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Extreme measures Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt’s best known civil rights activist was sentenced to jail for seven years by the state security court for allegedly bringing disrepute or defamation to his country last week. Professor Saad’s many ‘crimes’ included his more recent advocacy for free and fair elections and his longer struggle against civil rights abuses of the religious minority Coptic Christian community in majority-Muslim Egypt. However, his immediate ‘crime’ according to observers, was to write an article commenting on the succession of the presidency to the son of the current president, Hosni Mubarak. Groups in the US and the EU are especially concerned with Washington’s support of the Mubarak regime in Bush’s War on Terror. Washington considers Egypt as a moderate Muslim state. Groups however maintain that in order to maintain its strategic interests in the region, Washington is prepared to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses like the present. Sept 11 has breathed a new life to ongoing domestic crackdown over political dissidents and human rights activists. Closer to home, across the causeway, we are told by Singapore’s Zulfikar Mohamad Sharif, that the Singapore government was not too pleased with several articles posted on Fateha.com. One relates to the daughter-in-law of Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, entitled, “The Ho-Ching miracle”. Ho who is the chairperson of Temasek Holdings, a business arm of the government is married to BG Lee, deputy to Goh Chok Tong, the prime minister of Singapore. These articles prompted the filing of police reports of criminal defamation against the 31 year-old. He has been questioned by police and his computers were taken away in the investigation. Zulfikar maintains that he is facing political persecution from the state. ‘Real crime’ Like Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Zulfikar’s ‘real crime’ could be something else altogether. Observers from both sides of the causeway offer the view that Zulfikar’s ‘real crime’ is his persistent struggle on issues affecting the minority Singapore Muslim community, the majority of whom are ethnic Malays, which has irked the regime. There is an attempt to ostracise his views as being inconsistent with ‘moderate’ views represented by the island republic’s posse of Muslim ministers and lesser officials. He was also referred to as a person “holding extreme views” by premier Goh, for speaking out and building support around the case of the young Muslim school-girls which has come to be known as the “tudung (headscarf) issue”. Yatiman Yusof, an MP and senior parliamentary secretary, questioned Zulfikar’s loyalty to the state. The official criticisms carried faithfully and propagated in the local media, view the ban as consistent with maintaining harmony. Premier Goh was reported as saying that the ban is “to prevent racial polarisation”. Sikh school-going boys are however allowed to don the turban and there is no ban on the wearing of the cross in schools argued opposition politician Chee Soon Juan, who faced the wrath of the city’s laws on speaking out of turn on the matter in February. Chee was found guilty on July 30 of a charge under the state’s Public Entertainment and Meetings Act and fined S$3,000, a penalty which disqualifies him from standing the republic’s general election for five years. Zulfikar himself was found guilty of ‘‘wilful trespass in a police station’’ and fined S$600 on July 6. He was at the police station in question where Chee was taken after Chee was arrested for speaking without a permit on May Day. Zulfikar has filed police reports against SM Lee, premier Goh and Yatiman on July 7, alleging criminal defamation. In a telephone interview dated July 24 with ThinkCentre.org, Zulfikar states that police had informed him that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute on his reports. Censorship and free _expression The homage to government opinion in the mainstream local press had in fact prompted Zulfikar and several friends to set up Fateha.com as an alternative and independent information site. This seemed to be the obvious recourse to counter official opinion and censorship. However, there seem to be no other support in the city-state in the face of relentless official diatribe. Anbarasu Balsaran, the editor of the website ThinkCentre.org, the official website of the NGO by the same name, maintains that the tudung issue is not human rights related. He writes inter alia that the “Think Centre will be committed to human rights with a duty to be responsible to the people. The tudung issue for all intents and purposes is religious in nature.” In an interview with Streats on July 29 entitled, “Survive every day to fight another day”, posted on ThinkCentre.org, Anbarasu offers an insight on the position taken presumably of Think Centre as well. In responding to a question on speaking out and staying within the “out-of-bound markers”, Anbarasu opines that, “There are no OB markers except for race and religion for us and we do make sure that the pitch and political tone of what we say fit with the political culture. That is, civil society is not an arena where it treats the government as an equal player. If you are a civil society activist and want to treat the government as a player then better join an opposition party and play the game. “We don’t want to be banned because we want to play the game…. Please note that for some games, we are