Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) is urging the United Nations (UN) to revoke or suspend Malaysia’s  membership in the Human Rights Council for continuous violation of human rights, in particular the PSM 6 detention.

 

The demand was one of the four in a memo submitted by PSM to the UN office in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon, protesting the detention without trial of Sungai Siput MP D Jeyakumar and five other party member.

 

“The main issue here is detention without trial. Detaining a person under the act (Emergency Ordinance or EO) does not provide the opportunity for a hearing and defence in an open court. Such an act violates international charters,” the memo read.

 

The memo also called for the UN to make a formal visit on the six detainees to ensure their well-being, intervention to allow legal recourse for them and a meeting with the authorities to demand the abolishing of detention without trial.

The memo to the international body comes after several other efforts to free the PSM 6 including an attempted meeting with the home minister and complaints to the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) had failed.

The PSM 6 were first detained on June 22 along with 24 other PSM members where they were investigated for allegedly “waging war against the Agong” and “reviving communist ideologies”.

The six were immediately re-arrested on release by Bukit Aman police, this time under the EO, which allows for detention without trial.