POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Respect for Rights Commission Wanes

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 2003 (IPS) - The high marks that Malaysia’s National Human Rights Commission previously got for scrutinising the government’s human rights record has waned, and some critics now say it has all but become irrelevant.

Three years after an exemplary start that defied expectations that it would be a useless body, it is no longer seen as a crusading protector of individual human rights.

In fact, the same rights groups that had at first doubted the commission and then were later all praise for it now dismiss the commission, known by its Malay acronym Suhakam, as irrelevant.

Not a week passes without some interest group – non-government groups, alternative media, opposition political parties and the government itself – questioning its relevance.

Suhakam has even been sued in court for failing to investigate rights abuses during race riots in a depressed area in the city that killed eight people and injured dozens in 2001. The commission is often sarcastically described as a "warehouse for reports", a research institute on human rights or just a "government creature”.

Yet police and other government agencies still see Suhakam as too radical and a danger to public peace and security for questioning the established practice and order.

"To evaluate Suhakam’s performance in protecting human rights – and press freedom in particular – the question we should ask is not so much what it has done, but what impact it has made. The answer is, sadly, very little," wrote Stevan Gan, editor of the independent news website ‘Malaysiakini’.

Gan then listed over a dozen prominent cases of rights abuse and government action against press freedom that Suhakam was unable to prevent since its inception – from sedition charges against editors to a police raid on ‘Malaysiakini’ to seize its computers.

He asked what Suhakam did in response to such attacks. "Not much. Clearly the human rights watchdog has been more of a detached bystander than a human rights protector. But to give credit where it is due, Suhakam did make a number of suggestions this on press freedom," Gan said.

Suhakam pressed for automatic approval and renewal of publication licences, amendments to the Printing Presses and Publications Act and Official Secrets Act, and the enactment of a freedom of information act as a guarantee to press freedom and access to information.

When Suhakam does recommend changes, the government ignores them. It does not have the power of compulsion and can only urge, recommend and decry.

Under its charter Suhakam’s job is to propagate human rights awareness, advise the government on human rights and inquire into the infringement of human rights.

But some critics say the more progressive members have found themselves eased out. "Some outspoken Suhakam commissioners were not reappointed and new, conservative and less aggressive persons were made Suhakam commissioners," said S Arulchelvam, a rights activist with the Malaysian Socialist Party.

"Suhakam has to get the permission of the government to hold a public inquiry," he told IPS in an interview. "Many rights activists treat Suhakam as a pariah without really understanding its constraints."

But like others, he said that despite all the criticism against it, the commission had done a "reasonably good job" in a short time to turn "human rights" into an urgent and respectable topic of national discussion in a country with so little room for political dissent.

"Before, the general perception was that only subversives use the term ‘human rights’. But now everybody is sensitised to the term and use it as a matter of right," Arulchelvam said. He credited Suhakam for the change.

After Suhakam’s creation, it surprised everyone – even the government that gave birth to it.

That is because the commission used its statutory powers to call up ministers and the police to account for their actions – and publicly too. It held public inquiries against detention without trial, the right to free speech and unmolested assembly.

Suhakam, for the first time ever, publicly put the police on notice to account for their actions when arresting and detaining political activists.

It was born at a trying time in Malaysian society with the arrest and jailing of former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the start of the ‘reformasi’ movement that demanded more democratic space.

"Strangely Suhakam was formed to defend justice and human rights by the very authority that had committed these abuses," said Arulchelvam.

"Since then Suhakam has defended truth and justice. It has, within the constraints of its charter, managed to speak up and defend the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly and unlawful detention," he said. "There have been many gains. We just have to consolidate and expand on the gains."

But even its late vice chairman Harun Hashim has said that ”at best, what we have done can be described as so-called initiatives”.

Outspoken Suhakam commissioner Zainah Anwar says that because Suhakam was born under these circumstances, the expectation is high that it can immediately right the wrongs. She described the commission’s performance as "mixed results”. "The government itself has never been questioned by a body it had set up. Leaders were jolted and saw Suhakam as an irritant. These people are used to power and now suddenly they had to be made accountable," she said in an interview with IPS.

A former journalist who is executive director of the non-government Sisters in Islam, Zainah said that without the power to compel, Suhakam can only judiciously use its "power to embarrass and shame" to right wrongs.

”We all have to work together – Suhakam, media, rights groups and activists – to compel changes," Zainah said. "Together we need to create a culture of appreciation for human rights."

She said that Suhakam suffers from a highly politicised perception of human rights in society. "There is high expectation that Suhakam can right wrongs overnight. Change is a slow process. But we are here to stay and we are here to listen and to speak up," she said.

Change indeed is likely to come slowly, judging by what happened after a group of gay men appeared at Suhakam’s office in September to lodge complaints – they were singled out, ridiculed and attacked in the official media.

Still, before Suhakam came into being, they would have had no other place to go.