[ENGLISH VERSION BELOW] Greenpeace Malaysia dan Himpunan Advokasi Rakyat Malaysia (Haram) telah mengadakan protes aman serta menyerahkan memo di hadapan Kedutaan Republik Indonesia pada 4 September.

Ini sebagai tanda solidariti kepada masyarakat yang terjejas akibat jerebu dan kehilangan hidupan liar.

Mereka turut menggesa Kerajaan Indonesia mendedahkan maklumat penting mengenai lokasi kebakaran, hasil siasatan serta pemilikan konsesi.

Pada 31 Ogos, pihak berkuasa Indonesia mengumumkan bahawa mereka sedang menyiasat 19 syarikat yang memegang konsesi di kawasan yang terjejas akibat kebakaran meliputi 11,047 hektar di tujuh wilayah.

Pihak berkuasa turut menyatakan bahawa 42 syarikat telah dikenal pasti sebagai pemegang konsesi yang mempunyai risiko kebakaran hutan yang tinggi, namun syarikat-syarikat yang sedang disiasat masih belum didedahkan secara terbuka.

Kedua-dua kumpulan ini menggesa ketelusan dan tindakan segera melalui kebertanggungjawaban korporat serta kerajaan dalam menangani krisis jerebu rentas sempadan yang semakin teruk.

Bukti daripada hasil siasatan pihak berkuasa Indonesia mesti didedahkan supaya negara-negara yang terjejas seperti Malaysia dapat menyiasat kemungkinan kaitan dengan syarikat-syarikat dalam bidang kuasa dan rantaian bekalan mereka sendiri.

Sekiranya syarikat Malaysia terlibat, Malaysia mesti bertanggungjawab untuk menyiasat, mengawal selia dan mengambil tindakan sewajarnya terhadap pihak korporat Malaysia yang mempunyai kaitan dengan kebakaran di Indonesia.

Organisasi-organisasi tersebut menegaskan bahawa tindakan ini bertujuan mengalihkan tumpuan kepada pendekatan yang lebih berorientasikan penyelesaian, dan bukannya menyalahkan sesebuah negara terhadap negara yang lain.

Sehubungan itu, memo yang diserahkan kepada Kedutaan Indonesia menggariskan beberapa tuntutan dan cadangan utama bagi meningkatkan ketelusan, kebertanggungjawaban korporat rentas sempadan serta tanggungjawab bersama kerajaan, termasuk gesaan supaya:

• Kerajaan Indonesia mendedahkan secara rasmi peta konsesi, data titik panas dan data siasatan kebakaran, serta apa-apa bukti lain dalam simpanannya yang mengenal pasti syarikat berkaitan Malaysia yang dikaitkan dengan kebakaran dan jerebu di Indonesia
• Kerajaan Indonesia menamakan secara khusus dan terbuka syarikat-syarikat Malaysia yang telah dikenal pasti terlibat, supaya masyarakat sivil, badan pengawal selia dan Parlimen Malaysia dapat mengambil tindakan terhadap pihak yang bertanggungjawab dalam bidang kuasa kita
• Kerajaan Indonesia komited untuk berkongsi bukti tersebut dengan kerajaan Malaysia secara berterusan, melalui mekanisme sedia ada di bawah Perjanjian Asean mengenai Pencemaran Jerebu Rentas Sempadan atau saluran dua hala secara langsung, dan bukan sekadar melalui tuduhan awam dan kenyataan media
• Kedua-dua kerajaan komited terhadap prinsip pendedahan dan penguatkuasaan secara timbal balik: setiap negara menyiasat dan mengambil tindakan terhadap syarikat yang berdomisil dalam bidang kuasanya sendiri berdasarkan bukti yang dikongsi secara terbuka antara kedua-dua negara

Greenpeace Malaysia dan Haram turut menggesa kerajaan Malaysia bertindak berdasarkan bukti yang sahih yang dikongsikan oleh Indonesia, bagi memastikan syarikat Malaysia tidak dapat mengelak daripada dipertanggungjawabkan atas kemudaratan alam sekitar hanya kerana ia berlaku di luar sempadan Malaysia.

Sekiranya terdapat bukti sahih yang mengaitkan pihak korporat Malaysia dengan aktiviti yang menyumbang kepada kebakaran hutan, kemerosotan tanah gambut atau jerebu rentas sempadan, pihak berkuasa Malaysia mesti mempunyai kuasa dan mekanisme undang-undang untuk menyiasat, mengawal selia dan, jika wajar, mengambil tindakan undang-undang yang setimpal.

