HUMAN Rights Watch (HRW) is at it again.
In a recent statement by the legal adviser for HRW's Asia chapter, Linda Lakhdhir, the group accused the former government of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin of cracking down on civil and human rights in the country over its 17 months in office.
HRW went on to list several incidences of police investigations into the actions of several activists and journalists for a variety of violations, and urged the present government to forge a new, more open policy.
As is par for the course with HRW, listing investigations is presented as evidence of tyrannical oppression.
There is no room, apparently, to consider the possibility that violations may have actually been committed, thus resulting in investigations being undertaken. To Lakhdhir, police investigations are themselves violations and are presumably unjustified.
I would like to remind Lakhdhir that investigations are just that — inquiries into possible legal violations, which are intended to discover the facts and determine the truth.
Or, put it another way, investigations are a check against the tyrannical abuse of power; a safeguard against arbitrary punishments and politically motivated persecution. Investigations into possible violations are themselves evidence of the rule of law, not the opposite.
The government, the police, and the judiciary are charged with maintaining the order, tranquility and the collective rights of the population as a whole — a challenge that has been made immeasurably more difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.
Every citizen has been obliged to limit their social interactions throughout the pandemic and to exercise caution and restraint in their social activities.
If activists flout these measures, while the entire population abides by them, that quite correctly warrants concerns and investigations by the authorities.
It has become a familiar and tiresome stance of Western human rights organisations that they virulently object when Malaysia or any nation in the Global South enforces its laws on its own citizens.
They appear, primarily, to find our sovereignty offensive. The fact that we have our own system of governance, our own legal codes, and our own mechanisms for preserving the peace in our society is apparently unforgivable.
Essentially, HRW and its ilk do not believe that Malaysians can establish a legal and political system independent of Western mentorship, and thus, any enforcement of our laws must always result in oppression and injustice.
We will never be able to do it right until we do it their way.
The human rights sheepskin has long since slipped off these organisations to expose the neo-colonialist wolves underneath, and when they issue reports and statements, the genuine human rights advocates in Malaysia just hear them baying and howling.
No government is perfect and every government can overreach at times, or fall short, and the previous Perikatan Nasional government was no different.
However, any objective reader of Lakhdhir's statement would conclude that the former PN government acquitted itself remarkably well under enormously difficult conditions.
It may surprise her to know that this is precisely what most Malaysians want the police to do.
We are not talking about detentions without trial, police brutality, enforced disappearances, or rule by diktat — any of such abuses would unquestionably merit the strongest of criticism and opposition.
We are talking about law enforcement doing their job in accordance with due process. When Lakhdhir and HRW find this alarming, it reveals that what truly disturbs them is that Malaysia is perfectly capable of managing its own society without outside interference.
Furthermore, to allow the imposition of Western ideals on how Malaysia chooses to govern its own is in itself a persecution and gross violation of the rights of Malaysia to preserve its social identity and cultures.
HRW needs to know where to draw the line and understand the limits of its governance.
The writer is founder, Centre for Human Rights Research & Advocacy (CENTHRA)