would be suspended awaiting further investigation. After all these efforts - internal investigation, domestic inquiries, suspension of the police personnel, what we got today? It is still happening. The police brutality and torturing are still happening. The number of death in the police custody are still happening. It has not stop, but instead it has been continuing much like a fanfare within the police force itself. It has already became a routine and a must-do job within the police force today. What are the improvement plans, counter-measures, productive measures or whatever they could name? Yes, they listed down hundreds of them. So does those under the Government Tr...

On the recent statement by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim citing the importance and need to have more interfaith understanding, Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS) applaud his call as a step forward towards a stronger political will to ensure interfaith understanding in this country is in place. IRAS has seen this call by the country's top opposition leader as encouraging and we would like to see that the future government would take this step towards implementation once the voters decide the who should be the new government after the next general elections. Interfaith understanding is what the current sitting government in Putrajaya has failed to preserve. What we had seen and are seeing now is the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is disintegrating from within just because of this problem. Umno wanted a more "supreme" position for the Malays (actually for Umno leaders and elites), while MCA, MIC, PPP and Gerakan couldn't do much to pre...

By Viktor Wong We wish to refer to an article written recently by the Star associate editor Veera Pandiyan which was published in The Star newspaper on 22 December 2011. The title of the article was "The harnessing of hatred". According to the editor, the acronym, ABU has long been associated with hate right from the United Kingdom to Malaysia. Besides, the ABU acronym, according to him, also represents many aspects, from education, aviation, broadcasting, medical to automotive. The subject which brought to our attention is not the whole article itself but on the ABU acronym in Malaysia, which stands for "Asalkan Bukan Umno" or Anything But Umno. ABU in Malaysia was recently launched by an NGO dedicated to reform and according to Veera, this NGO and their activist were well-known for their aversion towards Umno. Aversion towards Umno? In his article, Veera had also mentioned that it was this NGO who is inciting hate against Umno and its leaders and associating them ...