The Star Online Friday December 14, 2007
Writ of habeas corpus filed for Manoharan
IPOH: A writ of habeas corpus for the release of lawyer M. Manoharan from detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) has been filed.
DAP national chairman Karpal Singh, who is acting as lawyer for the detainee, said the application was filed at 4.30pm at the High Court here Friday.
The High Court here fixed next Wednesday to mention the case, in which the Internal Security Minister and head of the Kamunting detention camp have been named as respondents.
Karpal Singh said the two-year detention order issued by the Internal Security Ministry was unconstitutional and invalid.
He said the detention order was not done in accordance with Section 73 of the ISA, which requires police investigations and recommendations to be given to the Internal Security Minister within a period of 60 days before a detention order is issued.
During the 60-day period, he said, a detainee would be allowed to put up his defence before the Minister made a decision on the detention order.
Manoharan, who was detained at 2pm on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, is already put under a two-year detention order, which was handed to his wife V.N.S Pushpaneela when she visited Manoharan at the Kamunting detention camp in Taiping Friday morning.
"For the first time in the legal history of the ISA in Malaysia, a two-year detention order has been issued against a detainee without the initial 60-day period," said Karpal Singh.
"The order made by the Minister is defective," he added.
Manoharan and V. Ganabatirau, who are DAP members, are among five who were detained under the ISA on Thursday.
The other three are lawyers P. Uthayakumar and R. Kenghadharan, and Hindraf coordinator T. Vasanthakumar.
Earlier at 10.30am yesterday outside the gates of the Kamunting detention camp in Taiping, Karpal Singh was denied entry to visit the detainees as their lawyer.
Comments:
At onset there is accusation of Hindraf leaders of being linked with terrorist organization and now the ISA is invoked on those leaders concerned. The detention of 5 Hindraf leaders for the peaceful struggle of Indians' rights, has violated the human rights of freedom of expression.
Rightly no one is above the law. But the police are doing the biddings of the government to arrest and detain those Hindraf leaders reportedly involved in the accusation of ethnic cleansing and snatching of Indian corpse to bury according to Islamic rite. Racial riots and killings of ethnic Chinese and Indians in Malaysia is a fact and not a cover-up. For instance the Racial Riots on May 13, 1969 was due to agenda of Malay politicians when the Chinese minority had upset the UMNO-led Alliance by denting its two thirds majority and its control of Selangor state was threatened. Certainly there was much celebrating among the mainly Chinese opposition parties at the election result, which angered Malay politicians who sensed their political dominance was under threat.
The findings was based on the book entitled "Declassified Documents on the Malaysian riots of 1969" by Dr. Kua Kia Soong, the principal of New Era College, is based not directly on Malaysian sources but on now-open British documents held at the Public Records Office in Kew Gardens, near London. These consist of contemporary British diplomatic and intelligence reports which suggest that the riots were not spontaneous acts of communal violence, as is constantly alleged by UMNO, but were fanned by Malay elements, with support from the army and police, wanting to discredit the accommodating prime minister and impose a much more rigorous Malay agenda. One British document concluded that the goal was to "formalize Malay dominance, sideline the Chinese and shelve Tunku."
The official Malaysian government version of events was that the riots were sparked by Opposition parties "infiltrated by communist insurgents" following huge opposition gains in the election. Although the UMNO-led Alliance, the predecessor of the Barisan National, retained an overall majority, it lost its two thirds majority and its control of Selangor state was threatened. Certainly there was much celebrating among the mainly Chinese opposition parties at the election result, which angered Malay politicians who sensed their political dominance was under threat.
In any event, the Tunku effectively stepped aside as emergency powers to rule by decree were (temporarily) placed in the hands of a National Operations Council headed by his deputy Tun Abdul Razak – father of current deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak. The Tunku remained prime minister until September 1970 but had little authority any more. In 1971 he also stepped down as president of UMNO after virulent criticism by the Malay "Young Turks," headed by Mahathir Mohamad, the future Prime Minister. The same year the government enunciated the New Economic Policy and began aggressive affirmative action programs to advance the economic and educational level of Malays.
Now the snatching of Indian corpse is referring to the controversial case involving Article 121 (1A) burst upon the Malaysians' consciousness when the High Court on 28.12.2005 in the case of Kaliammal a/p Simnasamy v Pengarah Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (JAWI) and 2 others (commonly known as the Moorthy case) took the view that it lacks jurisdiction and the power of judicial review over a Syariah court decision. Briefly, in this case, the applicant who is a Hindu, married one Moorthy a/l Maniam who was also a Hindu, on 25.11.1995. Upon his demise the applicant claimed that her late husband had never told her of his new faith and that he was in fact practicing the Hindu faith at all times. With a view to resolve the impasse the Federal Territory Islamic Council filed an ex-parte application to the Syariah court and obtained an order therefrom which inter alia declared that the deceased was a Muslim at the time of his death, that the deceased was to be buried according to Islamic rites and that the deceased had never renounced his faith in Islam.
Meanwhile the widow also applied to the High Court Kuala Lumpur for inter alia, a declaration that the deceased was a Hindu. Unfortunately by the time her application was heard the Syariah court had already made its decision. The High court dismissed her application on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction by virtue of Article 121(1A).
The widow is a non-Muslim. Thus she is not entitled to appear before the Syariah court since paragraph 1 of the State List expressly states that Syariah courts 'shall have jurisdiction only over persons professing the religion of Islam.. '. At the same time Article 121(1A) is a hurdle for her to cross when seeking remedy in the civil court. Hence, based on the decision of the High court she appears to have no forum for redress. The widow is appealing to the Court of Appeal against the decision of the High court.
In the straight forward case of Moorthy that the widow had testified that his husband Moorthy who hiked Mt. Everest with a Malaysian team was not a practicing Islam as his true faith at the time of his death. The fact that the widow had testified that Moorthy was a practicing-Hindu should have entitled the case to come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Court. Now faith of a person is changeable and not bound on papers. If paper-like faith cannot be challenged by his life-style and real life practices, then that kind of faith is "dead".
In 1997 M. Magendran and N. Mohandas become the first Malaysians to summit Mount Everest; Maniam Moorthy , a member of the Malaysian Army, is also a member of their team, though he did not reach the summit. Records of the Malaysian Armed Forces state that he embraced Islam on 11 October 2004 and filed an application with his superiors to be registered as such on 8 March 2005; however, his military identity card was never modified to reflect this change of religion or his reported new Muslim name of Mohammad Abdullah.
Despite his conversion to Islam, Moorthy remained uncircumcised, still took part in Hindu festivals, ate pork, and drank alcohol; he appeared on television on 31 October 2005, being interviewed about his celebration of Deepavali. On 11 November 2005 , he fell from his wheelchair, injuring his head and entering into a coma from which he would never recover. Moorthy died at 11.10 am on 20 December 2005 in the Intensive Care Unit of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital. He was only 36 at the time of his death.
A person is saved by faith and not by works. Hence the public declaration of his cerebration of his previous faith in Hinduism should have renounced himself as a Muslim. It was an erroneous judgement by the High Court who was likely a Muslim and for fear of repercursion from the Muslim community. It was strange for Moorthy to embrace Islam and then return to his former faith in less than a year. In any event, Moorthy was not a Muslim by the way he lived at the time of his death. No matter what he had signed on October 11, 2004 would become void as he was living up to the faith of Islam. It had been a disgrace to Islam to bury him as a Muslim when he did not live as one. So the media reports in India that Indian corpse was snatched and buried as Muslim was true.
On another note, no one can understand the reluctance of the Army and religious authorities to inform this Everest hero who helped the first two Malaysians to climb Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. Are they worried that the opposition from family members would affect his new-found faith. That should not be the case as his faith should be strong enough to withstand all pressure, including that of his family.
The failure of High Court to pass sound judgement is recalling the scandal of VK Lingam video clip who was brokering and fixing the appointment of Judges. Judges were appointed by recommendation of the CJ to PM with no independent commission to assess the integrity of the judge and his experience. It has affected the perception of the family members and the Indian community towards the authorities. It has been commented that Islam is a religion of imprisonment and not a religion of freedom.
Anyone is free to embrace it but to renounce it means you may die by the sword for the disgrace to leave Islam. On one hand Quran says there is "no compulsion in a religion" but on the other hand, it tells believers to kill the infidels and submit them to pay tax or convert them to Islam. Of course when reading the Quran in the right context, it was written during the period of peace at the initial stage and subsequently during wars led by the founder. But there is no time and dating of the verses in the Quran of which the "scripts" or revelations were rearranged by the Caliphs during the compilation into a book or Quran. In any event, there is abrogation of verses in Quran. So it is best to consider those verses depicting violence to be abrograted and practise true Salam or Islam.
Reference:
December 21, 2005 22:24 PM
Mount Everest Climber's Wife Applies To Court To Claim His Body
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 (Bernama) -- The wife of Mount Everest climber M. Moorthy, who died Tuesday, filed for a court order Wednesday to claim his body from the Kuala Lumpur Hospital (KLH).
Kaliammal Sinnasamy, 30, of Taman Tun Teja, Rawang, filed the originating summons at the Appellate and Special Powers Court registry through Messrs A. Sivanesan & Co.
She is asking the court to order the KLH Director to hand over the body of Murthy, 36, who is said to have embraced Islam, for a Hindu burial.
Besides the KLH Director, she named the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) Director and the Malaysian government as respondents.
She is also seeking an injunction to restrain the Jawi Director from claiming Moorthy's body from the hospital pending the disposal of the case by the court.
She also wants a declaration that her husband was not a Muslim but a Hindu who observed the Hindu customs before his death and that all documents regarding his conversion to Islam are unlawful and null and void.
In her affidavit in support of the suit, Kaliammal said she did not know that her husband had converted to Islam as stated by Jawi because he was a devout Hindu.
She said that before his death, Moorthy was paralysed from the waist down after an accident during training at the Sungai Udang military camp, Melaka, in 1998.
He fell from his wheelchair on Nov 11 and was admitted in a coma to the Selayang Hospital. He was later transferred to the KLH.
Kaliammal claimed that she was informed by Moorthy's colleague, Mejar Shukri Yahya, that Moorthy had embraced and that if anything happened to him, the Islamic religious affairs department would take care of the body.
The family's lawyer, M. Manoharan, said the summons was filed with a certificate of urgency for the High Court to hear the case quickly and the court would fix the hearing date Thursday.
Tuesday, the local press reported that a fracas broke out at the KLH mortuary when the former army commando's family was unable to claim his body after several of his former colleagues from the Malaysian Armed Forces wanted to claim the body for a Muslim burial. His former colleagues claimed that he embraced Islam last year and changed his name to Mohammad Abdullah.
Moorthy died at the KLH's intensive care unit at about 11.10am, Tuesday after being transferred from the Neuro Ward when he had breathing difficulty.
He joined the armed forces in 1988 and was part of the 10-member Malaysia Everest 1997 team, two of whom reached the peak of the world's tallest mountain on May 23 1997.
Meanwhile, his family is still waiting at the hospital to claim his body.
His brother, Linggam, 25, said Kaliammal had been looking after Moorthy since 1998 and was at his bedside when he died.
He said another brother, Sugumaran (Muslim name Ghani) embraced Islam after marrying a woman from Sabah several years ago.
-- BERNAMA
No comments:
Post a Comment