The arrest of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has prompted international protests from democracy and human rights groups. Malaysia’s opposition leader today insisted that he has an alibi for “every minute” of the day he is accused of sodomy with a former associate.
Anwar, who faced a similar charge ten years ago that was eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court, refused to give police a DNA sample, arguing that it could be distorted to frame him. He was released on bail yesterday after being held for 21 hours.
His arrest ‘is of great concern to us and the international community,’ said Lorne Craner, president of the International Republican Institute, and Ken Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute. The International Crisis Group said the allegations are “obviously politically motivated” and clearly a deliberate attempt to smear the former deputy premier.
The NDI-IRI leaders note the timing of the latest allegations which follow Anwar’s return to national political prominence as leader of the opposition after a ban on his political activity expired in April 2008. ‘We hope that the investigation into the allegation is not used as a political tool to silence an outspoken government critic,’ they said.
Anwar’s arrest appears typical of an increasingly common tactic deployed by authoritarian governments eager not only to silence but also to discredit their critics. There has been a notable shift from persecution on overtly political grounds (‘crimes against the people’, ‘slandering the Soviet state’) to the criminalization of dissent. In Russia, Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was prosecuted on grounds of tax evasion and fraud, while Manana Aslamazyan, head of Internews Russia’s successor organization, last month fought off spurious charges of currency smuggling.
Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan, and his sister, Chee Siok Chin, recently served time for defaming former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son, the current premier Lee Hsien Loong. As this week’s Economist notes, the human rights division of the International Bar Association has criticized the abuse of defamation suits by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to silence political opposition and media critics.
On reflection, the use of spurious criminal charges against political dissidents is not so new. As the case of Kazakh human rights activist Sergey Duvanov showed, former Soviet states in particular have used criminal charges for political purposes in targeting opposition activists.
[...] years after criticizing the authorities’ actions at Andijon. In a further instance of the criminalization of dissent, he was arrested in October 2005 on charges of embezzlement, money laundering, and tax [...]