Category: Idiot Overlords

Ngeh is a Lawyer Beruk

According to an article in TheStar, “Perak DAP chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) cannot raid the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) because Syariah laws do not apply to non-Muslims or non-Islamic agencies.”

I think that people who do not understand the law, should neither make uninformed comments on the law, nor should they become law makers. Maybe Universiti Malaya should withdraw the Law degree that they have conferred on him as he is not tendering proper legal advice.

We need to institute an qualification examination, explicitly to filter out uninformed people like Ngeh. Article 11 of our constitution states that:

  1. Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion and, subject to Clause (4), to propagate it.
  2. No person shall be compelled to pay any tax the proceeds of which are specially allocated in whole or in part for the purposes of a religion other than his own.
  3. Every religious group has the right –
    (a) to manage its own religious affairs;
    (b) to establish and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes; and
    (c) to acquire and own property and hold and administer it in accordance with law.
  4. State law and in respect of the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, federal law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.
  5. This Article does not authorize any act contrary to any general law relating to public order, public health or morality.

If the DUMC are being accused of prostelysing to Muslims, the law draws its powers from the Federal Constitution while the specific sections are governed by State Law, not Syariah Law.

Of course, the onus is on the authorities to prove that the law has been broken in this case. If it was, the organisers of the dinner should be hauled to civil court (not a Syariah one).

Nothing to see except a Lawyer Beruk blabbering away.

IGCSEs in Malaysia

According to an article in TheStar, we have been running a pilot programme for students in our MARA Junior Colleges where 180 students are in a programme to take Cambridge IGCSEs alongside our national SPM examinations.

A quick read of the website shows that there’s even a Malay Language paper to take. I’m guessing that all our students would ace that paper. I’m also guessing that the IGCSE papers are in English, which would place more emphasis on learning that language.

The article claims that the programme would equip these students for education abroad by arming them with an internationally recognised school certificate – “we want our students to be global, but at the same time, maintain the character that is synonymous with Malaysia”.

This got me thinking (a silly thing, I know).

Our SPM rot has gone so deep that nobody recognises it as a school certificate anymore. Actually, even Malaysians no longer think much of the SPM exams where even mediocre students are capable of scoring strings of As. The right thing to do would be for our government to tighten standards or scrap it altogether.

However, that would have repercussions across the country if students start losing their As and their ‘right’ to pursue a higher education. Many a kampung kid’s dream to climb the ivory tower would come to a pre-mature end if standards are too tight.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that this will change our government’s view of the GCSEs, which are still not going to be recognised in Malaysia as entry qualifications. However, if the government does recognise it, that will open the doors for more people to continue their studies in Malaysia – in line with our plans to be a regional education hub.

I do welcome our governments plans to incorporate IGCSEs into our education system. I think that our local SPM/STPM exams should be scrapped until such time when the government can get it’s act together. We’ve become experts at out-sourcing in recent years.

Curious Anuar

I’ve been reading the RCI report on TBH and regardless of what everyone thinks, the RCI did find some interesting things.

Para 57: “Anuar, though being IO for the operation, elected to sleep until the next morning in an area supposedly most accessible to the public: at the reception partitioned by a screen. He did not wake up until 8.30am on the 16th when many of the staff had reported for work. Anuar explained that he had chosen this area because it was easily accessible to his officers to consult him. Strangely, however, many officers who passed this area did not even see him there.”

Para 58: “At about 8.30am on the 16th, after waking up from his slumber, Anuar declared that he was informed by a lady officer called Norsiah of a bag she noticed at the sofa in front of Nadzri’s room. When Anuar subsequently returned to his room, he saw this bag which he believed had been brought in by TBH the day before. It was on the floor by the side of the sofa in the area described by Norsiah. Beside this bag was a mobilephone. He took possession of these and placed the mobilephone on his table and the bag on a chair in his room. He did not check the contents of the bag. We are puzzled by this rather careless and indifferent attitude adopted by Anuar in relation to the bag and the mobilephone.”

Para 59: “We would have thought that Anuar as the IO should have been more vigilant and concerned with what was in the bag. For all intents and purposes it might have been packed with explosives to blow the Selangor MACC office up as the office would no doubt be stored with incriminating evidence against suspects. Further, it defied logic not to be curious particularly when the purported owner of this bag was nowhere to be seen. A look at its contents may have given some clues as to who he was and where he could possibly be.”

Para 60: “But believing that TBH may still be in the office, Anuar went around looking for him. He was later joined by Hairul Ilham who had by then turned up for work. They could not find TBH but took no further steps to determine where he was.”

Curious.

Authentication vs Authorisation

Authentication and authorisation, while related, are two different problems in security. I fully support our government’s suggestion to pay for a voter authentication system, this only solves the problem of authentication, not authorisation.

The issue of a phantom voter is not merely an authentication problem. It is also an authorisation problem. We need to be sure that the person is who they claim to be (authentication), and we need to ensure that they are allowed to vote (authorisation) only once and only in that constituency.

A person could feasibly be issued multiple cards with different identities. Let’s assume that this person maliciously cloned the cards, substituting the bio-metric data. This person can still authenticate themselves and vote in multiple places under assumed identities.

