Teresa Kok, Sin Chew reporter arrested under ISA
[Source]
KUALA LUMPUR: DAP’s Teresa Kok is the latest to be arrested under Section 73 (1) if the ISA Friday.
Seputeh MP Teresa Kok - arrested under ISA.

Kok, who is Seputeh MP and also assemblyman for Kinrara, was arrested at 11.20pm Friday.

Deputy IGP Tan Sri Ismail Omar confirmed Kok’s arrest.

Earlier, Sin Chew Daily News reporter Tan Hoon Cheng was arrested from her home in Taman Permai in Bukit Mertajam at 8.40pm Friday.

Family members said they were told that she would be taken to the Bandar Perda police station in Seberang Jaya.

Ismail Omar said was also arrested under Section 73 (1) of the ISA.

A colleague said Tan called the office to inform them that the police had picked her up when they went to her home at 8.30pm.
Arrested Sin Chew reporter Tan Hoon Cheng.

However, when several colleagues tried to call her back on her handphone some 10 minutes later, the phone had been switched off.

On Friday night more than 100 people, including politicians, members of non-governmental organisations and journalists, gathered at the state police contingent to stage their silence protest on the arrest.

Tan, who is Mass Communications graduate from Universiti Sains Malaysia, has been a journalist for nine years.

She had reported on former Bukit Bendera division Umno chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail’s alleged racist remarks while campaigning for the Permatang Pauh by-election.

The arrest comes on the same day that Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin was detained, also under the ISA.

Sigh. The reported who reported the racist remarks by an UMNO leader has been placed in ISA together with one of the opposition members of Parliment, while the so mention leader is happily at home given a holiday from his position in UMNO. The world is laughing at Malaysia. Pray for our nation in this time of trouble, that people will remain calm.

Ahmad: Why should I apologise?
By ANDREA FILMER [Source]

GEORGE TOWN: Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail has refused to apologise over his racist remark calling the Chinese community “immigrants who do not deserve equal rights”.

“Why should I apologise? I didn’t do anything wrong. Those who do wrong should apologise but I haven’t done anything,” Ahmad said when The Star met him outside his Bayan Baru office yesterday.

He, however, refused to comment on whether the press misquoted him.

Sounding calm and collected on the phone, he said a full statement on what transpired would be released after a Penang Umno liaison meeting tomorrow.
Man in the news: Ahmad gesturing as he replies to a question in Bayan Baru yesterday. He said he had been leading a sepak takraw team to a tournament in Bangkok.

He added that he would not say much at present, but wanted to clear up the issue of reporting to the police.

Police are currently investigating five reports lodged against Ahmad under the Sedition Act 1948 for uttering the remarks at a ceramah on the eve of the Permatang Pauh by-election.

He said there were reports of his going to the Bukit Mertajam police station on Wednesday night (to make a statement).

“I want to make it clear that I never told anyone or informed anyone that I would be there. It was their assumption,” he said.

Ahmad recorded a statement at the police contingent headquarters in Penang Road at about 10pm the same night while pressmen from television, online and print media were waiting for him on the mainland.

Asked where he had been over the last few days, Ahmad confirmed that he had been leading a sepak takraw team to a tournament in Bangkok.

“My phone has been on and off, but a lot of my anak buah (supporters) have been calling me, so maybe that’s why it has been hard to get through,” he said.

On the alleged misappropriation of funds involving now-defunct company Popular Profile Sdn Bhd (PPSB), Ahmad said he had resigned before any action was taken on the company.

“This issue has nothing to do with me. Action is taken on a company, not on a personal capacity. Moreover, I resigned from the company on Sept 1, 1998. What happened after that, I don’t know.

“The Chief Minister (Lim Guan Eng) shouldn’t be using his political muscle and power to attack me,” he said, adding that he would not say more on the land deal until he had checked the details.

Lim had recently attacked Ahmad on a 1997 land deal involving PPSB, in which Ahmad had been a director. Lim alleged that the company had cheated the state of RM500,000 in a deal involving 4.2ha of industrial land in Bukit Minyak.

Looks like somebody has been lying again. Is it me or do they really think we are immigrants and will never truly be treated as citizens? I read somebodies blog that said ,”Yes, they are really immagrants. Pay bus fair still called passenger what?“.  Are you really supprised he didn’t think it was wrong to say that?  So many generations of Chinese and Indians who have known no other country but Malaysia, paid years of taxes, poured out blood, sweat and tears in this nation to build it as it is and some people still call us imigrants? If this racist policy is truly not the UMNO policy then our PM should be a little more MAN and prove it. Or is he affraid that all those who hold this racist beleive will rebel against UMNO? And I am totally ashamed of the other BN component parties, who have traded the birth right of all us Malaysians of other races just to earn dollars in thier pockets. When will you truly represent your people! Malaysia does not belong to just one race of people. It belongs to every citizen. You don’t own the Bus. Jus soli (Latin for “right of the soil” or, somewhat figuratively, “right of the territory”), or birthright citizenship, is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognised to any individual born in the territory of the related state. Look it up.

What?? You got to be kidding? If a non-malay teacher hurled racial slurs at Malay students and did the same thing, she would have been put in jail for sedition! What type of double standard is our ministry of education preaching here. An apology is not enough. She should be fired and fined. Criminal charges should be brought up against her. In this day and age, with our government preaching about racial harmony and “Bangsa Malaysia”, to have somebody who influences our young during the crucial years of formal education to behave in such a deplorable manner? How could this be acceptable.

Teacher To Be Transfered
[source]

BANTING: A secondary school teacher accused of hurling racial slurs against her Indian students recently is on leave prior to her transfer on Monday.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator T. Murugiah, who visited SMK Telok Panglima Garang yesterday, said the teacher regretted the incident and had apologised to the students.

“She also said that she did not expect things to become so serious and has agreed to be transferred to another school,” added Murugiah who was accompanied by officers from the Education Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Department’s Public Complaints Bureau.

Two students lodged police reports against the female history teacher last Friday alleging that she had made derogatory remarks about Indian students and called them unflattering names.

According to Murugiah, recommendations would also be made to the Education Ministry to institute disciplinary action against her.

He said the issue was now considered closed and advised members of the Indian community as well as parents of the affected students to accept the teacher’s apology.

However, relatives of the affected students as well as the members of the Telok Panglima Garang Indian community refused to regard the matter as closed.

“She must make a public apology as she insulted all Indians and be transferred to a desk job and not allowed to teach anymore,” said the group’s spokesman S. Muthamil Selvan.

Coalition of Malaysian Indian NGOs secretary Gunaraj George concurred and said his organisation was preparing a memorandum on the matter to be presented to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.