Universiti Malaya (UM) associate law professor Dr Azmi Sharom went full snark mode on the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition, for their failure to block the new Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) from passing into law.
“Let’s give a big round of applause to the Pakatan Rakyat MPs who, God knows where they were, when they should have been voting against Pota. Thank you very much,” he said at a forum last night entitled “What is a Moderate Malaysia for Malaysians?”.
Despite his his attempts at levity, the law professor, himself charged under the Sedition Act last year, let his frustrations spill over into his speech.
“Where on earth were you? You could have defeated this law… because you know where the BN fellows are at 2 o’clock in the morning. You could have been there to defeat it.
“I am so irritated that I am being extremely immoderate,” he said, as quoted by The Malaysian Insider‘s Elizabeth Zachariah.
The POTA Bill was passed into law at 2.25am yesterday morning, after more thaan 14 hours of debate in Parliament.
The final vote saw the Bill passing into law with 79 votes for it, all from Barisan Nasional, and 60 votes against from the Opposition.
Pakatan Rakyat won 89 parliamentary seats in the 13th General Elections in 2013, although that number has shrunk to 86 now, after the sacking of PKR’s Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim, a loss for DAP in the Teluk Intan by-election, and the incarceration of Pakatan de facto leader and Permatang Pauh MP Anwar Ibrahim.
Azmi did not conceal his contempt for both sides of Malaysian politics in regard to their actions on the POTA Bill.
“The leadership is absolutely, utterly useless. And when I say leadership, I mean all of them… Barisan and Pakatan.”
He also reminded those present at the forum that the Prevention of Terrorism Act was in essence the same as the abolished Internal Security Act (ISA).
“They said the exact same thing then… that the ISA was only for insurgents and terrorists… that it would not be used against politicians,” he said.
“But it didn’t take long for dissidents to be put away. That is how bad it is. We are going so far backwards.”
POTA will allow for terror suspects to be detained for an indefinite period, even without a conviction in court, expansive surveillance powers for authorities to track the activities of suspected terror agents, and seemingly no legal recourse for suspects who want to appeal their case or have it reviewed by a court.
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