It’s no wonder that members of corrupt, kleptocratic and otherwise criminal governments around the world detest both the letter and the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). After all, this vital document was specifically designed to force such human blights to see the light.

So the forces of darkness attack human rights with all their might, as Malaysia’s BN regime has done for decades through its complicit police, judiciary and unconstitutional laws like the Internal Security Act (ISA), Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) and Sedition and sundry other anti-people Acts, and by sleight of hand as in pretending to “protect” their repressed people from alleged “threats”.

Entirely imaginary threats, of course, as in former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s paranoid anti-Semitic, anti-Western and anti-liberal conspiracy theories, and his favourite fantasy that tolerance of sexual and gender minorities will result in “people walking naked in the streets”.

And now, this week, we’ve had current Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak shooting off his mouth or rather flapping his lips against human rights in general and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in particular.

According to the BN regime’s ventriloquist-dummy ‘news’ agency Bernama , Najib opened the 57th national-level Quran recital assembly in Kuantan with a speech warning that “Islam and its followers are now being tested by new threats under the guise of humanism, secularism, liberalism and human rights”.

Alleging that what he called “humanrightism” appears to be “becoming a new form of religion” that is “fast expanding locally and abroad,” he damned it as “deviationist in that it glorifies the desires of man alone and rejects any value system that encompasses religious norms and etiquette.”

This, as he was doubtless well aware even as he said it, is typically an outright lie, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rejects restrictions to religious freedom, not religion itself.

As Najib very well knows, or should know, Article 18 of the UDHR unequivocally states that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. But it then proceeds to fly in the face of Najib and all similarly politically-motivated pretenders to be “defenders” of Islam with the equally clear statement that “this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief.”

Such freedom to change one’s religion or belief naturally represents a considerable threat, not necessarily to Islam itself, but certainly to the BN regime’s maintenance of its political hegemony by persisting in its pernicious fiction that all Malays must by definition be Muslim.

Thus Najib’s declaration that “we will not tolerate any demands or right to apostasy by Muslims, or deny Muslims their right to be governed by syariah courts” before his proceeding to add that “and neither will we allow Muslims to engage in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activities”.

Farrago of falsehood

He then went on to claim that “as an Islamic country”, which Malaysia, as he knows, is not, but rather a country with a secular constitution and a Muslim-majority population, “Malaysia emphasises the welfare of every individual regardless of race, language or religion”.

And he followed this farrago of falsehood with the laughably lying statement that “justice, fairness and excellence (are) features of moderation used in the implementation of human rights in this country”.

“Justice”? “Fairness”? “Excellence”? Which country did Najib imagine he was talking about? Certainly not the Malaysia I know, and that the rest of the world is fast learning the truth about following the atrocious “loss” of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Malaysian justice died at the hands of Dr Mahathir Mohamad way back in the 1980s, and the fact that it remains dead to this day is amply evidenced by countless mis-tried cases including most notoriously those of Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up sodomy charges, and that of the alleged murderers of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the translator implicated in the Scorpene submarines scandal while Najib was defence minister.

And then there are the equally countless non-trials of all the BN regime members and cronies who have been robbing the people of Malaysia blind for decades, but inevitably escape investigation for their crimes, let alone prosecution, in clear contravention of Article 7 of the UDHR, “all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law”.

As for “fairness” and “excellence”, they went out the window long ago, much as innocent ‘witness’ Teoh Beng Hock and a couple of others did when they fell into the hands of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

And similarly out the window have gone a whole slew of other human rights, including the free press provided for in both the Malaysian constitution and article 19 of the UDHR: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media.”

Mention of press freedom or almost total lack thereof in BN’s Malaysia brings us to Najib’s second assault on human rights in the past week, this one in the form of a threat to sue Malaysiakini and some of its readers who commented on the recent and ongoing political shenanigans in Terengganu.

According to Malaysiakini , a letter of demand signed by Umno lawyer Mohd Hafarizam Harun claimed that comments by six of its readers were defamatory and seditious.

“All the accusations by users on Malaysiakini.com were totally baseless, without concrete proof and are very serious, on top of having ill-intent (mala fide) to damage the image and reputation of our clients,” the letter read, and “are also intended to lower the honour and credibility of our clients as the backbone of the BN government.”

No honour among thieves

How, I find myself wondering for the umpteenth time, would it be possible to damage the image and reputation of Najib and his accomplices in the criminal BN regime any more disastrously than their own words and deeds have already done?

As for lowering the “honour” and “credibility” of this coterie of crooks, it’s common knowledge if not an article of common law that there’s proverbially no honour among thieves, and as pathological liars to boot they have long ago deprived themselves of any shred of anything remotely resembling credibility.

In short, it’s high time that these blights on Malaysia’s reputation and Malaysians’ human rights were told in no uncertain terms to go fly kites, or better still charged, convicted and locked-up somewhere out of our sight.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.