The Universities and University Colleges Act, which has come under fire in wake of a spate of incidents regarding students' rights in the country, was among a number of issues raised at the 56th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva yesterday.

Suaram director Dr Kua Kia Soong, who is part of a six-member delegation of human rights activists making interventions at the UN meeting, said that while the Malaysian government claimed to encourage creative and critical thinking, the Act prohibited students from expressing critical political views and organising activities autonomously.

"The ruling coalition in Malaysia constantly peddles the view that human rights are Western values. The fact is that these basic human rights and freedoms were inscribed in the Malaysian Constitution at Independence and were enjoyed by Malaysians in the 50s and 60s until the Constitution was amended by an increasingly authoritarian government," the former DAP MP and vice-principal of New Era College said.

The latest incident where students were severely punished for their activities under the Act was the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) ban on a Chinese New Year expo on the ground that the activity involved only one community.

The university had on Feb 23 issued show-cause letters to Lee Khai Loon, Liew Weng Kong and Cheong Soon Aun who were part of an assembly of about 200 students who sent a memorandum to the vice-chancellor to protest against the university's decision not to allow the holding of the exhibition.

Others who also fell foul of the Act included Ahmad Zaki Yamani Zainon who was expelled from the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and Ong Sun Hwi who was suspended for one semester by UTM, for their alleged involvement in illegal demonstrations.

The UN meeting is an annual six-week event where governments gather to update one another on the human rights situation in their respective countries. In addition, resolutions are debated on censuring certain governments for violations of human rights and non-governmental organisations are allowed to make interventions during the meeting to inform delegates on specific abuses.

Other Malaysian delegation members are Nurul Izzah, daughter of former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Khalid Jaafar, executive director of the Institute of Policy Research, Cynthia Gabriel, another Suaram director, Elizabeth Wong, secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society and Debby Stothard, of social reform group Aliran.

Meanwhile, Kua also raised the Selangor Dam issue at the forum, stressing that the construction of the dam would cause the displacement of more than 350 indigenous people of the Temuan community and the destruction of their ancestral lands and environment downstream.

"Malaysia is experiencing a serious water crisis caused by the destruction of water catchment, mismanagement of water resources and imprudent policies. But instead of implementing judicious water demand management, the government's solution is to build more and more dams," he said.

"The Bakun Dam project is an example of another monument with little justification and which has flouted a range of human rights principles," he added.

The original dam project was to be built in Sarawak, which already has an excess electricity generating capacity of 750MW to meet a total demand of 350MW. The dam before the financial crisis was planned to generate 2,400MW and the excess energy was to be transmitted across the South China Sea via the longest undersea cable in the world.

"The most irresponsible aspect of the Bakun Dam is the fact that despite the suspension of the project with the onset of the financial crisis of 1997, the government has gone ahead with the displacement of nearly 10,000 indigenous peoples," Kua reported.

Not only have the affected people not been properly consulted, NGOs and elected representatives have also been ignored throughout the conception and execution of the project. The lack of transparency in such mega projects in Malaysia hides a conflict of interests, between government and their business counterparts, he added.

"All the feasibility studies have been classified under the Official Secrets Act, the violation of which can subject a person to a mandatory jail sentence of two years and disqualifies the offender from standing for parliamentary elections. At least two NGO activists were detained in 1987 for their anti-Bakun activities under the infamous Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial," Kua stated.

In addition, Kua also told the forum that the cultural rights of minorities have been neglected by an "illiberal" national cultural policy, thus places of worship for non-Muslims and schools run by minorities faced obstacles to their expansion.

"The Unified Examination Certificate of the Malaysian independent Chinese secondary schools is still not recognised by the government although it has been accepted as an accredited qualification by tertiary institutions worldwide for years.

"This and the racially-based quota system discriminate against minorities in admissions into Malaysian public institutions, creating divisions in Malaysian society," he said.

The Education Ministry last June had ruled that all private colleges could only recruit students with "qualifications accepted by the Malaysian government", thus prohibiting private universities and colleges from accepting the exam certificate produced by Chinese independent high schools.

A Cabinet decision on Mar 29, however, reversed the Ministry's ruling, but the certificate is still not not officially recognised by local public universities, despite being accepted by over 400 universities and private colleges worldwide.