not invited to enter, like race and religion. Apparently to the government we don’t make the grade to enter the game. For us, we accept the realities of the political conditions but we will continue to push the OB markers with a strategic sense.” Anbarasu ends the interview with, “Think Centre ideally wishes that he (Zulfikar) stay and fight. As we said, we are not in the same circumstances and we don’t know how he feels or the pressure he is under. But we lament the situation that he believes that he has to run away. His actions would give wrong signals to the younger generation that [it] is not worth to speak [out].” Breaking of taboos Anbarasu’s response brings me back to our recent past when the Malaysian human rights community was faced with arrests under the Internal Security Act (ISA) of members of the Malaysian Darul Arqam in 1994. There were earlier arrests of members of the minority Muslim Shiah community before this. The state alleges ‘deviationism’ but there has been no such charge made out against those arrested for trial in the syariah state courts. The home minister uses a fatwa (religious decree) from the National Fatwa Committee issued in August 1994, to initiate the ISA arrests. The early Shiah arrests went largely unnoticed by the human rights community then, as religion is considered taboo. Malay rights, Islam and Muslims are perceived as ‘sensitive’ issues and rights advocates were initially wary of the taboo or out-of-bound markers set in place by years of repression of the right of speech and _expression and the climate of fear prompted by these restrictions. It was self-censorship coupled with the possible threat of sedition sanctioned by laws and which are perceived as legitimate incursions to Article 10 (speech, assembly and association) of the Federal Constitution. The sedition law was put in place after May 13, 1969. If Malaysians are today comfortable with discussing religion, the freedom of belief and conscience and the Islamic state, it came through a struggle of breaking the myths around these issues created in the name of national security and racial harmony. ‘The state is right’ The 1994 ISA massive crackdown of Darul Arqam prompted an important meeting of rights activists, lawyers, free media practitioners and concerned opposition politicians (the then PSRM and DAP) to come together to discuss developments with a view to develop an informed vision and response. Some Muslims who attended the meeting mooted the ‘hands-off’ approach. I remember clearly that one academician insisted that the state is the best institution to determine the correctness of these arrests as they have the religious experts to determine whether those arrested were deviants. Groups had not met with families of the detained as most (groups and families) are understandably afraid of repercussions. It was fortunate that we had former ISA detainees from the 1974 student uprising and the 1987 Operasi Lalang to recount the injustices of preventive detention and most of all the isolation of families in these operations. These experiences strengthened the resolve of the meeting that if we oppose all preventive detention laws as an affront to our freedom and liberty, then the first step of denouncing the state action was clearly of merit. The second step in that dialogue, was to discuss whether or not the issue of religion should be best left to the state and its functionaries to decide, or whether the human rights community has a stake in the engagement with religion. Progressive Muslim activists present expressed reservations of ‘Muslim extremists and fundamentalists’. Women’s rights activists protested the treatment of women such as practices of polygamy among the leaders of the persecuted group and the wearing of hijab. Constructive engagement These issues were made more stark by the mainstream press (the distinctions of free press and controlled press not quite yet at its zenith) at that time. The meeting concluded that these concerns require a longer and more constructive engagement with all our communities and cannot be made the immediate basis for not developing support mechanisms and responses in the face of state action. The state which initiates unfair and repressive measures which impinge on basic fundamental freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association, belief and conscience is not in a position to be referee or guardian of the political space for public debate and action. This is irrespective of whether it is a moderate Muslim state, a secular city-state or a secular-Islamic state. State mechanisms are similar across the board. Rights advocates working on cultural issues, including religion proposes a two-step approach in consensus building on religion; an internal discourse and a cross-cultural dialogue to broaden the consensus. We should first be wary of any attempt by the state to censor or suppress speech. It is the opportunity to debate, agree or disagree with every shade of opinion that allows us in the end to make up our own minds as to the validity or otherwise of one view or interpretation or the other. Indeed, the majority of us can hardly claim to stand in the shoes of those facing state persecution for expressing their views and taking positions on certain issues like Zulfikar on the tudung issue in Singapore. We can however, learn through discussion, outreach and strengthening people-to-people action work towards that consensus that forms the basis of any vibrant political community.
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