“As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.”

- Hannah Arendt

COMMENT | Friends and family members of the LTTE 12 have been contacting me asking me what can be done for their loved ones. Everyone of them understands that this is a political issue, not a criminal one. They understand that they have been targeted by the state – deep or otherwise – and the LTTE 12 are collateral damage. Most of them believe they are on their own.

The arrival of Zakir Naik on our shores, a religious extremist who not only disparages other religions in his sermons but asks the Malay community to vote for corrupt Muslim leaders over honest non-Muslim leaders, galvanised the deep Islamic state and emboldened nativist narratives made more complicated by the political fracturing of the Malay community.

The acolytes of Zakir, led by the Perlis mufti, must be extremely happy. Their handiworks are all over these persecutions. Nobody can dispute that the LTTE was a non-issue before Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) P Ramasamy was targeted by the Perlis mufti for being the most vocal critic of Zakir.

Some family members after the torture allegations made against the police were worried about the safety of these political prisoners. Again, I did not have anything to say that would ease their fears. Keep in mind that it was state actors that were identified as the masterminds behind the abduction of Pastor Raymond Koh, hence any words of mine would be meaningless...