COMMENT:
The Malaysian public is still negotiating with the university authorities and government, about what is 'Freedom of Speech', and 'Peaceful Assembling' (Freedom of Gathering), which are guaranteed by the Federal Constitution of Malaysia (when Malaysia was first formed on Merdeka Day on 31 August 1957), after 54 years (2011 - 1957 = 54) of independence!
Article 10: Freedom of speech, assembly and association
(a) every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) all citizens have the right to assemble peaceably and without arms;
(c) all citizens have the right to form associations.
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http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/berita-utama/6242-ugutan-bunuh-sidang-media-aziz-bari-esok (29 OKT 2011)
Ugutan bunuh: Sidang media Aziz Bari esok
Harakahdaily
KUALA LUMPUR, 29 Okt: Pensyarah undang-undang Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA), Prof Dr Abdul Aziz Bari akan mengadakan sidang media petang ekoran menerima ugutan bunuh, pagi tadi.
Nota ugutan bunuh yang disertai peluru kosong dihantar ke rumahnya di Bandar Baru Selayang kira-kira jam 11.45 pagi tadi.
“Saya menerima sampil surat dengan sebutir peluru, dengan nota berkata ‘jangan kurang ajar dengan Sultan, maut nanti’,” kata Aziz kepada portal berita, The Malaysian Insider.
Aziz berkata beliau akan berhubung dengan peguamnya untuk tindakan susulan termasuk membuat laporan polis.
“Saya ada majlis di Ipoh, saya akan membuat laporan polis nanti... anda boleh menghubungi peguam saya untuk maklumat lanjut,” kata beliau yang disiasat oleh pengurusan UIA, polis dan Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia (SKMM) berhubung kenyataannya tentangt titah Sultan Selangor awal bulan ini.
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http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/berita-utama/6098-aziz-bari-timbalan-menteri-turut-sedih
(21 Oct 2011)
KUALA LUMPUR, 20 Okt: Timbalan Menteri Pengajian Tinggi, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah berkata, berasa terganggu dan sedih dengan tindakan Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) yang menggantung pensyarah Fakulti Undang-Undangnya, Prof Dr Abdul Aziz Bari.
Mengulas melalui laman Twitternya, Saifudin berkata beliau telah mengarahkan UIA memberi laporan bertulis kepada beliau. "Saya terganggu dan sedih. Saya sudah meminta UIA memberikan laporan bertulis," katanya.
Sementara itu, sekumpulan mahasiswa yang tidak berpuas hati dengan tindakan UIA terhadap Aziz Bari akan mengadakan demonstrasi esok.
Pengerusi Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM), Syukri Abdul Razab yang dipetik FMT berkata, demonstrasi itu akan diadakan dihadapan pintu masuk utama UIA pada pukul 9 pagi esok, selain bercadang menghantar memorandum kepada Rektor UIA, Prof Datuk Dr Zaleha Kamarudin menggesa agar penggantungan itu ditarik semula.
Menyifatkan tindakan itu sebagai tidak bertanggungjawab kerana membelakangkan prinsip ‘kebebasan akademik’, UIA sebagai institusi pendidikan tinggi seharusnya mempertahankan Aziz Bari atas dasar kebebasan berpendapat.
“Sebaliknya mereka tunduk kepada tekanan dan terus menghukumnya. Keadaan ini bukan sahaja memberi kesan kepada Aziz Bari sahaja tetapi semua pengamal akademik,” katanya.
Selain SMM, demonstrasi itu akan turut disertai kumpulan mahasiswa lain termasuk Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM), Gabungan Mahasiwa Islam Se-Malaysia (GAMIS), Pro-Mahasiswa (Pro-M), Gerakan Demokratik Belia dan Pelajar Malaysia (DEMA), serta Persatuan Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya.
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http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/berita-utama/6087-hentikan-penindasan-terhadap-aziz-bari (20 Oct 2011)
Hentikan penindasan terhadap Aziz Bari
Harakahdaily
PETALING JAYA, 20 Okt: Tindakan keras kerajaan Umno Barisan Nasional dan pihak berkuasa Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) terhadap pakar undang-undang, Prof Dr Abdul Aziz Bari membuktikan bahawa ruang kebebasan akademik di Malaysia semakin sempit dan kian tertutup.
Setiausaha Publisiti DAP Kebangsaan, Tony Pua berkata kerajaan dan UIA perlu menghentikan tekanan dan intimidasi terhadap para ilmuan Malaysia yang berbeza pendapat dengan pihak pemerintah, lapor Roketkini.
Katanya, walau pun DAP tidak semestinya bersetuju dengan pendapat Dr Aziz pada setiap masa, ia adalah hak setiap rakyat di Malaysia untuk mengemukakan pandangan tentang apa-apa perkara berkaitan dengan Perlembagaan Persekutuan, apatah lagi dari sudut pemikiran pakar-pakar dalam bidang berkenaan.
“Amat membimbangkan apabila Prof Dr Aziz Bari dikenakan tekanan yang teruk daripada Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia (MCMC), Polis Diraja Malaysia dan UIA.
