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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