The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed’s complaint that the US-based organisation was unfairly singling out Malaysia as 'pathetic' and a diversion.

Yesterday, Nur Jazlan said that unlike Malaysia, Singapore still had the International Security Act (ISA) but HRW had not focused on Singapore as much as it had focused on Malaysia for ' political reasons '.

“It’s pathetic that when challenged on (human) rights, all the deputy minister can do is spew political rhetoric about the rights record of Singapore.

“If he bothered to check his facts before opening his mouth, he could read our extensive critiques on our website ( www.hrw.org ) about those two countries - but that’s not his point, isn’t it?

“What he’s trying to do is change the subject because he has no plausible defence for Malaysia’s full-bore crackdown on civil rights and liberties, and dragging dozens of opposition parliamentarians, activists and journalists before the courts on bogus charges in order to create a culture of fear and silence critics,” said HRW deputy director Phil Robertson.

Robertson said while Nur Jazlan's reaction may be “laughable”, the fact that he was defending the government’s actions in sending people to prison for peacefully expressing their views, was not.

“This is unacceptable, and that’s the message that US President Barack Obama and other world leaders are going to deliver to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in three weeks from now.

Drawing board

“So deputy minister Nur Jazlan had better head back to the drawing board and come up with some lines of argument that are less lame than what he’s trotted out so far,” he told Malaysiakini .

Obama and the region’s leaders are set to gather in Malaysia next month for the 27th Asean Summit.

Yesterday, Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang had levelled similar criticism against HRW, accusing it of picking on Malaysia instead of focusing on Guantanamo Bay set up by the US government where foreign terrorists are detained without trial.

According to HRW’s website, its earliest press statements against Guantanamo Bay date back to 2002, the same year the US facility was first set up in Cuba.

HRW’s report on Malaysia released yesterday detailed a long list of crackdowns on dissent by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

The report also proposed several areas for reform to improve the exercise of fundamental freedoms in the country.