Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Clarence House
United Kingdom
31stOctober 2017
As HRH will be aware, the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is currently
embroiled in the 1MDB corruption scandal the US Department of Justice (DOJ)
has described as the greatest kleptocracy case in history alongside allegations
of widespread electoral fraud. Shortly after the DOJ report, The Guardian
published a detailed article about their investigations, 1MDB: The inside story of
the worlds biggest financial scandal1.
Prime Minister Najib Razak has been silencing his critics, by sacking his deputy
prime minister and the Attorney-General, quashing an internal investigation by
the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and revoking the publishing licences
of newspapers. Najib Razak and his government continue to use the Sedition
Act, the Peaceful Assembly Act, and other draconian laws to silence human
rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians and civil society activists in his
Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalitions six decades hold on power.
Grand Corruption
1
enormous scale; highlights the continuing restrictions on freedom of expression
and of association in Malaysia, as well as the misuse of the Sedition Act,
targeted particularly at Government critics, including opposition politicians and
MPs, such as Anwar Ibrahim, jailed following legal proceedings which fell far
short of international standards, and Rafizi Ramli MP; encourages the
Government of Malaysia to allow international observers, including from a range
of Commonwealth countries, at its upcoming General Elections, to demonstrate
its commitment to free and fair elections, particularly given Malaysia will be taking
up the Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth in 2020; and calls on the
Government to ensure that allegations of misappropriated funds from Malaysia
having been used to buy assets in the UK is thoroughly investigated.
2
Religious Extremism
In 2014, Najib Razak announced that Islam and its followers are now facing new
threats under the guise of humanism, secularism, liberalism and human rights8.
He went on to state that, we will not tolerate any demands or right to apostasy
by Muslims, or deny Muslims their right to be governed by Shariah Courts and
neither will we allow Muslims to engage in LGBT activities.
In 2013, freedom of religion was one of the key issues discussed during
Malaysias second cycle of the UN Universal Periodic Review, with several states
including Austria, Canada, Italy and Poland making critical comments and
recommendations.
In June 2014, Najib Razak even encouraged members of his party to be brave
like ISIS fighters.9 Extremist Islamic movements are on the rise in Malaysia,
spurred on by Najibs use of racial and religious extremist rhetoric. The ruling
United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) has forged an alliance with the
conservative Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) in order to secure more rural
Malay votes. As part of the pact, amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal
Jurisdiction) Act 1965 seeking to impose stiffer penalties for offences along the
lines of Hudud law are now regularly debated in parliament and are seen as a
worrying development by both moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
In the past year, religious tensions have escalated with a number of kidnappings
and enforced disappearances of Christian pastors and religious minorities in
Malaysia10. In September 2017, the UN Special Rapporteur for cultural rights
Karima Bennoune noted that the discrepancy between reality and rhetoric on
Islamic fundamentalism and religious extremism in Malaysia was extremely
worrying11.
Preservation of the environment and nature are issues important to HRH. It will
therefore be devastating to learn that over the last few years there have been a
spate of murders of activists throughout Sarawak12. These activists were
opposing illegal land grabs, illegal logging and mining activities aimed at
3
decimating their native customary land and the Borneo rainforest ecosystem13.
British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been instrumental in
exposing issues of endemic corruption and human rights abuses in the state of
Sarawak specifically and Malaysia as a whole, revealing how in the state of
Sarawak, the profits from timber, oil and now oil palm (much of it grown on land
illegally sequestered from the indigenous communities) have gone straight into
the pockets of political cronies, who have run the country for personal profit and
plundered it indiscriminately for the past decades of continuous rule. The once
unparalleled tropical rainforests have been denuded scarcely 5 per cent remain
uncut and the tribal peoples who depended on the forests for their food are
now deprived of their means of subsistence and in several cases starving.
We trust that the issues raised by millions of concerned Malaysians globally will
also be of concern to HRH and will be addressed by Prime Minister Najib and his
government this week as HRH tours Malaysia. We ask you to encourage the
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his government to:
References
4
1. The Guardian (2016) Ramesh R. 1MDB: The inside story of the worlds
biggest financial scandal
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/1mdb-inside-story-worlds-
biggest-financial-scandal-malaysia
1. Malay Mail (2017) Scholar Summoned to court for abetting Turkish Writer
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/scholar-farouk-musa-
summoned-to-court-for-abetting-turkish-writer
1. Malay Mail (2014) Be brave like ISIL fighters Najib tells UMNO
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/be-brave-like-isil-
fighters-najib-tells-umno
5
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=
22121&LangID=E (21 Sep 2017)