20th July, 2021 – 10 years ago today  – Remembering the turbulent political times, here we share writings from various from activist, academics, supporters and many others that demanded the release of the PSM EO6. 

NH Chan, a much respected former Court of Appeal Judge expresses in the blog as follows ;

“ The regime and its underlings the police behaved as expected of tyrants – typical of all bullies they were afraid of their own shadow – they saw the ghosts of the insurgency of Chin Peng and the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya) being revived…..Returning to the hullabaloo of the police on the involvement of national security and public order, don’t they know, as all of us already know, that communism as an ideology had collapsed with the fall of the Berlin wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union? There is no more threat from any idea of communist expansionism from Chinese communists as China has turn to capitalism and has prospered as the world’s second largest economy next to America..”

Read more: https://www.loyarburok.com/2011/07/20/death-knell-tyranny/

The then DAP chairperson Karpal Singh also lambasted Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz for getting his facts wrong in seeking to defend the detention of six PSM activists under the Emergency Ordinance. “ As the de facto minister of law, much more is expected of him than “irresponsible and inaccurate” statements over the law as well as his defence of its application against the ‘PSM Six’ as the activists have been dubbed” , Karpal added that out that the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance No 5 of 1969 came about following the May 13 riots, not for the purpose of combatting communism.

As the de facto minister of law, much more is expected of him than “irresponsible and inaccurate” statements over the law as well as his defence of its application against the ‘PSM Six’ as the activists have been dubbed

– Karpal Singh

“This ordinance (EO) has all along been used to quell gangland activities. It has never been used to combat communism,” said Karpal in a statement today.

The use of the EO amounts to “unadulterated abuse of it” and the six persons detained should be released immediately, he said.

International support demanding the release of the PSM EO6 comrades continue to pour in. MP in Australia from The Greens David Shoebridge. Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council writes as follows to the Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak.

Besides the pressure from local and international leaders, our lawyers kept the pressure by exposing all police conducts against the PSM EO6. In a press conference, the lawyers further exposed the government’s tactics in trying to justify the arrest of the EO 6. Lawyer Arumugam whom met Letchumanan to get his signature of the affidavit informed that Letchumanan was subjected to polygraph test by the police. This action by the police is definitely a form of mental torture and an attempt to break the mental strength of the detainee. Whether it is also used on other detainees he was unable to confirm at that time.

Regional left parties also issued solidarity statements demanding that the PSM EO6 be released as soon as possible . The statement is reproduced here as follows;

Regional left statement in solidarity with PSM: Free all political prisoners! Democracy for the Malaysian people!

July 8, 2011 — On June 19, 2011, a campaign called Bersih 2.0 was called by the Malaysian people for a free and fair elections in the country with the 13th General Election around the corner. Bersih 2.0 also called a gathering for July 9, 2011. On June 24, the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM, Socialist Party of Malaysia) launched a Udahlah BN, Bersaralah (Enough BN, retire now) campaign. The PSM campaign aimed to expose the corruption of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government and also to drum up support for the Bersih 2.0 rally.

Since June 22, more than 100 individuals have been arrested because they have expressed their support for a mass rally on July 9, called for by the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih). As of now, 81 people have been arbitrarily arrested and detained by the police at various locations in the country before the Bersih 2.0 rally. A further 15 people have been called or summoned by the police for their statements to be recorded in relation to the Bersih 2.0 rally. The police harassment and intimidation included arresting people for wearing Bersih 2.0 T-shirts, distributing Bersih 2.0 leaflets, holding and carrying Bersih 2.0 T-shirts, taking 112 statements for more than one time, denying access to lawyers and medication during the detention period and the sexual harassment of women activists.

On July 3, six PSM members, including Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (a member of parliament), have been rearrested under the Emergency Ordinance (EO), which allows for 60-day detention without trial, renewable for up to two years at the discretion of the home minister. The six were part of a group of 30 PSM activists who were remanded on June 25 for allegedly “waging war against the king”.