Hal ini turut mengukuhkan keperluan untuk mewujudkan rangka kerja atau mekanisme perundangan Malaysia yang menyeluruh bagi menangani pencemaran jerebu serta kebertanggungjawaban korporat rentas sempadan.

Greenpeace Malaysia Wakil Negara Heng Kiah Chun berkata: “Protes ini bukan bertujuan menyalahkan Indonesia atas jerebu yang berlaku. Kami memahami dan mengakui bahawa masyarakat Indonesia juga sedang menderita akibat kebakaran ini.

“Kami berada di sini kerana kerajaan Indonesia mempunyai maklumat yang boleh membantu kita memahami pihak yang bertanggungjawab, dan kami meminta mereka mendedahkan bukti tersebut secara awam.

“Sekiranya syarikat Malaysia terlibat, kami akan membawa bukti tersebut kembali ke Malaysia dan menuntut kerajaan kami mengambil tindakan serta memastikan mereka dipertanggungjawabkan. Jerebu tidak berhenti di sempadan Indonesia, dan begitu juga kebertanggungjawaban.

“Di sebalik krisis jerebu ini terdapat satu persoalan mudah: apabila syarikat meraih keuntungan daripada tanah dan komoditi, siapa yang membayar harganya apabila hutan dan tanah gambut terbakar?

“Syarikat mungkin mendapat manfaat daripada tanah yang telah diteroka atau dimerosotkan, tetapi masyarakat menanggung akibatnya.

“Kanak-kanak terpaksa menghirup udara tercemar, pekerja berdepan keadaan yang tidak selamat, sekolah dan mata pencarian terganggu, manakala kerajaan dan keluarga akhirnya menanggung kos kesihatan dan ekonomi.”

Jurucakap Haram Brendon Gan berkata: “Terdapat kelompongan dalam sistem yang membolehkan ladang-ladang berskala besar membakar kawasan tanah tanpa sebarang akibat undang-undang. Ini bukan masalah iklim, malahan masalah penguatkuasaan dan politik.

“Ketika para eksekutif korporat menduduk secara selesa di pejabat berhawa dingin sambil meraih keuntungan berjuta-juta ringgit, rakyat biasa, pekerja, pelajar malah kanak-kanak di Malaysia dan Indonesia yang menghirup udara tercemar dan menjadi korban akibat jerebu.

“Sekolah terpaksa ditutup, dan hak asasi kita untuk bernafas dengan udara bersih telah dirampas. Udara bersih tidak mengenal pasport, begitu juga kemusnahan alam sekitar.

“Kami berdiri teguh dalam solidariti bersama masyarakat di Indonesia yang terjejas akibat kebakaran ini.”

Pencemaran jerebu rentas sempadan juga merupakan ujian terhadap komitmen Asean terhadap hak alam sekitar.

Pada tahun 2025, negara-negara anggota Asean menerima pakai Deklarasi Asean mengenai Hak kepada Persekitaran yang Selamat, Bersih, Sihat dan Mampan, yang secara jelas mengiktiraf keperluan yang semakin meningkat untuk menangani isu alam sekitar rentas sempadan.

Hak kepada persekitaran yang selamat, bersih, sihat dan mampan juga memerlukan akses kepada maklumat serta kebertanggungjawaban yang bermakna apabila kemudaratan alam sekitar berlaku.

Masyarakat yang terjejas tidak dapat menikmati hak tersebut sekiranya maklumat penting mengenai pihak yang bertanggungjawab terhadap kemusnahan alam sekitar terus disembunyikan merentasi sempadan.

Maklumat latar belakang

Ini bukan kali pertama pihak-pihak korporat yang berkaitan dengan Malaysia dan Singapura dikenal pasti atau diteliti berhubung melakukan kebakaran serta amalan penggunaan tanah yang tidak wajar di Indonesia.

Penyelidikan bersama Greenpeace sebelum ini telah mendokumentasikan titik panas kebakaran dalam kawasan perladangan yang turut dikaitkan dengan syarikat-syarikat Malaysia dan Singapura.

Pada tahun 2019, Kementerian Alam Sekitar dan Perhutanan Indonesia turut menyegel tanah milik syarikat-syarikat berhubung kebakaran hutan, termasuk syarikat asing yang mempunyai kaitan dengan Malaysia dan Singapura.

