non-olympic spirit though de GAMES has begun

I stayed up past midnight to catch the opening ceremony of the BEIJING OLYMPICS, and a lifting extravaganza that will pay China dividends for the coming decade.

As the rest of this AM was taken up with some backlogged work, I now resort to two C&P from the online newspaper that's FREE, and gives thee much better write-up than one rival senior by a decade! -- in terms of professional news reporting, commentary and other journalistic writing, in IMHO, you can beg to differ, but Desi ain't deferring to thee! -- so here's to The Malaysian Insider:


Saturday August 09 2008

The day the loudest won the day... or did they?


A view of the chaos in the hall at the forum (My dear ER, Visualise-lah, can?).

By Debra Chong

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — An open forum organised by the Bar Council to discuss matters of conflict in family law arising from one party's conversion to Islam today was interrupted by protesters from several Malay-Muslim movements.

In her opening speech, Bar Council president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan invited the protesters to join the forum and share their dissenting views.

"I'm aware this forum has drawn many criticisms from many quarters. I don't have a problem with criticism... there are demonstrators outside, you can hear them," she said.

Jerking her chin towards the windows at the back of the auditorium, she continued: "We have absolutely no quarrel with them. They are exercising their freedom of speech. We hope they'll be allowed to carry out their demonstration peacefully. We're certainly not lodging any police report."

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To READ MORE, surf to www.malaysianinsider.com:

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Harsher actions if Bar Council holds more forums on religion, warn Muslim protesters

Police face off the protestors outside the Bar Council building. — (Dear ER< visualise2, cando?) -- Pictures by Choo Choy May

By Adib Zalkapli

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — Muslim protesters threatened to take harsher actions against the Bar Council if it holds similar forums on religion. The group of about 300 protesters managed to shut down the controversial council forum on conversions to Islam today.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Zulkifli Noordin, who took the lead this morning to address the protesters, said: "If they do it again we will take a stern action."

The first-term Kulim Bandar Baharu MP, who is also a lawyer, declared their protest a success after the forum was declared closed a little before 10am after the police advised the organisers to end it due to the noisy protest outside and in the hall. The forum was supposed to end at 1pm.

Read more...

DESIDERATA: To YL Chong the newshound, and to Desi, the socialist writHer-Blogger, I deem this a HUGE LETDOWN. The scenes (I saw on TV news) remind me of hooligans from UMNO Youth led by its deputy chief (the later keris-wielding idiotic chief was in hibernation then--I presume...) marching on the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall housing the SUQIU operations centre about 10 years ago "threatening to burn down" the Election Appeals' non-governmental organisation's office. I remember the episode well since I was then still in active online journalism and "those were the days" of reformasi in the air ringing out loud in the capital city.

I can understand if this morning's crowd was led by UMNO Youth and MCA/MIC lackeys in tow -- BUT PKR? Are there some wolves in sheep's clothings, here/hear?

PS: I'm gonna move more into the Beijing arena of sports than listen to hooligans advocating freedom of speech and religious practice. BUT when it suits their mornic agenda, they throw their vaunted beliefs out of the window, and set out to destroy the opposing views just because the contrarians don't submit to their idiotic views. Next would these morons set oil and flames to the Bar Council or other buildings?

Some of my Blogger mates have become tired and weary recently. Some even went of Blog-strike, whatever that means...I too have become tired and wearng -- BUT WE HAVE REACHED THIS STAGE FOR VASTLY DIFFERENT REASONS. Mine is mainly to see leaders -- mainly from the federal Government, some form the Oppostion parties, and also the NGOs -- talking all the time but hardly walking the talk. You want examples? Buy Desi CON BF on Sundays when he eans towards capitalistic tendencies, both in theory and practice. Hey, I am also a member of the human race, Homo ... sumthn', hey!

Maybe it's time to adjourn to the SPORTS FIELD. Have some exercise -- GOoD for the body, spirit and soul.
God bless all peace-loving and negaraku-loving Malaysians.

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UPDATEd @12.40PM Sunday August 10, 2008, as follows,

Officially a statement from the Parti Keadilan Rakyat deputy President, Dr Syed Husin Ali:

CONDEMNING ACTION AGAINST BAR COUNCIL SEMINAR

This morning (9 August 2008) a small demonstration was held to oppose the seminar on "embracing Islam" organized by the Bar Council. Less than 500 demonstrators participated, although it was earlier announced than 10,000 people would be present.

The People's Justice Party (keADILan) regrets that the police force present failed to control the situation but instead appeared to collaborate with some of the demonstrators who wanted to force their way into the hall to stop the seminar. This incident reminds us of what happened during the APCET conference on East Timor that was held a few years ago, when members of Umno-Bn forced their way in to sabotage the seminar.

We take serious view of the rough action taken by a small band of the demonstrators who shouted rude and uncivilized language against some of the organizers and participants of the Seminar. We regret that unfortunately the "fiercest" among them was someone known to be a lawyer and member of parliament who pretentiously claimed himself to be "representing all the Muslims".

keADILan fully supports the view of its de facto leader, Anwar Ibrahim, that the seminar should be organized by the Bar Council behind closed doors, in view of the sensitive reactions and wrong perception among a section of the Malay-Muslim population. We are in full support of holding inter-religious dialogues that promote understanding rather than unilateral events that could create ethnic and religious dissension.

We oppose the small minority group of Umno leaders who threaten the organizers of the seminar with all kinds of actions, including the use of ISA, to force them to abandon the seminar. Obviously they do not respect the freedom of expression and organization guaranteed by the Constitution. Obviously, some of them were trying to trigger ethnic/ religious tension and conflict which could be manipulated to serve the interests of Umno and the government it leads.

On the other hand it would be better for the Bar Council not to allow itself to be trapped into the evil Umno design. It should have acted wisely and speedily to announce that the seminar would be held behind closed door to avoid any unhealthy consequence on inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations in this country. Certainly the Bar Council realizes how important it is to ensure that the agenda of the irresponsible minority elements who want to create ethnic dissension do not succeed.

Dr Syed Husin Ali
Deputy President, keADILan
People's Justice Party