The Malaysian Bar and Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) today called on the government to stop a Home Ministry bid to ban human rights NGO Comango, tagging it as unlawful.

While Bar Council president Christopher Leong ( left ) said the bureaucratic move was wrong-footed on at least seven counts, Suhakam's Hasmy Agam reminded Malaysia of its pledge to United Nations to allow civil society to flourish for the purpose of promoting and protecting human rights in the country.

Both warned that such a move was tantamount to shutting down views not in line with the government’s.

"By embarking on this course of action, the Malaysian government has publicly made known that it has no intention of promoting and protecting the right to free speech or the right to freedom of assembly.

"Its only standard operating procedure appears to be to ban or declare unlawful any organisation or coalition of organisations that appear to promote views that are not in consonance with that of the Malaysian government, or whose ongoing presence is a bane to its continuance in power," Leong said in a press statement.

The controversy arose on Wednesday when the Home Ministry issued a media statement calling Comango an illegal coalition as it had not registered with the Registrar of Societies.

Suhakam's Hasmy Agam said that the spirit of "1Malaysia" should be used to deal with pluralism in the country.

What 1M’sia means lesson

This calls for consultations and dialogues instead of "selective harassment against Comango or other human rights groups in this country."

In his statement, Bar Council's Leong said the ministry has mischievously tried to use shaky information to undermine the rights of Comango to exist. He listed the seven ways in which Home Ministry statement has erred:

1. Home Ministry cannot make pronouncements under the Societies Act 1966, which it used to imply in a media statement that Comango is unregistered and therefore unlawful. The act is for the Registrar of Societies to use;

2. As Comango in its name clearly states that it is a coalition of 54 non-governmental organisations, it is not settled law that coalitions need to be registered under the Act. Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih) is a case in point;

3. Allegations that Comango champions rights that deviates from Islam is unfounded. Among its documented demands made to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2013, only four out of 63 recommendations deal with issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) issues.

Even these four recommendations are presented in the context of ending discrimination in law and practise ... and does not constitute a threat to the belief and practice of Islam in Malaysia;

4. The media statement is mischievous in that it makes the highly prejudicial reference that most of Comango’s members are non-Muslim-based. There is nothing wrong with that;

5. The Home Ministry has not updated its own record when it states that only 15 of the 54 member organisations of Comango are registered under the Societies Act.

Several organisations including Association of Women Lawyers, Christian Federation of Malaysia, PS The Children, and Women’s Centre for Change, Penang listed as not-registered, are in fact, registered;

6. Not all of Comango's members need to be under the Societies registration department. Some are companies registered under the Companies Act 1965 or bodies registered under some other laws, and;

7.The government has had more than five years to check on the background of Comango and has had no problems working with it until now. 

To now declare Comango to be unlawful smacks of mala fide. (acting in bad faith).