Stop the crackdown on Malaysian socialists

cc Mr. Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

Palais des Nations

Dear Prime Minister

Stop the crackdown on Malaysian socialists

I am writing to you on behalf of the Socialist Alliance in Australia, to express our members' outrage and strongest condemnation of your government's recent crackdown and the arrest of 30 Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) activists simply for participating in a peaceful bus tour of the country to express their political views.

Many of our members have met some of the PSM activists who have been detained, including MP Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj and PSM National Deputy Chairperson M. Sarasvathy, and respect them as outstanding world citizens and freedom fighters.

We are all appalled by your Government and its police force's latest actions and view this as an attempt to prevent and intimidate Malaysian citizens from exercising their elementary civil and political rights. As the world has seen in Egypt and elsewhere, ordinary people are standing up for their democratic rights and attempts to deny them the right to exercise those rights only led to bigger and bigger mass protests.

We are deeply concerned at reports that Dr Jeyakumar and Ms Sarasvathy have had to be taken, under detention, to Penang General Hospital because of their health conditions. We are also outraged that friends and family were denied access to the remand hearing for these detainees.

We have communicated with Australian Members of Parliament, human rights activists and trade union leaders in Australia over this matter and they too share our outrage and concern about this matter. We will be closely following the reports about this case and keeping the Australian media, prominent persons and public informed of all progress.

Our Europe Office is doing the same with all our contacts within the European Union countries and you should expect to get messages of protest from those countries soon.

We demand that your government stops this assault on freedom of expression and release all the 30 PSM activists immediately.

Yours sincerely

Peter Boyle
National Convenor
Socialist Alliance (Australia) Socialist Alliance National Office: Phone: +61 2 8070 9331
Email: national_office@socialist-alliance.org
Street address: C1.07, 22-36 Mountain St, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia.
Mailing address: PO Box A2323, Sydney South, NSW 1235

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