We view these acts of the Malaysian government as the suppression of the democratic rights of the Malaysian people. This is part of an attempt to protect the elite power that has been in power for years in Malaysia through the United Malays National Organisation-Barisan Nasional (UMNO-BN) regime.

We strongly condemn the Malaysian government for using harassment, arrest and intimidation as a method to try to silence opposition to the anti-democratic, anti-poor and anti-working-class policies of the Malaysian government.

We demand:

1. That the government of Malaysia immediately and unconditionally release all the PSM activists in detention.
2. That the government of Malaysia must stop all forms of repression and intimidation against the Malaysian people from expressing their democratic rights.
3. We call on all the socialist and pro-democratic movements, in South East Asia and all the world, to build and give solidarity to the PSM and to the Malaysian people who are being repressed and arrested.

We also declare our fullest support for the ongoing campaign and the struggle of the Malaysian people for democracy.

Signed by:

Asia-Pacific

Socialist Alliance (Australia), Reorganize Committee-Working People Association (KPO-PRP Indonesia), Resistance (Australia), Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), Party of Labouring Masses (PLM, Philippines), Socialist Aotearoa (New Zealand), Solidarity (Australia), Peoples Democratic Party (PRD Indonesia), Political Committee of the Poor-People’s Democratic Party (Indonesia), All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions, Radical Socialist (India), Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP, Sri Lanka), All Together (South Korea), Revolutionary Socialist Party (Australia), Australia Asia Worker Links, Vi Pham (Vietnam), Partido ng Manggagawa (Philippine), Herlounge (Indonesia), Empower Foundation (Thailand), Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance (KASBI), Vipar Daomanee, Turn Left Organisation Thailand, Turn Left Organisation Thailand, Socialist Alternative (Australia), Socialist Worker-New Zealand.

Europe

Left Party (Sweden), Communist Party of Sweden (SKP), Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR, Spain).

Latin America

Union de Militantes por el Socialismo (UMS, Argentina).

Read more: http://www.marxist.com/asia-pacific-socialists-demand-free-political-prisoners-malaysia.htm

END

10th year Commemoration of the detention and the struggle to release the 6 PSM activists from Emergency Ordinance. (2011-2021)

#PartiSosialis

For the latest updates, subscribe to the Socialist Party of Malaysia’s Telegram channel at t.me/partisosialis

10th year Commemoration of the detention and the struggle to release the 6 PSM activists from Emergency Ordinance. (2011-2021). 

19 July 2011

I write with great concern over the incarceration of Sungai Siput parliamentarian Dr D Jeyakumar, or Kumar, under the Emergency Ordinance. It is mystifying to me how the authorities can construe Kumar’s commitments and political activities as either waging war against the Agong or subverting the nation.

What has become of the Malaysian power structure that such an individual, widely seen as brilliant and deeply caring, can be so cynically arrested by using the bogeyman of communism? As an old friend, it is equally worrisome to hear that he has been admitted to the National Heart Institute (IJN), with the possible harm to his health brought about by this outrageous action.

Kumar and I go back a long way. There is a family picture of him and me when we were one year old, but I do not remember the encounter. We became friends in Penang Free School, where Kumar spent more time in community and educational projects than in class, though still managing to become the top student in our school.

After the Higher School Certificate exam (HSC) in 1973, we travelled together for two months in India. I wished to be far away from home when my HSC results came out and Kumar wanted to understand why so many people were poor in India.

Later both of us went to the United States to study, he at Yale and I nearby at Wesleyan. To my surprise, but totally consistent with his desire to lead a socially meaningful life, Kumar decided to return to Malaysia to do medicine as this would enable him to understand and serve his fellow beings, especially the weak and marginalised, better.

Although I would be based mainly in Singapore and the US subsequently, I would meet Kumar from time to time, and learn of his political and community service activities and his thinking on Malaysian society.

Much has been said already in Malaysiakini and elsewhere about Kumar’s amazing range of public health and social projects, so I need not be redundant.

All I wish to say is that in all the time I have known Kumar, I have never seen any violent streak in his person, he being constitutionally incapable of such behaviour. And being a very gentle person, he is averse to forcing his ideas on anyone or to act against basic democratic norms. He has been an enabler all his life, not a subverter.

