GMI: People's Consultation On The ISA, What Next?

Gerak Mansur ISA (GMI) in collaboration with Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) organized the forum "People's Consultation On The ISA, What Next?" held at Penang Dewan Sri Pinang from 9 am to 12 noon on the12th April.

The speakers were:

Isahak Ismail

Syed Ibrahim

Choo Chon Kai

The response from the public in term of attendants were very poor. Teng Hock Nan and his group of 4 came in around 10 am and left half an hour later. Penang DPM Dr. Ramasamy came in later to give the closing speech.

The speeches by Isahak Ismail and Choo Chon Kai were presented with slide show. Both gave interesting true pictures of the past two years and what will happen next. When the speeches and presentation were over, the floor is open to the public for Q@A.

These are my opinion and suggestion to the panel.

1)The problem with our present government is that they do not actually function as a ruling government to look after the country and the rakyat. They are holding to their believe that the government is a political party control by umno and that umno is the ruling government. Their rhetoric call for reform now is not because they care about the country or the rakyat but more towards saving their political party from being wipe out. Why is it that they are not concern about reform and change when they have the full power to do so and wait until now when their party faces annihilation. The call for reform and change are to get back the rakyat support which they badly needed more then ever now. What assurance do we get that they will not go back to their old arrogant, corrupt and racist ways, once they have our support?

2)The call for the repeal of the ISA by GMI, Suaram, NGOs and many other groups have fallen on deaf ears. The umno rule government thinks that the ISA is needed for the country security. My offer to the panel is "if you cannot fight them, join them".
I suggested that we call for a wider use of the ISA to cover all instances of criminal act that are also a threat to the country. The growing crimes include, robberies, rapes, corruptions, murders are also security threats to the country. We save a lot of money by closing down all the courts, fire all the judges, shut down the macc, because we do not need them any more when we use the ISA law. Anyone that are under suspicions of committing crimes like robberies, rapes, corruptions and links to any murder cases should be sent to Kamunting under the ISA. Will this be better and the country will be more safer when most of those under suspicions are lock up?

3)Younger generation are not so interested to attend forums such as this ISA forum or political forums. The reasons are aplenty and the organizer must work towards how to bring awareness and the importance of forums to these younger generation. I suggested that some kind of competitions, like slogan writing or short essay writing with some big prices to be won to attract their attention. The title can be as such "How well do you know about the ISA and what is your opinion of its use against anyone without charge". Many may not know about the ISA and others a little bit here and there. With this competition and the chance to win the big prize they will search high and low including from the net about the ISA in order to be able to write their essay or slogan. This competition can tie together with voters registrations, only registered voters can compete. They can set the period of competition between 6 to 9 months if the 1st prize can be really big.