Para saintis telah memberi amaran bahawa keadaan cuaca El Niño yang teruk pada tahun ini berpotensi meningkatkan risiko kemarau dan kebakaran di seluruh Asia Tenggara, sekali gus menjadikan perlindungan dan pemulihan ekosistem semula jadi semakin mendesak.

Namun, keadaan iklim tidak seharusnya dijadikan alasan untuk tidak bertindak.

Walaupun cuaca kering mewujudkan keadaan yang meningkatkan risiko kebakaran, keputusan bersama mengenai cara tanah diuruskan menjadi faktor penentu yang mempengaruhi tahap kerentanan landskap ini serta bagaimana kawasan tersebut boleh dijadikan pertaruhan dalam kebakaran demi keuntungan jangka pendek.

Dengan asap berbahaya daripada kebakaran hutan dan tanah gambut di Indonesia yang terus menjejaskan Malaysia dan negara-negara jiran, masyarakat di seluruh Asia Tenggara sekali lagi terpaksa menanggung kos kesihatan, sosial dan ekonomi akibat krisis yang telah berlarutan selama beberapa dekad.

Keadaan ini menjadi amat serius di beberapa kawasan di Borneo Malaysia, khususnya Sarawak, di mana kualiti udara telah mencapai tahap berbahaya sehingga menyebabkan sekolah dan acara awam terganggu, manakala kerajaan negeri Sarawak sedang mempertimbangkan kemungkinan mengisytiharkan darurat jerebu bagi kawasan yang mencatat bacaan melebihi 500 API. – Greenpeace Malaysia/Haram

English version

NGOs demand transparency, cross-border corporate accountability as transboundary haze crisis worsens

Greenpeace Malaysia and Himpunan Advocacy Rakyat Malaysia (Haram) conducted a peaceful protest and memo handover on 4 September outside the Indonesian Embassy, in solidarity with haze-affected communities and the loss of wildlife.

They called on the Indonesian government to expose critical information on fire locations, investigation findings and concession ownership.

On 31 August, Indonesian authorities announced they were investigating 19 companies holding concessions where fires had affected 11,047 hectares across seven provinces.

Authorities said that 42 companies had been identified as holding concessions with high wildfire potential, but the companies under investigation have not been publicly named.

The groups are advocating for transparency, and urgent action through corporate accountability, and shared government responsibility in addressing the worsening transboundary haze crisis.

Evidence from the Indonesian authorities findings must be made available so that affected countries, such as Malaysia, can investigate potential links to companies within their own jurisdictions and supply chains.

If Malaysian companies are implicated, Malaysia must take responsibility for investigating, regulating, and taking appropriate action against Malaysian corporate actors tied to the fires in Indonesia.

The organisations stress that the action is to shift the focus to solutions instead of country-versus-country blame.

The memo submitted to the Indonesian Embassy outlines several key demands and recommendations for greater transparency, cross-border corporate accountability, and shared government responsibility, including calls for:

• The Indonesian government to formally disclose the concession maps, hotspots and fire investigation data, and any other evidence in its possession identifying Malaysian-linked companies associated with fires and haze in Indonesia
• The Indonesian government to name, specifically and publicly, the Malaysian companies it has identified as being involved, so that Malaysian civil society, regulators and Parliament can pursue accountability within our jurisdiction
• The Indonesian government to commit to sharing such evidence with the Malaysian government on an ongoing basis, through the existing Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP) mechanisms or direct bilateral channels, rather than through public allegations and press statements alone.
• Both governments to commit to the principle of reciprocal disclosure and enforcement: each state investigates and holds accountable companies domiciled in its own jurisdiction, based on evidence shared openly between them

Greenpeace Malaysia and Haram also urge the Malaysian government to act on credible evidence shared by Indonesia, to ensure that Malaysian companies cannot evade accountability for environmental harm simply because it occurs beyond Malaysia’s borders.

Where credible evidence links Malaysian corporate actors to activities contributing to forest fires, peatland degradation or transboundary haze, Malaysian authorities must have the legal powers and mechanisms to investigate, regulate and, where appropriate, legally hold them responsible.

This also underscores and strengthens the case for a comprehensive Malaysian legal framework or mechanisms capable of addressing transboundary haze pollution and corporate responsibility across borders.

Greenpeace Malaysia’s campaign lead Heng Kiah Chun said: “This protest is not about blaming Indonesia for the haze. We understand and acknowledge that Indonesian communities are suffering from these fires too.