Jeyakumar’s dreams

So let’s get a few facts straight. Kumar is a self-avowed socialist and is totally transparent about it. He is suspicious of the profit motive, believes that rampant capitalism has led to environmental disaster and sees a moral link between capitalism and selfish behaviour in society.

He believes that in many contexts, such as in Malaysia, the capitalist system can by-pass the needs of poor communities. He would like to see a more equal society. That entails not sitting by and idly wishing for it or just talking intellectually about it, but actually working to ensure that the poor are organised and have strong leverage in society.

Kumar might have a dream of more equality and a less materialistic life, but it is not a violent dream. It is not a dream that denies religion and/or the value of democratic processes. In the meantime, he and his colleagues are serving the poor in meaningful ways, though constrained by available resources, and groups across ethnic lines have approached them for help.

No decent society arrests such an individual. And from my viewpoint, it can in fact be argued that increasing the social power of the marginalised and weaker segments of society is not just a matter of justice, but is necessary for a productive and progressive capitalism.

For example, in European social democracy, high productivity capitalism coincides with enormous social sharing and low corruption. This system, which I admire, has been underpinned by the strong mobilisation and representation of the working and subordinate classes in politics.

It did not come about from the top-down favours bestowed by the elite, but from the increased social power of the lower classes, through unionisation and political mobilisation, which forced capitalism to be more equitable and, ironically, very dynamic as well. Here’s where Adam Smith, the proponent of free markets, meets Karl Marx, the proponent of a socialised economy.

There is nothing alarming in this formulation. It’s just conventional social science. One can disagree with Kumar’s socialist ideas, but the point is to engage him, debate with him, or to challenge him by providing an even better deal for his party’s would-be supporters. But to arrest him?

Either the authorities do not understand the basic logic of how societies work, or they actually want to block a more moral form of capitalism from taking root.

Predatorial politics

This leads me to another deep worry. I used to write and lecture on Malaysia, arguing that its governance system was able to survive for a long time because of its flexibility.

I called the Malaysian system a “syncretic state” by which I meant the regime was able to balance capitalism and a decent deal for the weaker sectors, democracy with selective coercion, secularism with religious identity, and nationalism with controlled ethnic mobilisation.

I fear that over time, politics in Malaysia has taken on more predatorial features. Political power is sought to serve narrow self-interests, whose maintenance has resulted in the undermining of institutions. The negative side of the balance is becoming dangerously entrenched. Coercion becomes the easy recourse to political challenges.

Unheard of levels of ethnic and religious brinkmanship become acceptable as a means to maintain power. How much easier to mobilise group emotions on the basis of perceived and concocted threats than to deliver tangible benefits or a high-skilled economy?

And amidst growing alienation, the regime finds itself widening the circle of subversives – it’s no more real threats such as communist insurgents or Islamic terrorists who become targets, but now democratic activists and educated professionals are seen as a danger to society.

This unhealthy milieu has even alienated some of my outstanding Malay students, who are having second thoughts about returning to Malaysia.

There comes a time, in the interest of the nation, for political leaders to understand that social forces and ideas in society have gone beyond the framework imposed by them. Preserving the status quo imposes huge costs on society and tears it apart.

The Singapore government, for example, which used to claim that only its leaders represented rationality and intelligence, leading to much political alienation, have now faced up to the fact that there are many smart people in society with valid ideas who have to be listened to.

In Malaysia, there are now many multiracial coalitions standing for universal principles of freedom and tolerance. There are capable people willing to be MPs and state assemblymen who don’t seek anything more in office other than their official salary to serve the rakyat. And opposition parties are proving that they can run society quite well, certainly no worse than Barisan Nasional.

These are developments which any true nationalist would celebrate. Kumar’s arrest represents a long process of institutional decay and the narrowing of political vision in Malaysia. It is a blatant sign of the inability of the regime to engage with ongoing changes in society or to reform itself.

