Wednesday, 7 December 2016

No problem in urban settings, but face difficulties to hold assemblies in rural areas,says NGO Report to UN Special Rapporteur



KUCHING, Dec 7, 2016  - Non-governmental organisations and civil societies have been able to hold "several profile assemblies" in major towns due to the tacit support of the state government under Tan Sri Adenan Satem who became Chief Minister three years ago, Sarawak-based civil societies said in their report to the UN Special Rapporteur.

Picture from left: Peter John Jabanm Maina Kiai, Thomas Jalong and Karen Shepherd posing for photograph.

"There are also regular assemblies and freedom of association for all religious groups without exception in Sarawak, the most recent being a Christmas Parade in Kuching town attended by over 10,000 participants and one in Miri with 45,000 participants," Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA), Save Rivers Network and Jaringan Orang Asal Se-Malaysia said in their joint report to Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Assembly and Association.

Representatives of the three civil societies, Peter John Jaban and Karen Shepherd (from SADIA), Thomas Jalong (JOAS) and Mark Bujang (Save Rivers) had a meeting with Maina in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

However, they said the rural setting has seen numerous and continuing instances of abuse of power against rural landowners seeking to assemble to assert their rights to their ancestral lands.

 Key issues for Urban Assemblies
There have been a number of peaceful assemblies held within the towns in Sarawak and these have generally proceeded without any issues arising. 

In most cases, the organisers have submitted a notification to police in advance under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 and have been supported by appropriate police presence on the day. 

Even events where no notification was made (e.g. Save rivers and the SADIA protest at Kuching Courthouse), the assemblies were allowed to proceed without interference. 

Significant examples included a protest against the building of Baram dam organised by Save Rivers in Kuching in 2013 and it was attended by about 1,000 people, a gathering organised by SADIA and Sarawak for Sarawakians calling for greater autonomy and recognition of Sarawak's rights under the Malaysia Agreement at the Song Kheng Hai ground on July 22, 2015 and it was attended by about 15,000 people.

On August 28, 2015, Bersih 4 and SADIA organised a gathering calling for free and fair election in Kuching and it was attended by about 6,000 people.

On July 22, 2015 in Serian, S4S planned to organise an inaugural celebration of Sarawak Independence Day public holiday, but the organisers faced problems from the authorities.
Key issues include:
• Blocking of access to appropriate venues by Council and District Office
• Government servants and university students barred from participating
• Interrogations of organisers following completion of event even where no arrests or untoward incidents have taken place
• General misperception by public that such events are banned or require police permits.  Community leaders are often directed to prevent people from attending.

 Key Issues for Rural Assemblies

There have been significant issues relating to the rural population’s freedom to assemble peacefully.  There have been numerous examples of communities blockading timber companies, dam construction and oil palm plantations from carrying out their activities on their ancestral lands. 

However, these blockades are routinely dispersed by the police or by gangsters employed by the resource extraction companies who act with impunity.

The majority of these cases centre around disputes over recognition of indigenous land rights.  The State Government has issued provisional leases to various companies for exploitation of lands belonging to various indigenous communities within Sarawak. 

The State Government, particularly under the former Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, have pursued a policy under which Native Customary territory is not recognized by the State Government as belonging to indigenous communities. 

However, the Courts of Sabah and Sarawak have found consistently against the State Government in these cases with over 400 land cases currently waiting to be heard. 

In most cases, the community in question will seek to prevent companies from bulldozing their ancestral forests with the use of blockades. 

Alternatively, they will use the same means to prevent these companies from extracting forest produce while the cases are being heard in court and during the appeals process. 

These blockades will usually take place on lands that the indigenous population consider to belong to the local communities themselves.  It is rare for any notification to police to be made.


 Bekelit, Niah blockade against Tung Huat

Tung Huat plantation company was given a provisional lease over ancestral lands belonging to the indigenous community of Bekelit, Niah.

The High Court designated certain portions of the land as Indigenous territories and the community is currently appealing the full extent of the land in question.  However, the company has sought to continue harvesting for its own benefit in the interim, encroaching onto areas outside of their land as designated by the court. 

The community set up a blockade against the company to prevent them from accessing their ancestral lands following numerous police reports by the community complaining of encroachment which went uninvestigated.

In 2015, the police in the area attended the blockade site where the community were conducting a miring (ritual). 

Six villagers, including the village chief, were arrested and then subsequently released.  The incident was widely publicized on social media and a report was made against the police chief.