“We are here because the Indonesian government holds information that could help us understand who is responsible, and we are asking them to publicly disclose that evidence.

“If Malaysian companies are implicated, then we will take that evidence home and demand that our own government hold them accountable. The haze does not stop at Indonesia’s borders, and neither should accountability.

“At the heart of the haze crisis is a simple question: when companies profit from land and commodities, who pays when forests and peatlands burn?

“Companies may benefit from land that has been cleared or degraded, but communities bear the consequences. Children breathe polluted air, workers face unsafe conditions, schools and livelihoods are disrupted while governments and families ultimately absorb the health and economic costs.”

Haram spokesperson Brendon Gan said: “There are loopholes in the system which enable large-scale plantations to burn down lands with no legal repercussions whatsoever. This isn’t a climate problem, it’s an enforcement and political problem.

“While corporate executives sit comfortably in their air-conditioned offices earning millions of dollars in profit, it is the common citizens, workers, students and even the children of Malaysia and Indonesia who are breathing in and dying from the haze.

“Schools are closing down, and our basic human right to breathe is being taken away from us.

“Clean air doesn’t have a passport, nor does environmental devastation.

“We stand firmly in solidarity with the communities in Indonesia who are affected by these fires.”

The transboundary haze pollution is also a test of Asean’s commitment to environmental rights. In 2025, Asean member states adopted the Asean Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, explicitly recognising the growing need to address transboundary environmental concerns.

The right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment also requires access to information and meaningful accountability when environmental harm occurs. Affected communities cannot exercise that right if critical information about who is responsible for environmental destruction remains hidden across borders.

Background information

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Malaysian and Singapore-linked corporate actors have been identified or scrutinised in relation to fires and poor land-use practices in Indonesia.

A joint Greenpeace research has previously documented fire hotspots within plantations also linked to Malaysian and Singaporean companies.

In 2019, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry also sealed land belonging to companies over forest fires, including foreign companies linked to Malaysia and Singapore.

Scientists have warned that severe El Niño conditions this year can intensify drought and fire risks across Southeast Asia, making the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems increasingly urgent.

But climate conditions should not become an excuse for inaction. While dry weather creates the conditions for fires, shared decisions about how land is managed becomes the determining factor in how vulnerable landscapes are used as collateral in those fires for quick profits.

With toxic smoke from forest and peatland fires in Indonesia continuing to affect Malaysia and neighbouring countries, communities across Southeast Asia are once again being forced to bear the health, social and economic costs of a crisis that has persisted for decades.

The situation has become particularly severe in parts of Malaysian Borneo, especially Sarawak, where air quality has reached hazardous levels, with schools and public events being disrupted and with the Sarawak state government mulling a possible haze emergency for areas above 500 on the Air Pollution Index. – Greenpeace Malaysia/Haram

The post Krisis jerebu: Indonesia perlu dedahkan hasil siasatan / Haze crisis: Indonesia urged to expose probe findings appeared first on Aliran.

Ameena Siddiqi

We promised reform.

In 2018, Malaysia was outraged by the marriage of a 41-year-old Malaysian man to an 11-year-old Thai girl.

He was a father of six. She had never attended school. She became his third wife.

The marriage was solemnised in southern Thailand without the Sharia court’s permission. The man was eventually fined RM1,800 for marrying and practising polygamy without court approval.

The country demanded answers. The government announced that laws would be amended to raise the minimum marriage age for girls from 16 to 18.

We were outraged. We promised reform. Then we moved on.

Eight years later, Malaysia still has no uniform law establishing 18 as the minimum marriage age for everyone, without exception.

Now the issue has returned in another form. Perak is considering a RM500 first-marriage incentive for youths aged between 15 and 35. The proposal was unanimously approved by the ‘Perak Youth Assembly’ and may be considered under the state’s 2027 budget.

The age range was reportedly adopted because the Youth Development and Sports Act defines youth as beginning at 15.

Fifteen. Somebody took a definition used for youth development and applied it to marriage. The proposal was discussed and approved unanimously.

Did nobody stop to ask what it means to place a 15-year-old within a government marriage incentive?

A child hidden inside the word youth

At 15, someone may be called a youth for sports, leadership or entrepreneurship.

Under section 2 of the Child Act 2001, that same person is a child.

We are not discussing a football programme or business grant. Marriage creates lifelong legal, emotional, physical and financial responsibilities. A definition suitable for one programme cannot be transferred to another without examining its possible harm.