Recent government actions have undermined all past efforts to make the country look good in the eyes of the world. My Middle Eastern Muslim colleagues and friends think it is laughable when the word ‘Allah’ cannot be used by Christians in Malaysia. And what if I tell them now that yellow shirts are banned in Malaysia? Even Queen Elizabeth would turn yellow.

Enough is enough. Let’s get on with building a real knowledge-based society that is tolerant of a broad variety of ideas in society. The government can take the first step toward reform by releasing Kumar and his colleagues.

JAMES V JESUDASON has a PhD in Sociology from Harvard University and has written broadly on Malaysian politics and economics. He is currently Teaching Professor at the Colorado School of Mines, having previously taught at the National University of Singapore.

10th year Commemoration of the detention and the struggle to release the 6 PSM activists from Emergency Ordinance. (2011-2021)

#PartiSosialis

For the latest updates, subscribe to the Socialist Party of Malaysia’s Telegram channel at t.me/partisosialis

By Dr Jeyakumar’s,cousin, Christopher:

I am writing this urgent letter to all Malaysians to be aware of the suffering that all the 6 PSM members are going thru. Isolated from loved ones and family they will have to beg to go to Toilet, or shave or bathe and hence the mental torture starts. I am writing on behalf of Dr Jeyakumar as I am a part of his family. I hope and trust that the family members of the others will start writing too to urge people not to stand for the utterly stupid charges against the 6. If in fact there was a T shirt or poster of “former” CPM leader Chin Peng, how is it wrong. ???

The National Libraries and most libraries in Universities have many books on communism for reference and reading. There are even books with his pictures as well as other involved in the struggle at that time. Is Hishamuddin going to remove all reference books in all the libraries ?? Is he going to have all the Librarians arrested or having reference material on communism ??

Hishamuddin calls the Bersih Rally illegal and as such justifies the wearing of bersih T shirts illegal also and had the 30 peole arrested. If so, the Perkas rally and UMNO Youth rally was also illegal, can we assume as such that wearing Parkas shirts and UMNO Youth Illegal. Hishamuddin is the most shameless politician for using such a stupid comparison. He takes us ordinary Malaysians as stupid but we have to show his in a clear, non violent and reasonable way that we will not accept this action.

Dr Jeyakumar

I know Dr Jeyakumar personally. His father is also a doctor. Let me first tell you some childhood stories that will capture your imagination of this simple yet strong willed but gentle person.

1st personal story

In his teens

One day he went to to town to buy some items. He simply wore slippers and told his mum that he will be back later.A few hours later he called and asked his mum to please come and fetch him back. His mum was busy and asked him to take the bus but he pleaded with her to just come this time. She relented and went to pick him up and found him without slippers !!! standing on the inside of the pavement in a shop away from the heat of the midday sun.

Looking relieved he quickly jumped into the car. People had been staring at him whenever they passed by and wondering what was wrong with this boy. In the car he explained that he saw an old man shuffling about without slippers and could not stand it anymore and just gave him his own slippers to walk.

Only after doing that he realised that the pavement was very hot and couldn’t walk to the bus stop and also was receiving strange stares from passerby and decided to call his mother.

Such is the heart of this gentle man who has been arrested by Hishamuddin and the police saying he is a communist and was carrying Bersih T shirts.

2nd personal story

When he was in University Malaya he constantly involved himself in the plight of the estate workers. I know personally of how he started tuition classes in many estates from Sg Siput to BUTTERWORTH for poor students during his semester breaks. His legacy still continues till today with Indian students still sacrificing their important time during their breaks to tutor underprivileged students in estates till today.

When he became a doctor, he requested his posting to be in Sarawak interior where many places had no electricity and reachable by boat to treat orang asli and start education programmes for kindergarten aged children. He stayed for many,  many years in Sarawak doing selfless work among the poor and destitute.

Such is the heart of this gentle man who has been arrested by Hishamuddin and the police saying he is a communist and was carrying Bersih T shirts

3 rd personal story

Once when I was in Ipoh few years ago, way before he became Member of Parliament (and like David beating Goliath –won the Parliamentary seat from Samy Velu) saw me and asked me if I was free. I replied that I was and and in the night approx 9 after he had finished his hospital rounds picked me up and we drove many miles and reached a large squatter area. The old blue rickety Volkswagon tumbled and tossed in the uneven mud road and there were no streetlights at all and we ere driving in the dark.

