Upon reading Dr Chandra Muzaffar's letter, Burma: There's still hope , the first word that comes to my mind is 'double standard'.

While Chandra is passionate about the cause for democracy in Burma and apparently very angry with the actions of the Burmese junta, his organisation has been particularly silent on the anti-democratic practices of the Malaysian government.

One cannot help but notice that Chandra's is completely silent on the shooting of innocent and unarmed men in Batu Buruk by the police. What was done by the police in Batu Buruk is no different from what the Burmese junta. That is, using brute force in the form of police action and live rounds to quell the people's voice from being heard.

What I seem to wonder is does Chandra view the Malaysian bullets as being justified while the Burmese junta's bullets as being illegal? If that is the case, what is his justification?.

All that is done by the Burmese junta is also practiced by the Malaysia government, namely, police brutality, election fraud, suppression of free speech, totalitarian control of the media, detention without trial, shooting of innocent and unarmed demonstrator, channeling of country's wealth to only a handful of elites, blatant and uncontrollable corruption and many more.

The only reason Malaysians do not suffer as much as their Burmese counterpart is that Malaysia is not economically isolated by sanctions as opposed to Burma.

Yet, with all these striking similarities, Chandra chooses to condemn only Burma and not Malaysia. I strongly feel Chandra has lost all moral authority to speak on issue related to human rights as his double standards is not only obvious but also glaring.