I have a 14-year-old son. I cannot imagine allowing him to marry next year.

He is still discovering who he is and beginning to understand relationships, consequences and responsibility. He should be thinking about school, friendships and his future, not whether he is ready to support a spouse or raise a child.

I look at him and see what he is: a child. If I cannot imagine my own son being ready, how can policymakers imagine that somebody else’s child is?

I also think of a woman I once met. She married at 15. When I met her, she was 31 and raising seven children alone. She had studied only up to Form 3, had no career and did not know where her husband was.

The adults who allowed or encouraged that marriage may have believed they were solving an immediate problem. Perhaps poverty, family pressure or fear of social shame.

But where were they when the marriage failed? Who ensured that her children were maintained? Who was accountable when her husband disappeared?

She lived with the consequences. Her children did too.

I married at 19. Even then, I struggled with the responsibilities and pressures of marriage despite having family support.

Marriage is difficult even for adults with education, employment and life experience. What makes us believe a 15-year-old is equipped to carry its burdens?

Is this sakinah, mawaddah and rahmah?

In Islam, marriage is associated with sakinah, mawaddah and rahmah: tranquillity, love and mercy (Surah al-Rum, verse 21).

These ideals do not materialise through a marriage certificate. They require maturity, compassion, responsibility and the capacity to understand and fulfil another person’s rights.

Can a marriage involving a child realistically offer tranquillity, love and mercy when she may have to leave school, become financially dependent, experience an early pregnancy and enter a relationship in which she has little power?

A marriage certificate cannot manufacture maturity. It cannot transform dependency into security. It cannot turn vulnerability into meaningful consent.

If adults are delaying marriage because of insecure work, low wages, unaffordable housing or expensive wedding expectations, address those problems.

But do not draw children into that policy.

Marriage cannot be used to manage teenage pregnancy, poverty, family pressure or society’s discomfort with adolescent sexuality. It should not become an exit route when adults and institutions do not know how to protect a vulnerable child.

A marriage certificate is not a child protection policy.

Where was the harm test?

Before adopting a law, policy, programme or budget decision affecting children, governments should examine its potential effect on their rights.

Human rights practice provides a mechanism for this: the child rights impact assessment.

It asks which children may be affected and examines direct and indirect consequences for their education, health, safety, development and autonomy.

It considers whether girls, children living in poverty or other vulnerable groups will bear greater harm, whether children have been consulted, and whether the intended benefit can be achieved through a safer alternative.

Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration” in actions undertaken by administrative authorities and legislative bodies.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child says assessments should begin as early as possible and result in recommendations for amendments, alternatives and improvements.

Was any child rights impact assessment conducted before 15-year-olds were included in the Perak proposal?

If so, where is it? Which children were consulted? What risks were identified? What alternatives were considered?

If no assessment was conducted, how did a proposal affecting children receive unanimous approval without anyone first examining the possible harm?

The children’s commissioners of Suhakam have warned that including those aged 15 to 17 could send the message that marriage during childhood is accepted, supported or encouraged. They called for eligibility to begin at 18 and for assistance to reach economically vulnerable children before marriage is considered.

Islamic jurisprudence offers an equally compelling test. The Prophetic teaching la darar wa la dirar means: “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.” From it, Muslim jurists developed the legal maxim that harm must be removed (Hadith 32, Forty Hadith of Imam al-Nawawi).

Good intentions are not enough. Those exercising authority must look beyond a proposal’s immediate benefit and examine the damage it could create.

What is the proposed benefit? RM500 to reduce the cost of beginning married life.

What is the foreseeable harm? A government appearing to legitimise marriage during childhood, with the risks of interrupted education, early pregnancy, financial dependence, isolation and abuse.

Can RM500 outweigh that?

Protection cannot remain selective

Changing the Perak incentive age to 18 is necessary, but it will not resolve Malaysia’s larger failure.

Section 8 of the Islamic Family Law Enactment (Perak) 2004 sets the minimum marriage age at 18 for males and 16 for females, while permitting marriage below those ages with the written permission of a Sharia judge.

The children’s commissioners have called for 18 to become the minimum for both Muslim males and females.

Why is a girl considered ready for marriage two years before a boy? Why should judicial permission allow marriage even earlier?

A judge’s signature does not return a child to school. It does not remove the risks of pregnancy, dependency or abuse. It cannot give her the maturity or bargaining power of an adult.

