DON’T ACT SO INNOCENT, ERIC PAULSEN TELLS TUN M

(The Rakyat Post) – Lawyers for Liberty’s executive director Eric Paulsen hit out at former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and blamed the latter for the sacking of then Lord President Tun Salleh Abas during the 1988 judicial crisis.

In a series of tweets, Paulsen responded to Dr Mahathir’s statement in a report by news portal The Malaysian Insider, which he retweeted, when the former premier said that it was not his doing and instead blamed the then Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the late Sultan Mahmud Iskandar.

“Judiciary crisis not my doing, says Dr M http://bit.ly/1QUUlTs — Unbelievable. Dah buat, tak mengaku (You did it, but you can’t admit it),” said Paulsen on his Twitter account.

According to Dr Mahathir, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who was the Johor Sultan, disliked Salleh after he wrote the sultan a letter complaining about the noise coming from renovation works at the sultan’s house nearby, which was copied to other sultans.

“The Sultan of Johor, who was Agong, was very annoyed. This was a wrong thing to do, and he asked me to dismiss Salleh Abas,” Dr Mahathir said at a forum during the Cooler Lumpur Festival held yesterday.

The vocal leader said a tribunal was then set up and the Attorney-General at the time did not want to mention the Agong’s name and so instead, they made it look like Dr Mahathir was the main complainant against Salleh.

In response to Dr Mahathir’s explanation on the issue, Paulsen accused the former premier for being responsible for the “downfall” of the country for practising cronyism, nepotism and meddling in the judiciary affairs.

“Dr M (Mahathir) is talking like he is oh so innocent. Msia’s (Malaysia’s) downfall started from his rule — mega projects, cronies, nepotism, institutional failures.”

“Dr M is responsible for Ops Lalang, sacking of Lord President & Supreme Court judges, shutting down press. Hmm what else? Mega bailouts.”

Ops Lalang was a crackdown carried out beginning Oct 27, 1987 by the Malaysian police to prevent the occurrence of racial riots in Malaysia.

The operation saw the arrest of 106 persons, including NGO activists, Opposition politicians, intellectuals, students, artists and scientists, and they were detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

It also involved the revoking of the publishing licences of two local dailies and two weeklies.