Media conference statement by Lim Kit Siang at DAP Hqrs in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 6^th June 2012 at 12 noon: 

Priority duty of Hishammuddin as Home Minister is to give full support to Suhakam inquiry into Bersih 3.0 rally and dissolve the Hanif Panel

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has announced that a compilation of videos on the Bersih 3.0 rally would be uploaded on the Home Ministry website today for public viewing to enable people to see the events that occurred during the rally.

He said: “With the video recording, the people can make their own judgement based on facts and not other consideration.”

This is a most deplorable development post-Bersih 3.0, as it is continuation of the vilification and demonization campaign launched by the Barisan Nasional government against Bersih 3.0 and Pakatan Rakyat after April 28, like the 30-minute documentary “Bersih 3.0 itu Kotor” telecast on TV1 on Sunday, 13th May which only antagonised and turned off the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who had gathered peacefully in Kuala Lumpur in support of the Bersih 3.0 call for a clean election.

The priority duty of Hishammuddin as Home Minister is not to be accused, judge, jury and executioner all in one but to give full support for an independent, impartial and credible investigation into what actually happened at the Bersih 3.0 rally and establish what went wrong which marred a great historic event of peaceful people empowerment uniting Malaysians transcending race, religion, region, class, age or gender for a common national cause with incidents of violence and brutality, regardless of whether the victims were police personnel, media representatives or peaceful protestors.

What Hishammuddin should do is to give full support to the Suhakam inquiry into Bersih 3.0 and dissolve the Hanif Omar “independent advisory panel” now that two of the six members, former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim and Petronas corporate affairs senior general manager Datuk Medan Abdullah have withdrawn from the panel rather than to launch off a video war to support the government version and its conspiracy theory of what happened on April 28.

Hishammuddin’s insistence to upload the video compilation of what happened on April 28 only confirmed suspicions that the Hanif panel’s real objective is to produce a finding to match the government script, particularly when Hanif is on open record as supporting the wild and baseless allegation of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that Bersih 3.0 rally was an attempted coup d’etat by the opposition to topple the government.

I fully agree with Suhakam Commissioner Muhammad Sha’ani Abdullah who said that Hishammuddin’s uploading of the Bersih 3.0 video compilation is against the government objective of setting up the Hanif panel, as it could only be interpreted as a form of pressure to influence both the investigation and outcome of the inquiry.

Two days ago, Hanif said his panel had been shown over 43 minutes of footage of videos on the April 28 rally out of a total of 73 hours of clips available.

If Hishammuddin is prepared to let the public draw their own conclusions on what happened at the Bersih 3.0 rally, is he prepared to upload all the 73 hours of the video clips on Bersih 3.0?

How can Hishammuddin expect the public to have faith and confidence that he would discharge his duties as Home Minister fairly and impartially when he is not prepared to give full support for a credible, independent and impartial inquiry such as the Suhakam inquiry instead of the Hanif inquiry?

For a start, is Hishammuddin prepared to withdraw completely from playing any part or role in the vilification or demonization campaign of Bersih 3.0 rally so as to allow a credible, independent and impartial Bersih 3.0 inquiry by Suhakam to carry out its task?

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor