How's life?
The last time we met was 2 months ago. Three of us attended the forum "Federal Constitution:Protection For All" at Crystal Crown Hotel, Petaling Jaya. It was a 4 hours crash course on the issue of freedom of religion. There were 700 participants. Many of them were from outstation. Mr Yai Pe Keng, a senior member of the Bar, travelled from Johor Bahru to PJ to attend this forum. I have blogged the event. I also blogged the current judiciary pronouncement on the freedom of religion (A good question from Ronnie Liu)
The same forum was disrupted by demonstrators in Penang on Sunday morning. The event, scheduled to run from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm at the Cititel Hotel along Penang Road, was
unexpectedly cut short to only an hour’s duration. It was reported there were 100 demonstrators as compare to 200 participants. The co-organiser, Aliran, issued a press statement expressing regret that the opportunity to discuss the conflict between civil law and syariah law did not materialise. For the full text of the press statement, please click here. I think the demonstrators were misled. The forum was not on IFC (Inter-faith Commission).
The local newspaper (Kwong Wah) reported that Cititel received a bomb threat at 11.30am. It was later confirmed that it was a prank call.
A fellow lawyer, Stephen Tan Ban Chen, wrote a report on the incident. It can be accessed at Malaysian Bar Website.
The next destination is scheduled at Johor Bahru. We will have to cross the fingers to see whether it will be materialise.
Perhaps, the organiser should evaluate the possibility to podcast the event through Internet.
After all, this is a flat world. Nobody can hijack the event on the Internet.
Your sincerely,
Hon Wai
Penang
1 comment:
It is exactly what describe by Thomas Friedman in his book "Lexus and the Olive tree".
I quote:
"Thomas Friedman toured a Lexus factory in Japan and marveled at the robots that put the luxury cars together. That evening, as he ate sushi on a Japanese bullet train, he read a story about yet another Middle East squabble between Palestinians and Israelis. And it hit him: Half the world was lusting after those Lexuses, or at least the brilliant technology that made them possible, and the other half was fighting over who owned which olive tree."
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