(Petaling Jaya, Monday): The anniversary hunger strike by the reformasi activists,
Mohamad Ezam Mohamad Nor, Hishamuddin Rais, Chua Tian Chang, Saari Sungib,
Badrulamin Bahron and Lokman Noor Adam as well as by hunger strikers outside
Kamunting to express solidarity has
entered into the seventh day.
It is most regrettable that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad should be able to find the time to try to intervene in
the MCA power struggle between MCA Team
A and Team B factions led
respectively by MCA President, Datuk Seri Dr. Ling Liong Sik and the MCA Deputy
President, Datuk Lim Ah Lek before leaving for his visits to Morocco, Libya and
Bahrain but he could not spare any time whatsoever for the
anniversary hunger strike by the six ISA reformasi activists and their
supporters, demanding that the six should be charged in open court or released
immediately as the government has not been able to produce one iota of evidence
after one year to substantiate its allegations that the six were involved in a
militant plot for the violent overthrow of the Mahathir government.
The Cabinet cannot continue to be mute,
blind and deaf to the week-long anniversary
hunger strike by the six ISA reformasi activists and their supporters and it
should place the subject top
of its agenda tomorrow to end the hunger strike.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in his capacity as Home Minister, should visit the hunger
strikers in the Kamunting Detention Centre and the Cabinet should establish a
high-powered task force to resolve
the hunger strike by giving serious consideration to the demands of the hunger strikers, viz. that the reformasi six
should be given a public trial or released immediately and that Anwar
Ibrahim should be allowed to go to Munich, Germany for his acute back ailment
operation.
Malaysia has already an atrocious
international record on democracy and human rights and it should not join
the ranks of rogue countries universally regarded as most notorious and infamous
for their reckless disregard for the most basic human rights - human
dignity and life – where hunger
strikers suffer irreparable damage to health and sacrifice their lives to
exercise the ultimate weapon
of the oppressed to protest against the most flagrant
abuses and injustices of the government-of-the-day.
(16/4/2002)