FOR three years, the only Sarawak human rights non-governmental organisation legally registered as a society was silenced by then deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Zahid used his position as the home minister to declare Sarawak Association For Peoples’ Aspiration (Sapa) unlawful on November 14, 2014 for allegedly carrying out activities prejudicial to the interests of the security of Malaysia and public order.

Sapa was de-registered, its bank account with RM50 in it was seized and it could not hold meetings.

Sapa as a pressure group was not only demanding the federal government’s full compliance with the Malaysia Agreement 1963 but was also questioning the legality of the agreement that paved the way for the formation of Malaysia. The NGO’s attempt to collect facts and information to prove the MA63 was invalid was widely thought to have led to its ban.

If the facts collected could be proved legally correct in an international court of law, Sapa president Lina Soo said in a media conference in Kuching in 2014, it could lead to the break up of Malaysia and the separation of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaya.

Sapa had in August 2014 written a letter to the United Nations seeking assistance “to review the arbitrary and indecorous surrender of Sarawak’s sovereignty by the United Kingdom to the Federation of Malaysia”.

When the Federal Court last Thursday struck out the government’s last attempt to appeal against the appellate court’s reversal of the ban, Soo’s first words in response were, “We’re back”.

Senior federal counsel representing the government, Shamsul Bolhassan said the new Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had instructed that the appeal be withdrawn as it was in conflict with the PH manifesto and was “inconsistent with the new government’s stand on freedom of expression and speech”.

Soo’s legal counsel Dominique Ng said what was most significant, however, was that the order to withdraw the appeal showed the new PH government was taking a different stand on human rights and freedom of speech even though Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his first stint in office in 1981 to 2003 had taken a hardline position against the people of Sabah and Sarawak demanding the return of the states’ lost rights.

“The new government is able to give us a sense they are doing the right thing,” Ng said.

He said this gave Sapa and other rights pressure groups the determination “to bring to the people of Sarawak issues that have been buried by decades of neglect”.

Soo said Sapa would continue where it left off.

“We are focused on fighting for a return of Sarawak rights under the MA63.

“Our issues have not changed because the situation after three years, and even with a change of government, has not changed.”

Ng and Soo admitted the sincerity of the PH government had been called into question by its recent decisions, such as to allow national oil company Petronas to challenge Sarawak’s right to oil and gas found in the state and its regulatory rights over them.

Petronas in May filed for leave of application in the Federal Court seeking a determination of the Petroleum Development Act 1974 and its position on the regulatory controls of upstream activities in Sarawak.

Petronas had also sought a declaration that Sarawak’s Oil Mining Ordinance (OMO) , which the state argued gave it the legal powers to regulate the oil and gas industry, was repealed by the PDA and hence the state-owned oil company, Petros is not a valid regulatory body on the state’s oil and gas resources.

The apex court however, dismissed Petronas’ application ruling the company should have sought the determination in the High Court. – July 21, 2018.