KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 — Some 10 civil society leaders, including from a moderate Muslim group, have scored a coveted meeting with Barack Obama this weekend on the US president’s first official trip to Malaysia.
Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) director Dr Farouk Musa confirmed this with The Malay Mail Online today.
“Basically there will be 10 representatives from 10 groups, and each person would be given a short time to speak to the president,” he said, but did not disclose the names of all 10 civil society groups.
Farouk said Tan Sri Hasmy Agam will represent the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and prominent lawyer, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan will represent the Malaysian Human Rights Society (Hakam).
The IRF head said he would speak about religious persecution in Malaysia, which he claims is affecting not only the Christian community but Muslim-minority groups as well.
“What I hope to inform the president is that while Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak tries to position Malaysia as a moderate country, the government’s endorsement and inaction on extremist groups says otherwise,” Farouk added.
Farouk, who is also deputy chairman of Bersih 2.0, said the elections reform watchdog would be represented by Maria Chin Abdullah, who is expected to speak on concerns surrounding freedom of speech and election transparency in the country.
The 3pm meeting on Sunday will take place behind closed doors.
The Malay Mail Online understands the invited representatives have been told to first gather at the US Embassy here and await further details.
Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily reported Malaysian Bar president Christopher Leong as confirming that he would also be meeting Obama this weekend.
Sin Chew Daily reported other prominent civil society groups such as Suara Rakyat Malaysia, the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute and local anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International Malaysia saying they had not received any invitation.
Obama is due to arrive here tomorrow for a three-day trip, the first by a serving US president since Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit on October 30, 1966.
Faced with a delicate political balancing act, the incumbent US president snubbed meeting with Malaysian Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim despite Washington’s disquiet about allegations of political motivations behind a recent sodomy charge against the PKR advisor.
Anwar will instead meet with top White House national security aide Susan Rice, Washington’s second-most senior foreign policy official on the US delegation.
But Anwar has reportedly said he was not upset he would not meet with Obama, telling international news wire AFP that such an encounter would have been “consistent with US democratic ideals and its foreign policy of promoting freedom and justice”.
