Rahmat Mohamad should report to Parliament a Suhakam programme and time-line for the ratification of the six international covenants, including ICERD, as well as the Rome Statute

As the Suhakam Chairman Rahmat Mohamad said he is not an opponent of ICERD and the Rome Statute, Suhakam under his leadership should report to Parliament a Suhakam programme and time-line for the ratification of the six international covenants including ICERD as well as the Rome Statute so as to prepare Malaysians for such ratification.

In September 2018, the then Pakatan Harapan Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, took everybody, including the DAP, by surprise when he announced in his speech at the United Nations that Malaysia would ratify the six international human rjghts conventions.

This provoked an extremist reaction by UMNO and PAS exploiting race, religious and royalty grounds, accusing the DAP for being anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Royalty and the mastermind behind the ratification move when DAP Ministers and leaders knew nothing about the issue, and Rahmat’s co-authoring of a paper objecting to Malaysia’s ratification of the Rome Statute in 2019 as the necessary preparations were not ready at the time.

Rahman Mohamad has been Suhakam Chairman for more than two months. What has he done to redeem himself and Suhakam to recover from the lessons of that abortive attempt ratify the six international human rights conventions as well as the Rome Statute?

Rahmat Mohamad should report to Parliament a Suhakam programme and time-line for the ratification of the six international covenants, including ICERD, as well as the Rome Statute.

In the Suhakam programme, Suhakam commissioners should conduct a campaign to educate Malaysians, including all political parties, to understand that the ratification of the six international human rights covenants (including ICERD) and the Rome Statute have nothing to do with being anti-Malay, anti-Islam or anti-Royalty.

As at present, Malaysia is competing with Brunei to be the last country in the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) as since its adoption in 1965, all Muslims countries in the OIC except Malaysia and Brunei, have ratified it.

Muslim countries in the OIC which have ratified ICERD includes Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia.

Malaysia should be the first to ratify such human rights conventions – why are we competing with Brunei to be the last?

Is Malaysia contending that the one per cent of Muslims in the world in Malaysia and Brunei are true Muslims while the 99 per cent of the world’s 1.9 billion Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia and other countries are not true Muslims because Malaysia and Brunei have not ratified ICERD?

This is Rahmat’s first challenge as Suhakam Chairman.

The six human rights conventions are:

• International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination;
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
• UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
• International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; and
• International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.