After a long time we reached a broken down hut and inside was an old Indian lady on a makeshift bed. Dr Kumar listened for a long time to her crying and after sometime he gently talked to her and gave her some painkiller injections and she soon slept off. On the way back he told me that she was in the end stage of her cancer and was dying and in so much pain. He made this trip twice or 3 times a week as she could not come to a hospital for pain medication. I sat quietly reflection how much just one person can do and how we who are so blessed do so little.

Dr Kumar is my cousin and I am proud to know him. !!! My relationship throughout the years have enriched me tremendously. I hope that reading this that you will not believe the lies that the mainstream newspapers is trying to tell you.

All of the 6 deserve our support and love – more so at this time, This is my simple testimony. I am sure that many, many more people will be able to share more experiences that they have had with Dr Kumar.

His gentle heart, his ready ear for listening even to the smallest complaints. I am enraged that they have locked him up without his seeing his wife and son and parents and friends. It is said that he is in solitary confinement. His 19 year old son who was also on the bus was arrested with him and kept in the lock up.

Please read and pass to friends if you can. Remember – All it takes for Evil to Triumph is for good people to do nothing !!

Proud to be his friend,

Christopher

10th year Commemoration of the detention and the struggle to release the 6 PSM activists from Emergency Ordinance. (2011-2021)

#PartiSosialis

For the latest updates, subscribe to the Socialist Party of Malaysia’s Telegram channel at t.me/partisosialis 

Remembering the turbulent political times, here we share writings from various from activist, academics, supporters and many others that demanded the release of the PSM EO6 , – Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj ( the current PSM Chairperson), Sugumaran , Letchumanan, Choo Chon Kai, Sarasvathy , and Sarath Babu.

Choo Sing Chye, a former Perak state assembly member, served as politcal secretary to the late P Patto writes about Dr Jeyakumar.

Dr Jeyakumar is a pleasant and a gentle person whose passion to help the poor had always been laced with compassion. Not a strand in him that suggests he is a violent person. Whatever he does transcends well beyond race and religion. He is a true Malaysian without the Indian adjective.

About three weeks ago, I received two books from him, Maaf Tuan Speaker, Saya Tidak Dapat Menyokong which is written by him and the other, Socialist Perspective 3 by Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s selected writers.

I read them both, but when he was charged with ‘waging war’ against our King and reviving the Communist ideology, I felt that we are living in a deflated democracy in which the government has gone overboard with its arrest of its citizens.

Violent inclination? It definitely does not show in his character or in his book.

His book is not seditious nor have any tendency towards violence. His book does not insinuate violence or the call for an armed uprising against the government. His writings showed none of these.

Even the choice of words in the PSM’s banner calling for the removal of the BN government were mild – I mean extremely mild. The choice of the keyword was ‘retire’ not ‘destroy’. ‘Retire’ does not conjure up any image of violence or aggressiveness. It is more of a call for the BN government to ‘leave-in-peace’ rather than a call for its destruction. 

His ideas and belief-system that he had expounded in his book do not stray away from the very position of the left-of-Centre which the present British Labour Party resides and for that matter, the Liberal Party (the present ruling government coalition partner in UK). 

If the Malaysian government insists on calling PSM communist than it is safe to call three quarter of Western Europe as Communist.

Generally, Dr Jeyakumar as I have known him is a soft-left Social Democrat rather than a hard-left Communist. 

The Malaysian Government must not dwell in the past, grow up please! Communism is fast fading away from the world political scene. In China, the teens are queuing up to buy the latest Apple’s I-Pads rather than queuing up to buy Mao’s little Red Book. 

The world has changed and the most unambiguous change is from the Land Above the Wind (Middle East).

Now the only decent thing the government should do is to release Dr Jeyakumar and his colleagues without any precondition.

Martin Jalleh, social activist and writer.