A child is a child in Perak, Selangor, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak. Her protection should not depend on her gender, religion or postcode.

In 2018, an 11-year-old became the third wife of a 41-year-old man, and Malaysia promised change.

In 2026, a proposal involving marriage reached the Perak Youth Assembly with an eligibility range beginning at 15 and received unanimous approval.

How many more times must child marriage return before we end it? Perak must remove everyone below 18 from the proposed incentive.

Malaysia must then confront the question it has postponed for far too long: why do our laws still permit child marriage?

Set 18 as the minimum marriage age for everyone, regardless of gender, religion or location. Remove the exceptions.

Require child rights impact assessments for laws and policies affecting children. Publish the findings.

Support vulnerable children and their families before marriage is ever considered.

We were outraged in 2018. We promised reform.

Eight years later, we are still asking the same questions. The harm is foreseeable. The child is visible. The excuse is gone. – SIS Forum

Ameena Siddiqi is the communications manager at SIS Forum (Malaysia).

The post Eight years after an 11-year-old became a bride, why are we still here? appeared first on Aliran.

The Protect Karpal Singh Drive action committee (ProtectKarpal) welcomes the proposal in the draft Penang State Structure Plan 2040 under review to designate Middle Bank as a marine sanctuary and to recognise it as the plan’s second high-impact project.

However, this important conservation commitment is fundamentally contradicted by the plan’s section 6.1, which continues to retain a proposed reclamation area at Middle Bank.

ProtectKarpal therefore calls on the Penang state government to take two clear and immediate actions.

First, remove the reclamation proposal affecting Middle Bank from the Structure Plan 2040.

And second, begin the process of gazetting Middle Bank as a marine sanctuary now rather than leaving its protection as an aspiration towards 2040.

Remove reclamation from Middle Bank

Clause 6.1 expressly identifies “Middle Bank Marine Sanctuary” as “High Impact Project No. 2”.

At the same time, the map retains areas categorised in its legend as “Kawasan Cadangan Tebus Guna Tanah Yang Telah Dipersetujui oleh Kerajaan Negeri” – proposed reclamation areas agreed to by the state government.

The same plan also identifies Middle Bank within its environmental planning framework.

This contradiction must be corrected before the structure plan is finalised.

A marine sanctuary cannot be meaningfully protected while a reclamation proposal remains within the same ecological space and planning framework. Keeping both designations creates uncertainty over the state government’s actual policy direction and leaves open the possibility that future development decisions could undermine the very ecosystem the new structure plan proposes to conserve.

The principle should be straightforward: once Middle Bank has been identified for marine conservation, reclamation should no longer form part of its planning future.

The draft structure plan itself recognises Middle Bank as an ecologically significant area of about 10 sq km in the South Channel between Penang Island and the mainland. The plan describes its seagrass meadow as the only one of its kind in the Strait of Malacca and recognises its role as an effective natural carbon sink.

Protecting such an ecosystem requires more than placing a conservation label on a map. Reclamation, dredging and related coastal activities may alter sediment movement, water quality, tidal circulation and other environmental conditions upon which seagrass and associated marine life depend.

The reclamation designation must therefore be deleted from clause 6.1 and any corresponding provisions in the final structure plan.

Gazette Middle Bank now

ProtectKarpal further urges the state government not to treat 2040 as the deadline for protecting Middle Bank.

The structure plan may have a planning horizon to 2040, but an ecosystem already recognised today as environmentally important should not have to wait 14 years for meaningful protection.

The need to gazette this area is particularly urgent because Middle Bank is not an ecosystem existing in isolation. It is already facing mounting cumulative pressure from extensive coastal development taking place around Penang’s eastern shoreline and surrounding waters.

Reclamation, dredging, construction, increased sedimentation, declining water quality and changes to coastal hydrodynamics can progressively weaken the ecological conditions on which its seagrass meadow and associated marine life depend.

Waiting until further degradation becomes visible or irreversible would defeat the very purpose of declaring Middle Bank a marine sanctuary.

Legal protection must therefore come now – before continuing development pressures further compromise the ecosystem the state has already recognised as worthy of conservation.

The gazetting of this area should establish clear, scientifically determined boundaries and an appropriate ecological buffer, supported by marine ecological and hydrodynamic assessments.

It should also provide effective safeguards against reclamation, dredging, dumping and other activities capable of degrading the sanctuary.

