COMMENT The irony seems to be lost on the BN government that on the day we celebrated 57 years of Independence, it was using pre-independence laws that had been concocted by the old colonial power to defeat the anti-colonial struggle, especially the Malayan workers’ movement.

These laws include the Societies Ordinance that is being used against the PPS in Penang, and the Sedition Act used against elected members of Parliament and even a “moderate” senior academician!

The Societies Ordinance goes as far back as 1889, when the British colonial power enacted the law to deal with a radical working class as well as an anti-colonial nationalist movement...