JULY 13 — Bersih 2.0 laid bare the fact that Umno is politically bankrupt. It brought out the same old bag of tricks, treats and threats. It looked like a party in a sordid state of denial and beyond redemption.

Alas, the BN went berserk over Bersih! The coalition continues to be the bane of democracy in Bolehland as it resorts to political moves most base in stifling and stopping Bersih!

The Prime Minister now tries desperately hard to redeem his battered image — which he has largely brought upon himself! Time and again he blundered — and very badly too.

Najib puts on a brave front whilst playing his blame game. He has been blindly led by his advisors and now finds himself in a bind, with a bruised ego and sounding very much like a broken record!

This time a humble woman lawyer of substance and a non-politician outshone him. Each time he attacked her, he reduced himself to a small boy begging for attention and looking for a fight.

The Home Minister did what he is most at home with — he bellowed with rage, and blared out the most bizarre and unimaginable balderdash. But no one bothers anymore with his bark and blather!

Of course the men in blue who looked as though they made up a branch of the Government (or a component of the BN), bowed, bent and did the bidding of their political (pay)master.
A bunch of bullies, their brutality was captured on bountiful clips on the Internet. Yet they unashamedly bulled about their innocence, and the PM and Home Minister added to the bunkum!

Whilst Malaysians refused to buckle, the bosses of the servile mainstream press continued to suck up to their political masters, giving stories a spin and slant that served the government The beleaguered BN continued to bluff itself– all the time! The rakyat refused to buy what it (and its newspapers) were selling!

The Bersih 2.0 march is over but its spirit lives on in many Malaysians – in spite of it being branded “illegal”. The Government can ban all it wants, but the rakyat will not be browbeaten!

The BN’s image has hit rock-bottom. It should begin cleansing its stained credibility and integrity by releasing all who are still “illegally” detained (as a result of their involvement with Bersih)!
Till to date, there is no solid and substantiated basis for the continued detention in particular of Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj and five of his colleagues of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM).

The Government has reduced itself to a political buffoon by resurrecting the“communist” and “foreign” bogeyman in the arrest and re-arrest of Dr Jeyakumar and the rest.
For a Government that brags so much about transformation and change, deploying Cold War tactics on political rivals in these days only reveals how far behind the times it really is!

Expecting the public to believe that Jeyakumar is trying to revive communist ideology is as ridiculous as saying that Deputy PM Muhyiddin Yassin is intelligent!

Those who know Jeyakumar personally readily vouch for his integrity, his passion for the poor and his principled, patient and peaceful approach. The MP is truly a rare breed politician!

The judiciary has just betrayed its often loud claim of being independent when it delayed today the hearing date of habeas corpus application of Jeyakumar and the five others by a month.
A June 2010 court circular states that such urgent hearing dates must be fixed within a week after filing. The blunt and brutal truth — the judiciary remains beholden to the government.

The longer Jeyakumar and his colleagues remain behind bars, the longer the Government of Malaysia will look bad in the eyes of the world. It has no one to blame but itself.
The Government has to clean up its act. Malaysia sits on the UN Human Rights Council with a laundry list of transgressions. It cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this daylight mockery!

Alas, the Government got more than it bargained for when trying to banish Bersih into oblivion. Najib leads the nation forward into abysmal political backwaters.

#PartiSosialis

For the latest updates, subscribe to the Socialist Party of Malaysia’s Telegram channel at t.me/partisosialis 

#OnThisDay 
14 July 2011

14 Jul – Human Rights Watch urges the government to free immediately and unconditionally the 6 detained Socialist Party members, rescind the charges against another 24 party members already released on bail, and to stop using preventive detention legislation, such as the Emergency Ordinance, against peaceful protesters.

Human Rights Watch urged the government to free immediately and unconditionally the 6 detained Socialist Party members, rescind the charges against another 24 party members already released on bail, and to stop using preventive detention legislation, such as the Emergency Ordinance, against peaceful protesters.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/07/13/malaysia-investigate-crackdown-pro-democracy-march

#PartiSosialis

For the latest updates, subscribe to the Socialist Party of Malaysia’s Telegram channel at t.me/partisosialis