The present public feedback and objection period, which ends on 9 September 2026, provides an important opportunity for the state government to resolve this contradiction.

ProtectKarpal welcomes the recognition of Middle Bank. But recognition must now be translated into decisive policy and legal action.

Our call is clear:

• Remove reclamation from Middle Bank in the Penang Structure Plan 2040.
• Gazette Middle Bank as a marine sanctuary now.

Penang should not wait until environmental damage has occurred before giving one of its most valuable marine ecosystems the protection it already acknowledges that it deserves.

ProtectKarpal also urges all Penangites to submit their feedback and objections on the draft Penang State Structure Plan 2040 before 10 September, and to call for the removal of reclamation from Middle Bank and its immediate protection as a marine sanctuary. – ProtectKarpal

Submit feedback.

Other relevant documents

The Protect Karpal Singh Drive action committee (ProtectKarpal) operates under the auspices of the Bandar Sri Pinang Pulau Pinang Residents’ Association.

The post Penang’s marine sanctuary plan undermined by structure plan’s reclamation clause appeared first on Aliran.

Nation-building obviously involves the participation of everyone in Malaysia, many of whom are ordinary people from diverse backgrounds.

They include people who run the government machinery, keep the streets clean, build roads, teach our young, treat the sick, care for the homeless, preserve the environment, catch thieves, protect our national borders, and advocate for justice.

From time to time, we also get glimpses of ordinary people who have gone out of their way to help people in distress, misfortune and misery, irrespective of their backgrounds. In other words, the Good Samaritans who are Malaysian at heart.

Many of these deeds tug at our heartstrings simply because they are an expression of humanity, compassion and empathy. These human facets are obviously precious.

Equally important, such goodwill and kindness have a positive effect of building bridges across ethnic and religious divides that are crucial in multi-ethnic Malaysia.

Trust, mutual respect, kindness and dignity seek their rightful place in a caring society.

So, it was refreshing to read a news report not too long ago about an ethnic Chinese man called Dicky being offered help by an ethnic Malay mechanic, Abang Usop, after the former’s motorcycle broke down late at night.

Abang Usop went to Dicky’s rescue even though he had already gone back home after a hard day’s work.

The mechanic refused payment after realising that Dicky was short of cash at the time.

In a TikTok posting, Dicky shared the incident with his viewers, from whom he received gifts amounting to RM1,600. He did not keep the money but instead donated it to Abang Usop so that it could be used to help others stranded by the roadside.

The encounter gave rise to a warm relationship forged between two strangers.

Another incident involved two young Chinese men who helped to push a motorbike of an elderly Malay woman that was stalled on a busy road. It rightly earned praise from many netizens for their kind-hearted gestures.

Siti Normala Adrus, or better known as Mak Jah, runs a roadside stall in Puchong Permai. She has made a commitment to provide meals to schoolchildren for free every weekday in honour of, and as a promise to, her late mother.

Her generosity to the schoolchildren ignores race and religion. That is why her sacrifices reportedly gained support from her customers, as well as social media users.

As intimated above, these common individuals deserve to be celebrated, as their actions are as inspirational as they are humane.

That is why their deeds gained traction among social media users and other concerned people in Malaysia, precisely because these were valued moments that put a shine on an ecosystem that has been stained by bigotry, fearmongering and selfishness over the years.

It is also possible that there are those in Malaysia who crave such feel-good stories because they believe that ordinary people are generally capable of living harmoniously in the absence of politicians who profit from socially divisive manoeuvres.

Indeed, the conduct of the Good Samaritans sharply contrasts with that of some politicians who make it their raison d’être to instil fear and foster suspicion.

Even corruption, which is religiously practised by some politicians of various political hues and other greedy individuals, has been unnecessarily ethnicised. To be sure, corruption is not an inherent trait of any particular community.

Malaysians may have achieved independence, but certain people seem unable to free themselves from the colonial divide-and-rule strategy. This approach has been used across most political parties in varying degrees for many years.

The talk of social cohesion among certain quarters tends to veer towards the unity of one community against the supposedly suspicious and feared ‘others’. Unity couched in the language of identity politics is counterproductive.

People of diverse backgrounds should instead be unified around noble causes, such as justice, progress, accountability, national integration, and the fight against corruption and discrimination.

Unity is not a slogan. It is a lived experience.

Poverty, as we know it, does not have race, religion or region. The pain of poverty is inflicted on anyone and anywhere.

