Shafee not fit to lead Asean human rights body, say Pakatan MPs

(From left) Alor Star MP‎ Gooi Hisao Leung (PKR), Kuala Krai MP Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli (PAS) and Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng (DAP) today denounced Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah's appointment as the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights chair. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Afif Abd Halim, February 16, 2015.

Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah's recent appointment as the chairman of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is astonishing and inappropriate, given his links to ruling party Umno, the "worst offender of human rights violation in Malaysia", Pakatan Rakyat (PR) said today.

They said that the Umno lawyer should step down as it was "delusional" for the public to hope that he could‎ stand up to the Barisan Nasional (BN) government and its human rights transgressions.

"It is a well-known fact that Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has close very relations with, and is an adviser to the ruling party," said lawmakers Gooi Hisao Leung of PKR, Lim Lip Eng of DAP, and Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli of PAS, in a joint statement that they read out at a press conference today.

"With such a background and as a proxy for Umno, there is no hope that Muhammad Shafee will be able to discharge his duties as chairman of AICHR in upholding and promoting human rights in the country and the region, as would be expected of him."

Gooi, who is Alor Setar MP‎ and PKR's international bureau chief, said that while there had been no official date for Shafee's appointment, he had carried out his first duties as chairman of AIHCR by chairing a meeting with the body on February 11 to 14 in Kuala Lumpur.

He said Shafee had taken up the post as AIHCR chairman when Malaysia assumed the chair of Asean this year.

The lawyer was previously Malaysia's representative for AICHR and was to have served from 2009 until the end of 2015.

The lawmakers noted that Shafee had chaired the AICHR meeting only a day after Umno's "dastardly and relentless act to politically persecute" Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

- TMI