Anwar’s Arrest Raises Tensions

Malaysian opposition leader is taken on sodomy charges as opposition pressure grows

malay-anwar4 Anwar’s Arrest Raises TensionsPolice, some wearing balaclava masks, descended on the home of Anwar Ibrahim
Tuesday, arresting the opposition leader on charges of forcibly sodomizing a
23-year-old male aide. The move ratcheted up political tensions in Malaysia and
sent Anwar’s supporters into the streets around the police station where he was
being held.

At a time when Anwar seemed poised to seize power, the scene was reminiscent
of a decade ago when Anwar was arrested on similar charges. About 20 officer in
10 cars arrived at about 1 pm as he was returning from filing a report with the
Anti-Corruption Agency against the country’s police chief and attorney general,
accusing them of fabricating evidence against him in his original trial for
sexual perversion and corruption in 1998.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or the People’s Justice Party, of which Anwar is the
defacto leader, issued a statement calling for calm and said he had intended to
appear at the police station an hour later to give a statement concerning the
latest round of charges. Anwar has filed a libel suit against the man who made
the complaint and attempted to take the matter to Malaysia’s Islamic court.

His supporters allege that the latest sexual perversion charges were trumped
up in an effort to thwart his attempt to lodge charges against the country’s
police chief, Musa Hassan, and attorney-general, Gani Patail, for fabricating
the 1998 case against him. Musa was the lead investigating officer and Gani the
head prosecutor at the controversial trial that many believe was a politically
motivated plot to end Anwar’s career. The opposition figure was later released
and has been poised to return to parliament — and perhaps take a shot at becoming
Prime Minister

The arrest is only the latest in a series of lurid charges hurled by both
the opposition and the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition since March elections
that saw the Barisan lose its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first
time in the country’s 50-year history. The intensifying struggle has driven
down the stock market and raised concerns that political paralysis will affect
the slumping economy.

“These events are deeply disturbing to us and indicate that this entire
episode is a repeat of the actions taken against Anwar Ibrahim in 1998,”
Anwar’s office said in a statement released Tuesday after his arrest. “During
the last few weeks the government-owned mainstream media has demonized and
vilified him. His staff has been harassed and we see a conspiracy being hatched
to thwart the political change that is imminent in Malaysia.”

Sankara Nair, Anwar’s lawyer, told reporters that no warrant of arrest was
presented and that he suspected the arrest was unrelated to the sodomy
allegations as Anwar was on his way to the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters to give his
statement on those charges as agreed.

“In fact, several minutes before the arrest, the investigation officer DSP
Jude Pereira called us to ask if were coming. We replied that we would be there
at 2pm sharp,” Sankara said. “If Anwar had not showed up at 2pm, I would
understand the need to arrest. The police have breached the trust and
confidence we once had. Now, my client has expressed fear that he will be
subjected to intimidation by the police”.

Anwar had refused to go to the city’s police headquarters on Monday to respond
to a police report lodged on June 28 by Saiful Bukhari Azlan, claiming that the
61-year-old politician committed sodomy, a crime punishable by up to 20 years
in prison and caning.

The arrest came barely a day after a live telecast of an unprecedented debate
between Anwar and Information Minister Shabery Cheek in which Anwar dodged
personal attacks and argued for lower fuel prices.  He added that Tenaga Nasional, the national
electricity supplier, was restricted by contracts with independent power
producers to hold “the highest (electricity) reserves in the world,” thus passing
additional costs to consumers.

From as early as Saturday, in the face of a no-confidence vote against Badawi
being tabled in parliament on Monday, the Barisan Nasional deployed about 1,600
police to man roadblocks apparently hoping to weed out opposition supporters
said to be traveling to Kuala Lumpur
for a major protest rally. A court order was issued on Sunday to “arrest on
sight” Anwar and his supporters within a five-kilometer radius of Parliament.

Police also barred the press initially from entering parliament to cover the
day’s proceedings.  Eventually officials let
reporters with government passes in.

The roadblocks caused traffic jams and stoked concerns over a recent fuel price
hike that saw pump prices almost doubling.  “Today the police have set up road blocks to
prevent a public rally,” Mahathir wrote on his blog, chedet.com. “I do not blame the police for doing this. It
is their job. But thousands of cars would be burning costly fuel as they inch
their way forward to pass the block. We need to check not just the passenger
cars but also the buses and the trains. They are unusually crowded now. They
provide loopholes for determined demonstrators.”

“The government is paranoid,” lawmaker Tian Chua of  Parti Keadilan Rakyat told AFP on July 13. “We
just called our supporters to witness the debate, but authorities think it will
be a mass gathering. There is no need for the roadblocks.”

Since the general election, Anwar has repeatedly predicted that the
opposition would lure enough lawmakers to bring down the government. At the
same time, rank and file members of the dominant United Malays National
Organisation, mostly driven by Mahathir, have called for Badawi’s immediate resignation.

To ease the pressure, Badawi said on July 10 that he would step down in mid-2010
to make way for Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak to take over.  However, Najib is marred by corruption charges
and allegations that he was involved in the gruesome 2006 murder of a 28-year-old
Mongolian woman with whom he is alleged to have had an affair. Najib denies all
charges.

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