Speech by Lim Kit Siang at the Candlelight
Vigil for ISA detainee DAP MP and Selangor Senior Exco Teresa Kok at her
Seputeh service centre, Jalan Kuchai Lama, Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, 14th September 2008 at
7pm:
Habeas Corpus application for Teresa Kok
will be filed tomorrow while three-prong international-level Free Teresa
Campaign will be launched
The habeas corpus application to free DAP
National Organising Secretary, three-term MP for Seputeh and Selangor
Senior Exo for Investment, Trade and Industry Teresa Kok from arbitrary
and wrongfully detention under the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA)
would be filed at Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex in Kuala Lumpur at 12.30
pm tomorrow.
The application will be filed by Teresa’s lawyers, DAP National Chairman
and MP for Bukit Gelugor, Karpal Singh and Central Executive Committee
Member and MP for Puchong Gobind Singh Deo.
Let all friends and supporters of democracy and freedom show up at the
Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex tomorrow to demonstrate our support,
sympathy and solidarity with Teresa at this hour of trial – both for her
and the nation.
A three-prong international-level “Free Teresa Campaign” will be
launched in the next few days to secure the support of parliamentarians
in ASEAN, the Commonwealth and the World Parliaments for her immediate
and unconditional release.
It is no exaggeration to say that public confidence in the Abdullah
administration, which had been going south without pause since the March
8 “political tsunami”, has taken a sharp plunge in the past 48 hours
since the flagrant and cynical abuses of power in the recent spate of
ISA arrests.
Although senior Sin Chew reporter Tan Hoon Cheng has been released after
less than 20 hours of ISA detention, while Teresa Kok and Raja Petra
Kamaruddin are still under incarceration, Tan’s release has not in any
manner mitigated the nation-wide outrage demanding the repeal of the ISA
and the punishment of those responsible for such gross excesses of power
and abuses of human rights.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said Tan had been detained
under the ISA for her personal safety. Hamid deserves to get into the
Malaysian Book of Records for coming out with a reason for a government
action which is unanimously rejected and laughed at by Malaysians and
the world for being “utter bunkum”.
If Tan had been detained under the ISA for her own safety, isn’t Hamid
being most irresponsible bordering on being criminal and endangering her
life in releasing her after 20 short hours?
Will the Home Minister direct the Penang Police to give Tan 24-hour
police protection because of her unique status as the only ISA detainee
arrested to protect her safety?
Furthermore, how can other Malaysians avail themselves of the ISA
facility to get police protection?
*
Lim
Kit Siang, DAP
Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor
http://dapmalaysia.org