PETALING JAYA, May 8 — The Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed disappointment today with the pace and focus of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government’s pledged reforms.
In a press conference to announce its assessment of the pact’s first year in power, HRW deputy director for Asia Phil Robertson also expressed worry that PH may be regressing in the area.
“We move very quickly in the HRW. Sent a long letter to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on May 21 last year, urging him to push through the reforms that were promised in the first three to six months, because we know from experience that the momentum for reform is highest at the very beginning of the government and frankly, that hasn’t happened
“We have not reached the worst. Let me be clear about that, but it feels like we are heading in the wrong direction, and if I were to use one word to sum up HRW’s feelings with regards to human rights reform in Malaysia, it has to be disappointment. I mean really profound disappointment. Very deep disappointment,” he said with emphasis.
Robertson added that HRW was excited about the reform pledges made by PH in its election manifesto, but was subsequently disappointed with the slow pace of progress
He claimed that in meetings, PH ministers regularly brush off concerns about their unfulfilled promises by saying the government will get to it eventually.
“Last October, I was here with a very senior human rights delegation. We met with the foreign minister, we met with the attorney-general and other senior officials, and we heard commitments to abolish the death penalty entirely. To dump the Sedition Act, to agree to ratify all the major international human rights treaties.
“Hope was really in the air and at that time I would say that the Pakatan Harapan government was doing pretty well. They had voted to repeal Najib’s disastrous Anti-Fake News law, and we still expect that the repeal will be finalised when the government finally controls the Senate later this year.
“We saw limited reforms on the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 to let students join political parties. We saw that as a downpayment on the Pakatan Harapan pledge to revoke the UUCA altogether. Of course that hasn’t happened,” Robertson said.
He added that though the current government has made some impressive strides by correcting the “many immediate damages” done by Barisan Nasional (BN), the same cannot be said of its initiative to bring permanent changes.
“Quite simply at that time, the government took its foot off the neck of civil societies, but the problem is that very little has been done to bring permanent reforms that will ensure such repressions cannot be brought by different governments in the future,” he added.
Robertson said that he was constantly told to wait for the next parliamentary sittings every time he approached the government questioning is slow pace of implementation.
He expressed concern on the yet to be established Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), highlighting that cases of custodial deaths were still ongoing with impunity.
He added that the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) which currently vets enforcement authorities is insufficient.
“A commission without the ability to discipline police officers for the abuses is useless. We already have the EAIC. It’s done nothing to change the culture of impunity for rights abuses that is rife within the Malaysian police,” he said.
He also highlighted the cases of enforced disappearances, and the recent damning findings by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission on the police’s role in the vanishing of Pastor Raymond Koh.
