Suhakam should pull up its socks, recharge and rediscover a new sense of purpose to protect and promote human rights  if  it is not to be completely  marginalized and  made irrelevant by the September 11 syndrome


Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya,  Sunday): The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) rode on the hopes of many Malaysians in its first year of establishment that it might  prove wrong the  skeptics  and  demonstrate  that it could make a difference to protect and promote human rights in the country.

When it started its  second year, however, Suhakam  was losing steam and momentum.  The  past five months after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington could not be worse times for Suhakam, which seems to have lost all sense of direction and purpose.

In the past five months, Suhakam had been a mere onlooker to the  catalogue of human rights breaches and violations, without  its refreshing  first-year verve, vim and vigour in  dealing with any human right infraction or complaint.

Suhakam should pull up its socks, recharge and rediscover a new sense of purpose to protect and promote human rights  if  it is not to be completely  marginalized and  made irrelevant by the September 11 syndrome. This  would be a sad end to the first two-year appointment of Suhakam to carry out the statutory responsibility and mandate to promote and protect human rights.

The latest examples of the recent  legion of human rights breaches and violations in the past few months which Suhakam had failed to respond sensitively and sensibly include:
 


Suhakam must conduct an  urgent review to resolve the  crisis of confidence which it has suddenly been confronted with, after having acquitted fairly creditably in its first year of existence, to decide whether it is to accept its fate to be marginalised and  a  casualty of the September 11 syndrome or whether it could make itself  relevant to  fulfil its statutory responsibility and mandate to protect and promote human rights in Malaysia in the post-911 scenario where  human rights is under retreat all over the globe.

(3/2/2002)



*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman