THE MALAYSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY tells the US State Department the Anwar Ibrahim trials from the start were, and are, conducted to the highest standards of Malaysian justice, the former deputy prime minister is found guilty in a Malaysian court of law which, lest it forgets, had in the past convicted "many" prominent Malaysians. He is accorded all the rights available in criminal jurisprudence, and is defended by some of Malaysia's best lawyers. No one, the spokesman said, including Dato' Seri Anwar, is above the law. Justice is served and Human Rights respected in the Anwar case. It is not for any foreign country to tell Malaysians how it must conduct its activities. And none should interfere in Malaysia's affairs. This, in sum, is what he said in response to the State Department's claims of flaws in the judicial procedure which convicted Dato' Seri Anwar and, last week, denied bail. The State Department reacted on the same day Dato' Seri Anwar was denied bail by the Court of Appeal. Why did it wait a week to respond?

Rape is one crime all can relate to. The BN spin masters hope a media frenzy over it would divert attention from the BN's troubles. But it is no accepted with the proper fury the people. So with each day the spin gets out of hand. The minister in charge of the law, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, thinks it a marvellous idea if the rapists are caned in public. This could create a minor ripple of its own and, with luck, take centre stage, not the BN. The Bar Council president, Mr Kuthubul Zaman, is against public flogging; the death penalty and life in prison until death with caning, strengthened after another media frenzy a few years ago, should be enough. But the Bar Council's Human Rights sub-committee vice-president, Mr Yeo Yang Poh, said public flogging is all right since Malaysia has not signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How fortuitous!

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, now says it: the Royal Malaysia Police is not trusted. He says: "We want to make the police force a unit which can be trusted." He admits the public is not gung-ho about the police. He proposes a Royal Commission to report how it could be turned around. It would look investigate and suggest how it could, and how to reduce Human Rights abuses, police brutality, poor service and other ills that make the public afraid to approach the police. He was opening a conference of 300 senior police officers in Putra Jaya on 29 December 2003. What he said it is not new. The Opposition parties and groups have said so for years. What is new is that his implied admission that the public is frightened of the police.

The US government report on religious freedom consigns Malaysia amongst nine countries - the others are Belarus, Eritrea, Moldova, Turkey, Brunei, Indonesia, Israel, Russia - with laws that favour a particular religion and sidelines others. The allegations are in the International Religious Freedom Report 2003, the fifth in a series by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. It is to warn these and other countries to behave if they want to be accepted as civilised - difficult for a Muslim country to be, but try and it might strike gold - and worthy of Washington's embrace or to damn countries it wants to make an example of. If, on the other hand, you have lots of oil and allow US corporations to rape it, these strictures can be ignored. Local traditions and customs are ignored, the lists do not lie, and if you object, it is you that is at fault. The Western dominated news organisations are quick to damn you for being in the list. Nothing would come out of it if you protest. For you would lose the slanging match.

The courts declared their initial police arrests to be flawed. The government-sponsored Human Rights Commission, thought to so too, and recently called for their release. But the Home Ministry ignored it, and ordered them detained. ad called for their release. The police, denied its pound of flesh, insist they cannot be released until they post bail over several police charges against for disturbing the peace, which led to their detention in the first place. But the law is the law, insists its guardians, and the charade continues. So the film-maker Hishamuddin Rais and the Keadilan vice-president, Tien Chua, remain in jail while the niceties are sorted out. One, the Keadilan youth chief, Mohamed Ezam Mohamed Noor, had earlier been convicted and jailed for two years for breaches of the Official Secrets Act, remains in jail. Dr Badrulamin Bahrom and Lokman Nor Ahmad expect to be released on 12 June.

But that is not how Dato' Seri Aseh says it: "We have decided not to seek an extension of the two-year sentence against the four", but he would not comment on the fate of the other two. He puts a brave front on an indefensible position. If they had to be detained on suspicion - and it requires little for that of anyone mildly critical of the government - they should have been released within the 60 days of detention before the order is made. Malaysia does not want another black eye by not releasing the par on June 12. It has been since the Federal Court ruled on 06 September 2002 that the 60-day detention order after the four and the Free Anwar campaign director were arrested was illegal. But the Home Ministry brushed it aside as inconsequential. Then the GONGO, the Human Rights Commission, Suhakam, said so too. To put it bluntly, the matter of the Reformasi 6 was out of his hands.

THE COURT OF APPEAL COULD NOT but dismiss the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's appeal this month against his conviction for sodomy, as against his adopted brother, Mr Sukma Dermawan's. His supporters, and others, including international and national Human Rights bodies and NGO's are incensed at the injustice of it all. The government is pleased with it, but cannot, as in times past, welcome it. The Court of Appeal had no choice but to make a mess of it. It is his luck that the appeal came amidst a regime change in Malaysia, in which the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, leaves office in October under a cloud, and Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeds him to an uncertain throne.

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