abolish ISA!

whoa! makkal sakthi is alive in penang indeed! you must have read about the ‘anti ISA’ gathering at the penang chinese town hall on saturday by now. pity i had to give it a miss since i was in ipoh. yes, you can (or already have) read about it in two of my church journalist friends’ blog i.e. susan loone and anil netto.

actually i knew about this gathering about 10 days ago when first stanley sudhagran, one of the organiser (also the one who is very into the ‘boycott the star’ project), email me the information. then later i also got it from suaram mailing list.

not many people knew though that prior to the anti isa gathering, there was a 3 hours talk on ‘abolish ISA’ by the ‘gerakan mansukan ISA’ (GIM) or in english ‘coalition to abolish ISA ‘ at the caring society complex by GIM’s chairman, tuan syed ibrahim. it was organised by suaram, whom, i think planned to start a GIM branch (or whatever it is call) in penang. again i had wanted to attend it. beside being interested, i also would like to meet tuan syed again whom i had met at the MAFREL training of election observers in feb. he’s a nice man.

in our church’s ‘parish human development committee (PHDC), i had proposed to them to take up this signature campaign to abolish ISA as a project but it seems that majority of the members were not so keened. they fear anything to do with politics or the government!

the northern area PHDC coordinator, susan, had already given me some anti ISA badge. she got it from dr jeyakumar (yeah the new sg siput MP) who is also a staunch supporter of GMI. as the others from my church are not supportive of the project, i guess i’ll return susan the other badges…. but i’m keeping one for my own. i had already started wearing it when i’m out on the street. the badge will make a strong silent statement of my stand against ISA! you can see a picture of the badge right in the beginning. it is not very clear as i took it from my handphone. there are tamil and mandarin words below the word ‘manshuhkan’ and the small words below said ‘zalim’ (cruel). so far i haven’t run into anyone in penang wearing it. perhaps, after the GMI talk and the anti ISA gathering on saturday, i will!!

ok boys and girls, there is an online petition calling on the UN human rights commission, urging them to lobby the malaysian government to abolish ISA. do remember to sign it, ya.

btw i did not see this anti ISA gathering reported in malaysiakini... was it? maybe it was but i missed it.