Desperate Dr M plays the race card

Source : MalaysianInsider

JOHOR BARU, May 17 ─ Desperate times call for desperate measures. So Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today played the race card ─ something the former prime minister has not done since he was a young, upstart Umno politician in the 1960s.

You can read the full news here, but some of his more extreme remarks were :

“If we don’t speak up, if we choose to keep quiet, we will lose our rights and the other races will take over,”

“What does it say? Malaysia for Malaysians! This is the reality of the present situation. If we do not speak up, if we choose to keep quiet, we will lose our rights and the other races will take over..." - on the memorandum forwarded by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf)

"Today, the Malays have lost their political power and the non-Malays no longer respect the Malays and the Malay institutions.."

"Technically, I am now without a state and am asking Britain for asylum,"-P Waythamoorthy

P Waythamoorthy, who has been living in self-imposed exile after organising the mammoth Hindraf rally last November, denounced the government for allegedly revoking his passport.
The Hindu Rights Action Force chairman, who has been in London since he fled the country last December, said he has sought asylum in Britain after learning that Kuala Lumpur had cancelled his passport.

"Technically, I am now without a state and am asking Britain for asylum," the chairman of rights group Hindraf told AFP in a phone interview. "This is a very cowardly act by the Malaysian government against me in order to undermine me, but it really undermines their credibility locally and internationally."

Waythamoorthy said immigration officers at Gatwick airport told him that Kuala Lumpur had revoked his passport when he last entered Britain.

"The revocation of my passport is a last desperate attempt by the government in crippling my international lobby for the cause of Malaysian Indians and this unwarranted act has given me strength to continue the fight," he said from London.Immigration: He should come back

Malaysian immigration officials told AFP they were unaware of the passport cancellation and said Waythamoorthy should return home to check the status of his travel document.

But Waythamoorthy said Kuala Lumpur intended to force Britian to deport him so he could be arrested under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial. Waythamoorthy, along with his brother P Uthayakumar and four other Hindraf leaders, angered the government in November by mounting a mass rally alleging discrimination against minority ethnic Indians.

Waythamoorthy fled Malaysia in December to lobby the international community for support, while the other five were detained under the ISA. The Federal Court on Wednesday refused to release the five. Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific advocacy director T Kumar called on Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to give a "full explanation on the rationale for the cancellation."

"This is the first time I have heard of a political activist's passport being revoked by his own country's government," he told AFP.

EC says Govt rejected use of ink but PM says he merely gave "advice"

EC chief: Cabinet rejected indelible ink

Election Commission chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman today dropped a bombshell by revealing that the cabinet had rejected the use of indelible ink in the March 8 general election on the day Parliament was dissolved.“I have not told the country about this (before) but what happened was that cabinet rejected our proposed law (on indelible ink) on Feb 13 - the day dissolution of Parliament was done,”...(read the full news at Malaysiakini)

No Instruction For EC To Scrap Ink Plan, Says Abdullah
KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 (Bernama) -- The government did not instruct the Election Commission (EC) to scrap its plan of using indelible ink in the last general election.Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said, although in principle the government made the decision, it was delivered in the form of an opinion and not instruction. (read the full news here)