“Semua tindakan keras itu hanya berpunca daripada Dr Aziz memberikan pendapat dalam bidang yang menjadi kepakarannya iaitu Perlembagaan Malaysia dan undang-undang yang berkaitannya dengannya,” katanya dalam satu kenyataan hari ini.
Laman web berita Malaysiakini pada tengah hari tadi melaporkan bahawa Dr Aziz bukan sahaja diberi surat tunjuk sebab oleh UIA tetapi juga telah digantung tugasnya sebagai pensyarah undang-undang di universiti itu.
Dr Aziz adalah pakar Perlembagaan Persekutuan yang telah menulis banyak buku termasuk Perlembagaan Malaysia: Asas dan Masalah, Majlis Raja-Raja: Kedudukan dan Peranan dalam Perlembagaan, Islam dalam Perlembagaan Malaysia, Politik Perlembagaan, Constitution of Malaysia: Text and Commentary, Malaysian Constitution: A Critical Introduction, dan Cabinet Principles in Malaysia: The Law and Practice.
Pua yang juga Ahli Parlimen Petaling Jaya Utara berkta, tindakan kerajaan UMNO-BN dan pihak UIA juga membuktikan Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti (AUKU) yang sememangnya zalim telah sekali lagi digunakan untuk menutup mulut dan kebebasan ahli akademik serta pelajar untuk menyuarakan pandangan.
Beliau menjelaskan bahawa laporan terbaru Times Higher Education (THE) 400 Top World University Ranking 2011/12 yang mencatatkan tidak ada satu pun universiti dari Malaysia yang berjaya menduduki tangga 400 universiti terbaik dunia, sebagai bukti keruncingan masalah institut pengajian tinggi di negara ini.
Katanya, ia adalah sesuatu yang memalukan kerana 60 universiti dari negara-negara Asia telah berjaya menduduki ranking THE, iaitu 16 dari Jepun, 10 dari China, lapan dari Taiwan, tujuh dari Korea Selatan, enam dari Hong Kong, dua dari Singapura, dan masing-masing satu dari India dan Thailand.
“Mutu rendah universitu kita adalah hasil yang jelas bahawa pakar-pakar akademik Malaysia sudah meluat dengan cara universiti kita ditadbirkan, dan biasanya mereka lebih suka berhijrah ke luar negara dan diterima oleh university-universiti berwibawa di sana.
“Kesannya, pelajar-pelajar universiti Malaysia mengalami masalah berganda, iaitu bukan sahaja terpaksa menerima tenaga pengajar yang lemah sebagai pensyarah dan tutor tetapi mereka juga dilarang daripada mengamalkan pemikiran kritis dan beranalisis kerana dikekang oleh AUKU,” ujarnya. – Roketkini.com
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http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/litee/sideviews/article/paying-the-price-of-1988-old-constitutional-chickens-now-come-home-to-roost-clive-kessler/
Paying the price of 1988: Old constitutional chickens now come home to roost
[Clive Kessler, October 21, 2011]
OCT 21 — The International Islamic University has decided to suspend Prof Aziz Bari for seeking to make a point, as an expert scholar, on a point of constitutional law.
At stake in that instance was Aziz Bari’s view of the nature and exercise of a state Ruler’s royal powers in matters involving Islam.
Not long before these latest developments, on October 19, The Malaysian Insider republished from Utusan Malaysia a column authored by a different scholar in the Faculty of Law at the Islamic University.
Entitled “Hormati Perlembagaan Negara”, that comment was written by Prof Saodah Abd Rahman, an associate professor in that university’s department of Usuluddin and Comparative Religion.
Secular Constitution, Islamic State?
Not uniquely but as part of a now accelerating trend, that article called upon all Malaysians to acknowledge and respect the constitutionally entrenched standing of Malaysia as an Islamic state or Negara Islam.
Of course, as all serious students of the Federal Constitution know, Malaysia is no such thing, and never was.
On the contrary, the “Merdeka negotiations” were based upon precisely the opposite view.
The major political parties whose co-operation and mutual consent made national independence possible in 1957 on the basis that it was then achieved and established, were agreed upon, considered themselves bound by, and by common agreement intended to implement precisely that opposite view.
Their joint position in the “Merdeka negotiations” was namely that in substance — though the matter would not be spelled out fully and explicitly — the new independent Federation of Malaya was to be a secular state, though one whose international personality would be symbolised by the designation of Islam as the formal and official, or “emblematic”, religion of the new nation.
By means of this largely emblematic display of Islam as an identifier of the new state’s public personality, this constitutional approach would maintain some important historical continuity with the cultural heritage of the independent nation’s regional setting and with the role of the traditional rulers of the Malay states.
In this way the deep importance of Islam to all levels of peninsular Malay society, as a matter of faith and cultural identity as well as political heritage, was acknowledged and formally recognised.
