Malaysia

By Bunga MelurNovember 23, 2011 -- Since 2008, Seksualiti Merdeka (Independent Sexuality) festival, the LGBTiQ's main vehicle for awareness raising and education made its contribution to Malaysian society in a beautiful, intellectually artistic manner, devoid of vulgarity.
It made “straight” heterosexual society realise and appreciate that other forms of sexual love existed and that these could be as genuine as a woman-man love. It had been and still is a struggle for gay men and women to survive even in apparently liberal-minded societies.

[Raja Petra Kamarudin.]
By Timothy Lawson, Green Left Weekly
August 28, 2011 -- A confidential United States cable released by WikiLeaks on July 29 documents the arrest of controversial Malaysian blogger and Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin.
Kamaruddin had been outspoken in his criticism of the government.
On September 12, 2008, Kamaruddin was arrested at his residence under the Internal Security Act (ISA) ― which allows for detention without trial.

July 29, 2011 -- Malaysakini -- The Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) 6 have been released today after they were detained since July 2 for undefined charges during the Bersih 2.0 crackdown.
It is understood that they were released at 5.30pm at the Jinjang police station, following public outrage and sustained protests over their arbitrary detention.
The six PSM members - Choo Chon Kai, Sarat Babu, M Sarasvathy, M Sukumaran, A Letchumanan and Sungai Siput parliamentarian Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj - were initially detained on suspicion of planning to wage war against the King.

July 26, 2011, Malaysiakini -- Parti Sosialis Malaysia has raised concern that its leaders who have been held under the Emergency Ordinance (EO) since July 2 may have been subjected to abuse by the police.
PSM secretary-general S Arutchelvan lodged a police report on his suspicions about this at the Dang Wangi police headquarters on Sunday, and expressed concern that police have for the last 10 days refused to let family members visit the detainees.
The six detained are Sungai Siput MP Dr D Jeyakumar, M Sarasvathy, Choo Chon Kai, M Sugumaran, A Letchumanan and R Saras Babu.

July 24, 2011 -- Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (pictured), a federal member of Malaysia's parliament, is one of six activsts from the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) being held without trial since June 25. The arrests, under Malaysia's draconian Internal Security Act, were part of a crackdown ahead of the 50,000-strong march through Kuala Lumpar on July 9 for democracy.
Protest letters still are urgently needed to be sent to be Malaysian government. Please visit here for details of where they can be sent.
Below, Jeyakumar explains why he remains a steadfast socialist.

By Rani Rasiah, Socialist Party of Malaysia
July 19, 2011 -- The six Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) members detained under the Malaysian government's emergency ordinance since June 25, have been deprived of all creature comforts.
They are locked up in 2-by-2.5 metre cells, in solitary confinement. The lights are on in the cells day and night and one-way mirrors ensure there is no privacy.

[Vigil for PSM 6 outside police HQ in Kuala Lumpur.]
By Peter Boyle, Green Left Weekly
July 17, 2011 -- A week after Malaysian authorities failed to stop people taking to the streets of the capital Kuala Lumpur on July 9 to demand free and fair elections, six activists from the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) remained detained without trial.
The detainees include federal member of parliament Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, who has been hailed by a prominent local writer as “the Malaysian saint of the poor”.

By Khoo Boo Teik, Malaysiakini
July 14, 2011 -- Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (pictured), or Kumar as I call him, is a public figure of enormous stature. Very much respected for his achievements and contributions to medicine and public health in Malaysia, he was the recipient of the Malaysian Medical Association’s 1999 Award for Community Service. As a government physician, Kumar served many years in hospitals in Penang, Sarawak and Perak, and chose optional retirement when he ran in the 1999 general elections. In addition, Kumar is a tireless social advocate and activist.
Kumar and I were classmates from Form 1 to upper sixth form in the Penang Free School between 1967 and 1973. In subsequent years, while we attended universities in the United States (and, for Kumar, the Universiti Malaya as well), and after we began our own careers, we maintained frequent, though irregular, contact.

[Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj. Photo by Peter Boyle.]
July 10, 2011 -- The message below from Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, MP for Sg Siput, was dictated to Edmund Bon and Mohd Redzuan Yusoff on July 5 at Jinjang police station.
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I would like to thank everyone who is supporting us by their letters, prayers and urgent appeals, etc.
The six of us being detained under the emergency ordinance have not broken any laws and our crime is that we are socialists, and we are attempting to put the issues affecting the poorer 60% of Malaysians on the national agenda. For example, issues of hospital privatisation, and decent and minimum wages.

By Peter Boyle, Green Left Weekly
July 10, 2011 -- Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj (pictured), a federal member of parliament in Malaysia, was one of 30 activists of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) detained without trial on June 25.
The activists were arrested as they were travelling the country campaigning against the repressive and corrupt Barisan Nasional government headed by PM Najib Razak.
The arrests were an attempt to blame the socialists for planned pro-democracy rally on July 9. It was a bid to intimidate people from supporting the broad mass rally for free and fair elections that was called by civil society groups united in the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih, which means "clean").
On July 9, organisers sad 50,000 people protested in Kuala Lumpur. Police used tear gas and water cannons against protesters, and arrested about 1400 people.