MP SPEAKS | New Suhakam chair's Icerd clarification a relief

MP SPEAKS | Suhakam chairperson Rahmat Mohamad’s clarification that he is not an opponent of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) and Rome Statute is welcome, as I had expected the commission to be in troubled waters headed by someone who is anti-human rights.

Rahmat (above) said the reason he co-authored a paper objecting to Malaysia’s ratification of the Rome Statute in 2019 was that he felt the necessary preparations were not completed at the time.

He said: “People misunderstood me, (they think) that I am an opposer of the Rome Statute. No, it is not that. I am never against (punishing) those four big crimes.”

When Pakatan Harapan took over the government after the 2018 general election, it wanted to ratify several international treaties, including Icerd and the Rome Statute.

Rahmat said it was good that Harapan wanted Malaysia to be known as a human rights-friendly nation, but some processes have to be observed before signing international treaties.

His concern at the time was that the country had not undergone these processes and as such, he deemed it not ready to sign the treaty.

This was also my stand at the time. I said Malaysia should not ratify Icerd until the majority of the races and religions in Malaysia support it and understand that it posed no threat to the various races, religions, or the Federal Constitution and was a step forward to joining the world in promoting human rights.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang were among the Malay political leaders who warned that the Malays will run amok if Icerd was ratified by the Malaysian government at the end of 2018.

Hadi had said it was compulsory for Muslims to oppose Icerd. Hadi, who is vice-president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, seemed unaware that out of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference, only Malaysia and Brunei, which constitute only one percent of the 1.9 billion Muslims in the world, have not ratified Icerd.

Is Hadi suggesting that only the one percent of 1.9 billion Muslims in the world in Malaysia and Brunei qualify to be called true Muslims?

But this was just another example of Hadi’s irrational, extremist, and bigoted political and religious views, like his recent statement accusing non-Muslims and non-bumiputera of being at the root of corruption in Malaysia.

DAP made scapegoat, again

I was in China on a visit when the Icerd fiasco first blew up at the end of 2018.

On Nov 19, 2018, the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that the ratification of Icerd would entail an amendment to the Federal Constitution, which was “an impossible thing to do” without a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

On Nov 24, 2018, in a speech at the Malaysian Association of Jiansu Annual Gala Dinner in Souchou, China, I said that no Malaysian would want Malaysia to ratify Icerd at the price of another racial riot in the country as there were irresponsible elements seeking to incite and escalate racial and religious distrust, animosity, and hatred to engender the conditions to replicate another May 13 in Malaysia.

All throughout the Icerd fiasco at the end of 2018, the DAP was completely in the dark as the party’s ministers and leaders knew nothing about the issue. Yet, it was the DAP that was accused of being the anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-royalty “dark forces” pushing for the ratification of Icerd.

That is why I had repeatedly challenged Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah to explain the origins of the Icerd ratification fiasco and that the DAP ministers and leaders were not involved in it.

This is one of the bitter lessons of the 22-month Harapan government – the toxic politics of lies, hatred, race, and religion, so deftly mobilised during the Icerd fiasco.

This eventually resulted in the Sheraton Move conspiracy in February 2020 to topple a legitimate and constitutional government and replace it with a backdoor and illegitimate government, creating an enormous trust deficit, which continues to haunt Malaysian politics.

The least Rahmat can do now as new the Suhakam chairperson is to redeem himself and Suhakam by taking steps for Malaysia to recover from the lessons of the Icerd and Rome Statute fiascos in 2018 and 2019.

LIM KIT SIANG is Iskandar Puteri MP.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.