But this recognition, the agreements then reached were intended to guarantee, was to be underwritten and inscribed in such a way that the new constitutional arrangements would not, and should never, impose any impediment to the political form and structure of the new nation ultimately becoming anything other than that of a state, equally, of all of its citizens, whatever their cultural or religious background.
Constitutional Revisionism, Doctrinal Expansion
Yet now we have politicians, and populist Malay rights activists and vigilante groups, and even legal academics seeking to suggest, and even insist upon, exactly the opposite view of the nation’s character and founding constitutional charter.
They maintain, and adamantly insist, that the country is, and by its founding definition was constitutionally intended immediately to be — or else launched on an irresistible trajectory towards becoming — an Islamic state, a Negara Islam.
How, one is driven to ask, has such a situation become possible? How have such developments been allowed and how have they managed to proceed unhampered by any effective constitutional consideration and restraint?
The sad truth is all too evident.
Assertions that Malaysia is, and was — and is by the original historical circumstances of its quest for independence destined to be — an Islamic state now carry the day.
They are routinely asserted, widely repeated, and go largely uncontested.
And as they do, that largely revisionist view increasingly becomes, or is ever more likely to become, the effective, operative political truth of the situation — regardless of the historical facts, and regardless of the historical background and substantive provisions of the Constitution itself.
Of course, those who promote these revisionist views are not simply mistaken or ill-informed.
Stupid they are not.
That kind of naivété is not characteristic of the constitutional revisionists and their public campaigning. Nor should it be displayed by those who wish to criticize these new developments and those who assiduously promote them.
The Situation Today
It is the absence of this kind of authoritative judicial exploration of fundamental constitutional issues — in the gap that was made possible in 1988 and has continued to grow with accelerating momentum in recent years — that has made various recent developments possible.
That is the background, and those are the ultimately “enabling conditions”, of both Aziz Bari’s current predicament and of the new, and now ubiquitous, politically driven, ethnopopulist constitutional revisionism alike.
* Clive S. Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at The University of New South Wales, Sydney.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
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http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/um-academics-back-aziz-bari-want-end-to-probe-and-suspension
UM academics back Aziz Bari, want end to probe and suspension
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal October 20, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Academics from Malaysia’s oldest university threw their support today behind Professor Dr Abdul Aziz Bari, urging an end to the “gross violation” of academic freedom.
Police investigations as well as Universiti Islam Antarabangsa’s (UIA) suspension of Abdul Aziz should immediately be dropped, the Universiti Malaya Academic Staff Union (PKAUM) said in a strongly-worded statement today.
It also defended Abdul Aziz’s recent remarks critiquing the Selangor Sultan, saying that “a criticism of a Ruler is valid if it is intended to constructively show that the Ruler has erred.”
Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah had decreed recently that the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) had found evidence of proselytisation by non-Muslims during a dinner held at the DUMC on August 3 but said it was insufficient for further legal action.
Following Abdul Aziz’s (picture) statement that the intervention was “unusual and inconsistent” and should have been done in line with Islamic teachings, it caused a furore in Parliament among Barisan Nasional (BN) MPs who urged action to be taken against the IIUM law lecturer.
Although a police report has been lodged against him, the outspoken academician has decided against apologising for his remarks, insisting he had not meant to challenge the Sultan.
“In the case of Professor Aziz, what he has done is merely to suggest that a Ruler has acted beyond his Constitutional bounds. This is a legitimate comment with no statement, direct or implied, made to incite hatred against the Ruler,” PKAUM president Azmi Sharom said today.
The law academic said the action taken by the police and UIA in probing Abdul Aziz and suspending him of his duties will only “instil fear” in the academic community and halt any development in the country’s intellectual capacity.
Azmi also said that the Sedition Act ought not to have been used in the first place and that it should be repealed “due to the vast potential of abuse against fundamental freedoms of expression that it carries.”
UIA has suspended Prof Dr Abdul Aziz Bari pending investigations into his remarks on the Selangor Sultan’s recent decree.
The suspension order was issued in the show-cause letter sent to the law professor yesterday. When contacted by The Malaysian Insider today, Aziz said he would leave the matter in the hands of his lawyer.
His lawyer Dr Dzulkarnain Lukman confirmed the suspension includes Aziz being barred from campus to meet with its staff or any person of position within the university.
“According to the show-cause letter, these criteria will be in place until the conclusion of the inquiry,” he said, adding that Aziz has been given until 4pm on October 25 to respond to the letter.
Dzulkarnain also confirmed that Aziz is facing action under Article 15(1) of the university’s disciplinary orders for his statement published on Malaysiakini, which is said to have tarnished UIA’s image.
“I was made to understand this is the third time that Professor Aziz Bari has been issued a show-cause letter,” said Dzulkarnain, adding he was unaware of the reasons or contents of the previous two letters.
It is believed, however, this is the first time the law professor has been barred from entering the university. Police opened investigations into Aziz’s statement under the Sedition Act yesterday, following a report lodged by Umno Senator Ezam Mohd Nor on October 1.
It is believed that at least five police reports have been lodged against the professor.
On Monday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had also questioned Aziz.
