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To the people of Malaysia

Concerned Malaysians are working hard to collect as many signatures as possible for the 2008 Memorandum on Media Freedom - sponsored by Benar for Free and Fair Media (Benar), Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), National Alliance of Bloggers (All-Blogs) and Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI).

The Memorandum, together with the signatures collected until 30 August, 2008 shall be presented to the national leaders on August 31, 2008 and to state leaders on September 16, 2008 to demand for reforms in media laws. This project will be weaker without your support. We hope you will place this image link on your blog/website/forum/newsgroup to help promote the cause.

There can be no free nation without free media. Let us come together to demand media freedom as the birthday present for our beloved nation.

Attached please find the image in 2 sizes. Please don’t forget to hyperlink the image to the benar website. (not the benar blog).

For non bloggers, you are encourage to support us by posting about the memorandum in forums or newsgroup.

Thank you very much for your support and attention.

In our love of the nation and freedom,
All-Blogs, Benar, CIJ and WAMI

ok so now everybody’s talking about PI bala’s about-turn - retracting his SD just 24 hours after it and making a new one.

he said the SD he made on 1 july was under duress. and guess what was in the new SD? all the statements that he wish to retract from his first SD has to do with one particular name - the DPM’s!! (that this person was not involved…. blah… blah… blah….).  was that a surprise? 

The following is the full 16-page statutory declaration sign by Abdul Razak Baginda’s former private investigator P Balasubramaniam on July 1. (CnP this from malaysiakini)

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I, Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal … do solemnly and sincerely declare as follows:
 
1. I have been a police officer with the Royal Malaysian Police Force, having joined as a constable in 1981 attached to the police field force. I was then promoted to the rank of lance corporal and finally resigned from the police force in 1998 when I was with the Special Branch.

2. I have been working as a freelance private investigator since I left the police force.

… so claimed as taken from the press conference anwar called this morning.

breaking news! just gotta blog this during my lunch time as it is too big a news to let go.

the proof that najib was involved in altantuya’s case from anwar came in during today’s press conference at the new keadilan HQ. it’s all at anwar’s blog. i reproduce it here CnP from anwar’s blog for all to read. you can also read about it, with pictures at haris ibrahim’s blog and also susan loone’s blog.  malaysiakini doesn’t seems to have pick up this news yet. not yet release to them? or already released but malaysiakini is slow to publish it.  guess i don’t have to bother check with other MSN online as as either they will not publish it or if they do, they will tone it down.

"the royal malaysian police would like to remind bloggers and local websites again not to spread rumours or statements regarding the sodomy allegation upon datuk seri anwar ibrahim…………. "

….. to continue, quote from malaysiakini:

The second note said any effort to link the sodomy allegation to the 1998 incidents - Anwar’s sacking as deputy prime minister and ensuing arrest for corruption - could thwart investigations.   

It further said that baseless speculation would unduly affect Malaysia by serving particular foreign interests and intensify pressure on the government and the judiciary.

since there had been and still is many news on this sodomy issue in malaysiakini, here’s some lessons on sodomy by yours truly.

do you know that the word ’sodomy’ had its origin from the bible? yes, indeed, in the story of sodom and gomorrah taken from the book of genesis in the bible. sodom and gomorrah are 2 cities in ancient palestine. according to the bible, the people of sodom are ‘living in wicked ways’ thus god send fire and brimstones to destroy the cities.

what wicked ways? well, the men like to have sex with men! the story went that this person by the name of lot in sodom, had 2 angels as guests. when the men of sodom knew about it, they marched to lot’s house and demanded that lot handed the 2 angels to them as they said "where are the men who came to your house tonight? bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them."

see? ‘have intimacies with them’. well lot pleaded with them not to and even offered his own daughters to them but the men refused and instead got violent and wanted to tear lot’s house down to get to the 2 angels. what happened next? read further from the bible!

well so you see, it is because the city of sodom, the men’s evil way is having sex with the same person, that the word ’sodomy’ came from. nothing much was mentioned about gomorrah further down the line (but sodom was mentioned) so i guess that’s why we don’t see the word ‘gomorraised’ or ‘gomorry’ instead of ’sodomy’.

although the dictionary do mention that ’sodomy’ means copulation with the same sex, it also mention that it is anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex. the sex dictionary has some interesting definitions of sodomy. one of them "a vague legal term for a variety of sexual-acts including sex between men (anal intercourse)"

yes although ’sodomy’ means anal intercourse between same sex or diffrent sex but mostly it seems that everybody think it is anal intercourse between men.

and why is "he sodomise me" sounds so wrong, just like, "he rape me"?? is sodomy a crime like rape? apparently it is in our country. well if sodomy means anal intercourse, it is just a form of sexual act, why is it wrong? unless of course only when the 2 parties invovled, one of them is not consenting, then it is wrong - then in this case not only sodomy but oral sex, natural sex, etc is consider wrong!!  so it shouldn’t be "he sodomise me" that is wrong by rather "he rape me by sodomising me".

i had said it before a person’s sexual orientation is none of our business. if it is true that anwar like to sodomise men BUT with the exception that the men he sodomised agreed for him to do it willingly, so what’s the big deal? it’s anwar’s personal life!

i notice that many people do agree on this point and some of them had found it sickening that the government had used this ’sodomy’ issue to rally people against anwar. there is a petition on facebook "don’t let homophobia undermine democracy". please hop over there, read it (to understand what is homophobia, if you don’t yet) and endorse it. btw, this endorsement also appears in malaysiakini’s letter page.

,,, thus no blogging from me.

yesterday already started not feeling well. sore throat and body ache all over. i still went to work yesterday but i was feeling so weak that i did not do any work. instead i went to our guest room (where there is a sofa) to rest… for an hour! then decided to go see the doctor so took the half day off. the doctor gave me 2 days leave! hooray! don’t have to work today.

btw anyone have difficulty going to malaysiakini site these days? it seemed to take a long time to load the page these days.

ok today, like yesterday, i gotta go sleep early (as feeling lethargic) so no time to search for news. hopefully by late this evening, i’ll be better.

wow! it’s hot news all over malaysiakini! aide alleged sodomy: police report lodged.  PKR fears anwar an assassination target, anwar takes refuge in turkish embassy, supporters told to remain calm, leaders rally behind anwar. PKR to file report against IGP, AG, alleged sodomy was in a damansara condo. PKR leader unfazed by fresh allegations. PM: govt not involved in sodomy allegation. supporters: politics behind sodomy claim. for the first time, i see that almost the whole front page of malaysiakini were filled with news of this sodomy report issue. then of course malaysiakini also came out with a video on the issue. oh if you are not a subsriber of malaysiakini, and can’t get to read those links i put up here, don’t worry, go to the malaysian insider, lots of news on same issue there too. or you should go to beritamalaysia - lots of news from lots of sources.
(picture here taken from malaysiakini shows the aide, saiful on the left)

while many bloggers, like susan, had choose to blog on the top news from malaysiakini, on police report lodged against anwar for sodomy, i’ll not blog on that. it’s a sunday… no heavy stuff. beside, i notice, not many people visit blogs on a sunday! perhaps tomorrow. ok, instead, for today i’ll give you a story about maha and abdul and subsidy.

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these 2 projects are shelved! not totally canceled!  or as DPM najib put it, ‘deferred’.

malaysiakini reported that the economic planning unit of the PM’s dept. announced these 2 projects had been shelved… and what reasons do you think they gave? these projects are not ‘people centred’.

it seems that many bloggers had taken it to mean that the federal government is canceling these 2 projects… and while some were not happy, there were some who are happy.