CPI foreword

During the past few months, Umno and its hatchet organizations and supporters have launched a concerted series of attacks on Suaram, the human rights organization. The latest of these attacks have involved the despicable use of what should be politically neutral state authorities such as the Companies Commission, social security agency Perkeso and the Department of Inland Revenue to investigate allegations of irregularities in the management of the organization.

Clearly these allegations have been concocted by politically partisan parties but are given legitimacy by the use of state bodies to pursue selective and unwarranted prosecution of targeted individuals and organizations. This modus operandi of state-sanctioned prosecution has been repeatedly used by Umno and is one main reason for the ruling party’s stranglehold on power over the past 50-odd years.

In the case of Suaram, the objective of such attacks is to discredit and ultimately destroy this leading NGO which has been pushing for truth and transparency in the multi-billion ringgit procurement of materiel, specifically Malaysia’s purchase of two Scorpene submarines.

Suaram’s probe are connected with the massive bribes and kickbacks allegedly paid by the French naval defence company DCNS.

Only the Umno version of the case against Suaram has so far been permitted to appear in our national and other mainstream media. It is a version that needs to be dissected and subjected to public scrutiny to uncover its odious political agenda. Not to do so is to fail in our civic duty.

In the article below, we are linking a recent article in the Asia Sentinel which traces the roots of the covert ‘war’ against Suaram and explains why Umno is so determined and anxious to take the NGO down.

Umno’s underhanded vendetta against Suaram must be challenged, resisted and not allowed to succeed.

The Centre for Policy Initiatives calls on Malaysians of conscience to voice their concern and opposition to this Umno attempt to kill off a patriotic Malaysian NGO that has consistently fought for justice, democracy and human rights in the country.

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Malaysia's Umno goes after a critic

Written by John Berthelsen

Never mind 150 million euros in bribes, a dead woman and a global scandal, go for the whistle-blower's throat

In November of 2009, Suaram, the Kuala Lumpur-based human rights NGO, asked a French investigative law firm to look into what appeared to be huge bribes and kickbacks paid to Malaysian politicians by the French state-owned defense company DCN and its subsidiaries for the 2002 purchase of two submarines and the lease of a third.

Continue reading here.