If indelible ink is used, that person would have ink marks and can only vote once, even with multiple cards. Of course today, that person would also need multiple cards but they would not need to substitute the bio-metric data, which is much easier to cheat with.

So, while bio-metric identification is used to fix the authentication problem, it still needs to be coupled with additional steps e.g. indelible ink, which would help fix the authorisation problem.

That said, I hope that they don’t give the contract to Tricubes. That would just raise a whole PR problem.

Update @ 2011-07-24: The EC has admitted just as much, that there are clones on the electoral roll.

Forget about International Conferences

I am quite ashamed and disgusted at our immigration officers move to deport a prominent human-rights lawyer from our shores on grounds that he gave a speech.

According to the news article, “It is learnt police requested Bourdon’s deportation, claiming that he had violated his social visit visa by giving a speech at a dinner in Penang on Thursday night.”

Damn.

This means that it is now illegal for foreigners who come in on a social visit pass to give speeches. This will have a serious impact on our country as a destination for international speakers and conferences.

As part of the organising committee for an international conference in October, most of our speakers are foreigners who are experts in their fields.

I guess that this means that our organising committee has to try to get them a pas lawatan ikhtisas instead. I hope that someone from the committee is looking into this.

We’ve sunk to new lows today.

How low can we go?

Sex, Lies and Videotape

According to an article in TheStar, the cops have release a video-tape to dispel talk of excessive force used by the police. Honestly, these guys are so stupid that they are just providing more fodder to anyone with the brains to think.

From the article, “Another clip showed Bersih chairman Datuk S. Ambiga being given water, while Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar was given an oxygen mask.” Now, aren’t our police a caring bunch – giving Ambiga some water and Izzah some air to breathe.

Any thinking person would wonder why these two women suddenly developed such desires for water and air for there is only one reason why such a thing would happen – they got tear-gassed – in a tunnel. The cops must be seriously dumb to think that these ladies will thank them for the aid, given that the cops tried to suffocate them.

From the same article, “Batu MP Tian Chua was seen running with a group towards the Light Strike Force officers at KL Sentral. Comm Salleh said the officers had to take action by firing tear gas.”

Honestly, I know that Tian Chua can be a bit of a trouble-maker sometimes but what threat was he posing that the only appropriate reponse was tear-gas. Only in Malaysia, does a bunch of unarmed civilians walking or running towards the police, get greeted with tear-gas. That’s not called a response – it’s called an escalation.

Also, from a related article, “police have denied that they were responsible for the death of Baharuddin Ahmad during the Bersih rally in the city on July 9. Internal Security and Public Order director Comm Datuk Salleh Mat Rasid said police were not even at the site where Baharuddin died following a heart attack at Avenue K, a mall opposite KLCC.”

And I’m sure that just like what happened at Tung Shin, “the allegation that Baharuddin died in a tear gas attack is untrue as no tear gas was fired in the KLCC area during the Padam Bersih 2.0 operation.” Unfortunately for the police, regardless of whether it was true or not, nobody will believe them anymore.

In any civilised country, when the police are on the front-line with water cannons and tear-gas, the ambulances are right behind them ready to treat any injuries. However, in Malaysia, the ambulances are nowhere to be seen and they will probably find it difficult to enter the city as well.

My dear police, there is crime of commission and crime of omission. While the police may not have bludgeoned him to death does not mean that they are not responsible. The police rushed the unarmed civilians at KLCC and created unnecessary panic resulting in one death and numerous injuries.

We need higher policing standards in Malaysia.

Idiotic Goon Pwned

According to an article in TheStar, “Ismail said they lauded Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s suggestion to broadcast video recordings on how the police handled the rally, which would be evidence against claims that police were violent during the rally.”

Only in Malaysia does the Inspector General of Police (IGP) think that by showing the other side of the story, it will white-wash all the evidence of wrong-doings by the police themselves. I’ve got news for you. Regardless of how many videos you show, it will only be a single point-of-view versus the thousands on the Internet.

The fact of the matter is that the police tossed several canisters of tear-gas into Tung Shin hospital’s compound. No amount of white-washing is going to change that. I remember the government sticking to their story that none of that happened until a group of doctors spoke out, forcing the government to back-track.

The fact of the matter is that the police kicked and hit and roughly man-handled unarmed civilian protesters. No amount of white-washing is going to change any of that. The people were merely armed with a stout heart and a clear vision of what a future Malaysia should be. Yellow t-shirts are not a weapon of mass destruction.

“From my observations (on photos and videos on the Internet), I find there is something not quite right. We urge the public to surrender any evidence that can help us get a clear picture of what happened,” he said.

You know, that’s the only sensible thing that the IGP has said – that is something is not quite right. Obviously, he is being duped by his subordinates. The police did do the things that they were accused of doing. Thousands of eye-witnesses, photos and videos will not be silenced.

Dear IGP, there is no smoke without fire – Kalau tak ada api, masakan ada asap?

I’d also like to introduce a new word to the IGP – wikiality – truth by consensus. In a country where the rakyat no longer places much trust in the police, particularly when the police are capable of denying the truth, the informed rakyat will no longer care about the police version of the truth.