The blockade was re-erected and the community faced a series of attacks by both police and gangsters employed by the plantation company with the aim of dispersing the blockade.  The village chief, Tuai Rumah Jambai, had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house; his car was burnt; he was run off the road and attacked with a Samurai sword. 

No action was taken for his complaints.  Their legal representative was threatened. 

In May 2016, Activist Bill Kayong, who was actively assisting the community, was shot and killed in his car.  It was only at this point that the police began any investigation into the activities of the plantation company.  A warrant has been issued for the arrest of the owner of the plantation company who is still at large.

Baram Dam blockade

The former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, declared a policy to build a series of mega dams across Sarawak, at least 12 by 2020.  The Bakun dam was completed in 2010 and work had begun on the Murum dam. 

This work prompted a series of blockades of the access road to the dam site, the longest lasting for 30 days by the local Penan community.  During this protest, fifteen community leaders were arrested while trying to deliver a memorandum to the Chief Minister and subsequently released without charge. 

After negotiation with the State Government, the Murum dam protest was disbanded.  To this date, the community have not received the full extent of promised remuneration decided during the negotiation.

In 2010, Sarawak Energy began dialogues with communities in the Baram area, declaring their intention to build a further dam there which would ultimately displace about 20,000 inhabitants from 27 communities.

Despite no conclusion to discussions and ongoing protests by communities, Sarawak Energy began testing the site in preparation for the dam.  As a result, the community, supported by Save Rivers and other NGOs, held a significant protest in Kuching against the proposed dam, attended by around 1,000 participants.  This was conducted peacefully and without incident.

Following this, the communities resolved to blockade the access road to the site.  This blockade was continuously manned by community members for over 2 years and, in fact, is still ongoing.  In contrast to other community blockades, the communities in question sought advice from well-established NGOs in the area, including Save Rivers, BRIMAS, JOAS and Sahabat Alam Malaysia. 

The community also forged links with international environmental and human rights organisations. On one occasion, the police attended the site but took no action beyond monitoring activity. 

One smaller blockade on a logging access road was taken down by the Forest Department with the Police Field force in attendance, though they declared that they were only there to keep the peace.  Further, the Forest Department set up a checkpoint to monitor which community members were attending the blockade site.

In this case, many high-profile activists and human rights defenders were also members of the affected communities and therefore the protest was well-organised, the community had free access to information on their rights and were consequently strongly united throughout the process. 

There was little to no intimidation by the police or by the company.  However, within the communities, there was significant political pressure brought to bear on community members that they were holding up development for their people. The local, government-controlled media suppressed information from the protesters but regularly published stories in support of the dam.

In 2015, the new Chief Minister visited Long Lama, close to the dam site.  Several hundred protestors attended the site and the Chief Minister was open to receiving them.  The protest was conducted peacefully.  In the run up to the state election in 2016, the Chief Minister finally announced that the Baram Dam had been cancelled. 


 Conclusion

Assemblies in urban environments in Sarawak have generally been allowed to proceed with only minimal interference. 

However, in a rural setting, the rights of the rural landowners to peacefully assemble to protect their ancestral lands has been seriously curtailed.

However, on a more general note, there exists a culture of misinformation in Sarawak, as in Malaysia as a whole, as to the people’s rights to peacefully assemble. 

Communities are regularly told that assemblies require police ‘permits’ and further that the organizing associations are either ‘illegal’ or that the event itself is illegal. 

Government servants fear that they will lose their jobs if they attend assemblies and so many Sarawakians are unwilling to participate.

In rural communities, the pressure not to ‘go against the government’ is even stronger with community leaders preventing the villagers from hearing advice from alternative sources and dissuading them from taking part in gatherings and peaceful assemblies through misinformation.

The majority of Sarawakians do not understand that the right to peacefully assemble is enshrined in international conventions and even in the Federal Constitution. 

The role of the Registrar of Societies is also widely accepted in that applications for new associations are routinely refused on technicalities or else without proper reasons given.  Registration of new political parties is extremely difficult and there is a widespread belief that any societies or associations with ‘politically sensitive’ aims or membership will be denied registration.

It is further a widely-held belief that only registered societies are entitled to act as organisers of peaceful assemblies.

As a result, the majority of the peaceful assemblies in Sarawak have been conducted by the same group of people who are aware of their rights and of the procedure. 

As a result, the police are establishing better relationships and procedures for dealing with notifications, especially for those with a proven ‘track record’ for arranging assemblies. 

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