Instead of JAILING those responsible for corruption like 1MDB, Umno-BN wants to jail reformists - Nurul Izzah

KUALA LUMPUR - Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar told the Freedom Forum in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, on Tuesday that the Malaysian Government wants to achieve the impossible and lock up all reformists. “We are the most wanted in the country, not the criminals. We are sick of financial scandals like the mammoth 1MDB issue.”

“We – reformists — are the future,” she said in her speech at the Forum. “We stand for equal distribution of wealth, reject extremism and demand good governance.”

“We are seen by the government as a threat for criticising corruption and the country’s poor international ranking in education.”

On a personal note, the PKR Vice President confessed that if not for the reform movement, she would have been working in the oil sector. “I abandoned a career in engineering to enter politics to fight the government’s corruption, oppression and sheer injustice.”

Nurul, who is the eldest child of jailed de facto PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim and Opposition Chief Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, recalled the government’s attempts since 1998 to derail the reformist agenda by repeatedly incarcerating her father. “The government wants to silence my father and Malaysians who want a just and democratic country.”

Nurul Izzah

She expressed confidence that her father, who is serving a five year jail sentence since February on a sodomy charge, would be free if not for the government influencing the judiciary, vote rigging, muzzling the press, and using force against dissidents.

The reformists, she said, referring to activists, academics, lawyers and journalists, besides politicians, have been subject to the colonial-era Sedition Act 1948 which circumvents the Federal Constitution and strips the right to free speech. “I was investigated for a speech I gave in Parliament.” - FMT