BARUA COUNCIL

By Lukman Sheriff and Ferman Hadi, lawyers in practice

I co-wrote this with Ferman and had it published a couple of days back. I wanted to observe the reach of certain media and still evaluating it. The message is simple: we need to tell the world that the bar council's message of peace and harmony for Malaysia is going to destroy us.


To the bar council, Sedition Act will not achieve peace and harmony. But NUCC laws will (namely the religious and racial hate crime bill). Under the proposed NUCC law, it legalizes all forms of seditious statements so long as there's no threat of physical harm. Meaning to say one can insult Islam, Allah, Prophet Muhammad, the Hindu Gods, the Chinese customs and say the worse racist and bigoted statements that one wants and it will not be an offence under the NUCC law so long as there's no threat of physical harm.

Rather than reducing or ceasing racists and bigoted statements, the Bar Council wants to allow worse drastic racists statements to be made. Why? For the sake of freedom of speech. Really incredible argument.

You ask yourself whether their proposal on the NUCC law will create more peace and harmony or otherwise. As is, its strongest supporters for the abolition are claiming for legal actions for the use of the word "pendatang" and "bible burning" which according to Bar council's former president lim Chee wee, would not be an offence under the NUCC law.

The Bar Council is part of this mess of confusion and needs to be reformed. It is destroying our nation. Let us tell the world how disconnected the bar council is with their misconceived concept of peace and harmony. Next time they use the word peace harmony and freedom of speech, remind them on how it's being manipulated by them.

Feel free to share this to inform others.


*Commentary by zizularts: Please read the article by clicking this link here.