"Well is anyone in Malaysia prepared to phone up the authorities and alert them to crime? Wong Tak appears to be guilty of Conspiracy to commit a crime and Incitement of others to commit a crime and a polite request to the authorities to investigate, based on his statements to the media, above seems entirely justified. I can't see a downside in having him investigated and at least put on notice. "
in malaysia, what one usually does is to "lodge a police report" outlining exactly the above situation i.e. threats being made against you etc.
now, the thing is, usually this doesnt really achieve anything as the police are likely to do nothing upon lodgement of this said report. so the rationale behind this action of lodging the police report is to have something official logged so that when the matter you were afraid of does indeed happen, you can say that you did raise this officially as an issue before i.e. being afraid of something but doing absolutely nothing gets you nothing/nowhere ultimately but being afraid/concerned and raising it as an issue and recorded officially seems to offer a faint hope of possible recourse if that is what you decide to pursue later on.
like i said, 1 report usually does nothing but if there was an avalanche of reports, that may well be a different matter.....maybe.... still no guarantee though
looking at the malaysian penal code, from memory, there is at least one section pertaining to criminality due to incitement so there are laws dealing with such issues.
am not a lawyer but under the penal code, such charges must be brought about by the police and not a civilian. the problem is that the malaysian police (as with the whole civil service/bureaucracy) are extremely inconsistent and pretty much shiftless so seeing someone charged for incitement is extremely rare unless it arose from political action against the government.
the reason i raised the issue of shiftlessness is that the civil service/bureaucracy there love their paperwork. you are more than likely to be asked in a haughty manner if all the paperwork has been filled before anyone lifts a finger to help you and i use the term "help" extremely loosely; the start of your journey being given the "run-around" more likely because there are no standardised procedures. speak to a different person and you'll discover different requirements. speak to the same person at a different time, you risk getting a different response too.
can you think of anywhere in the world that still insists on forms being filled-out in triplicate? not many i would hazard. this doesnt happen all the time but there are instances where it does still happen. sometimes they even make you pay for those bloody forms!
anyone can always initiate a civil case against another party and that is what Lynas has done in regards with their defamation case. Lynas is prepared to spend money pursuing the civil suit. malaysians usually wont spend their own money to initiate civil suits and that is why i've said before, SMSL must be covertly getting funding from certain parties with vested interests. if it only ran on donations, funds would have run out long ago. westerners are generally way more civilised/caring and generous and that's why we have a much better developed welfare system. the welfare system there is generally structured differently. in the west, systems are put in place so there are avenues whereby one could get regular automatic welfare paymentssubject to fulfilment of certain requirements. in malaysia, welfare is generally structured as short-term/purpose-specific political handouts/bribes/carrots to ensure popularity/reelection. basically, money is thrown around to generate bursts of feel-good factor.
not saying this doesnt also happen in the west. am just saying that in the west, there is an actual "welface structure".
interesting that there are those of you who seem to place so much emphasis and hope on the media conference on thursday. my personal opinion is that there is no doubt and there has never been any doubt that a license will be issued - the malaysian govt has said as much in various past and recent announcements. the government has been pretty much consistent in this matter. everything else and all delays have arisen due to politicking. everything the government has done/is doing is to appease the detractors of the LAMP.
the media conference on thurday will be just that whether scheduled recurring or otherwise; a further "community engagement" event to judge community reactions after all the steps they've taken thus far. if i were the guy who gets to decide whether the license is issued or not, i definitely wouldnt announce it through a media conference especially in such charged circumstances as there would definitely be protesters lined up in the crowd ready to make a hell of a fuss. whenever the license comes, it wont be thursday or anytime soon after (time will most likely be take to assess the community reaction) but it will come. imagine the economic and international ramifications of letting a multi-million dollar facility be built then refusing ultimate operating license - absolute global laughing-stock (well, that's pretty much the case already anyhow).
so expect more SP volatility/weakness and perceived uncertainty.
hope the above kinda makes sense as i'm rambling quite a bit. if you noticed with all my postings on the LYC board, they mostly give you a sense of how things work in malaysia from my perspective (rightly or wrongly) as it's a pet peeve of mine. i pretty much havent really posted anything directly related to LYC and have left it to those of you who've been here longer and more learnered.
one should really try to think like the asian and not through western perspectives applying western values. it doesnt work any other way.
concepts of transparency/accountability, logical thought processes, how dependable and trustworthy a person's word is etc. i've discovered to my frustration are very different between what happens here in Oz and in Malaysia.
LYC Price at posting:
87.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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