{"id":1731,"date":"2008-07-17T00:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1731"},"modified":"2009-02-28T23:51:03","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T15:51:03","slug":"1725-of-anwar-ibrahim-due-process-and-equality-before-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=1731","title":{"rendered":"[1725] Of Anwar Ibrahim, liberty, due process and equality before the law"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am divided on the whole issue surrounding the sodomy allegation made against Anwar Ibrahim. I really have trouble in expressing myself on the issue from the start and that is apparent in an earlier entry of mine<\/a> which I was forced to rewrite and added a post-script to express myself better. Over at the Malaysia Forum, Wan Saiful Wan Jan<\/a> put it in the clearest of terms which I failed to get to clearly in the first place: the allegation of sodomy is not about prosecution of homosexuality but rather, it is about transgression of individual liberty.<\/p>\n

I do not agree with the criminalization of victimless crime but again the allegation is not about victimless crime. It is an allegation of rights transgression. For this very reason, I am quite agnostic with a dose of skepticism reserved, about the sodomy allegation. Judgment has yet to be handed and it is only fair to maintain neutrality.<\/p>\n

Let the due process takes its place. If the judgment was tempered, then a revolt would be justified. If Anwar Ibrahim is innocent, then by all means punish the accuser for fraud.<\/p>\n

All is equal before the law and so too Anwar Ibrahim. Yes, I know, the weight of the law \u2014 regardless the value of the law \u2014 has not been equally applied to everybody but two wrongs do not make a right. But only those whom do the right thing have the moral authority to preach about being right.<\/p>\n

Returning to due process, the biggest issue for me concerns the timing of the arrest. It was made more or less an hour earlier than the presented deadline.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/a> I am on Anwar Ibrahim’s side as far as the arrest is concerned because of the police’s failure to adhere to due process. If the police had adhered to the timeline, Anwar Ibrahim’s arrest would have been justified.<\/p>\n

On the allegation itself, I am, as I have written before, agnostic.<\/p>\n

My position is this: I believe in equality before the law and due process, as long as individual liberty is preserved.<\/p>\n

\"Mohd \"Mohd \"Mohd<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> <\/a> KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 \u2014 Police feared that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was going to barricade himself in his home and resist arrest. That is why they moved in, and arrested him near his house in Segambut as he was making his way back from an interview with the Anti-Corruption Agency \u2014 an hour before he was scheduled to show up at the KL police headquarters. [So why were the police in such a hurry?<\/em><\/a>. The Malaysian Insider. July 16 2008]<\/small><\/p>\n

\"Mohd \"Mohd \"Mohd<\/p>\n

Special thanks to John Lee<\/a> for lending his hand in clarifying my thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am divided on the whole issue surrounding the sodomy allegation made against Anwar Ibrahim. I really have trouble in expressing myself on the issue from the start and that is apparent in an earlier entry of mine which I was forced to rewrite and added a post-script to express myself better. Over at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[203],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-politics-government","tag-anwar-ibrahim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2576,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}