And yet, state assistance and funds are generally parcelled out to the respective communities. Put another way, help for the needy should be ethnicity and region-blind.

Problems arise when there is a perception, real or imagined, that less attention is given to a particular ethnic community in, for instance, access to education.

There are sections of society that appear to have a skewed ‘sense of belonging’ to this land.

Certain cohorts seem to live in their own silo, giving the impression that they prefer a contemporary Malaysia inhabited by only one majority community.

The way they talk at times makes you wonder whether they regard Sabah and Sarawak as part of the larger federation. Their insularity is jarring, to say the least.

A number of them insist that the ‘others’ still have their original homelands to go back to, if push comes to shove – even though the latter have no connections whatsoever to those ‘homelands’.

As we usher in Malaysia Day, ordinary people should continue to fight hate speech, discrimination and bigotry. These do not deserve a place in our diverse nation.

The Good Samaritans and other well-meaning patriotic ordinary people sit well with the notion of a better Malaysia. – Malay Mail

The post Living next door to bigotry in Malaysia appeared first on Aliran.

The global order is shifting, with the dominance of the US being challenged by a rising China and a more multipolar world taking shape.

For Southeast Asia, these changes bring both opportunities and risks. Asean is attracting investment as companies diversify their supply chains, but many countries remain heavily dependent on foreign capital, low wages and competition with their neighbours.

So is Asean really emerging as a winner of this new global order, or are we simply reproducing the same old model of dependency?

And what would it take for the region to build its own productive capacity, strengthen regional integration and move towards a higher-wage, more self-sufficient economy?

BFM explores all  this with Edward Vrkic, the resident representative at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Presenter and producer: Dashran Yohan | Production: BFM

The post Asean in a multipolar world appeared first on Aliran.

Must countries choose sides as US-China rivalry and geopolitical tensions intensify? Can a renewed Non-Aligned Movement give the Global South greater strategic autonomy in a world dominated by competing powers?

Astro Awani’s Melisa Idris talks to Jomo Kwame Sundaram, an emeritus professor and research adviser for Khazanah Research Institute, who was a keynote speaker at the Penang Peace Dialogue 2026 in George Town, Penang.

Jomo argues that the Non-Aligned Movement requires a renewal (2.0) to help developing nations pursue sustainable development amidst rising geopolitical tensions and militarisation.

He advocates for these countries to transition from passive neutrality to being “actively pacifist” to collectively resist being dragged into conflicts driven by major powers

Production: Astro Awani

The post Is it time for Non-Aligned Movement 2.0? appeared first on Aliran.

Every Merdeka, we become very good at displaying Malaysia.

We bring out the batik, songket, saree and cheongsam, rediscover our many cultures, celebrate our food and languages, and listen as politicians remind us that diversity is our strength.

I do not say this cynically, because these rituals matter, and it is genuinely beautiful seeing the country represented in all its complexity.

But sometimes I wonder whether we have become much better at displaying diversity than talking honestly about what happens underneath it.

We celebrate kita (we) very easily every August. What we talk about much less is how often our politics seems to require a mereka (them).

I do not mean only racial slurs, religious insults or the vicious things people write online. Those are the obvious forms.

But it is interesting to explore what comes before them, the more subtle process through which we decide that one person belongs more than another, that one community has a deeper claim to the country, or that some people must continually explain why they deserve to be here at all.

Contemporary Malaysian politics keeps bringing us back to precisely this question.

In July, Kedah Menteri Besar Sanusi Nor said that the ethnic Chinese have China and the ethnic Indians have India, while the ethnic Malays have only this land.

Around the same period, Pas president Hadi Awang described DAP supporters as pendatang brought in by colonialists.

We can condemn such remarks, defend them, contextualise them, investigate them and eventually move on to the next controversy, as Malaysia usually does.

But the question is why such language still works. Why does pendatang retain such political force in 2026, almost seven decades after Merdeka?

The word does more than describe migration. In contemporary Malaysian politics, it places someone outside the emotional centre of the nation.

It says that you may possess the same identity card or passport, but somewhere behind your citizenship lies another country to which you can still be rhetorically returned.

History itself makes the obsession with origins rather strange. Human societies have always moved.

Pendatang tells us less about history than it does about power. If we travel far enough backwards, almost everyone comes from somewhere else.

The important question for a modern political community is what happens after people have made a country their home, sometimes for generations. Citizenship is supposed to be one of the places where ancestry stops being destiny.

Yet Malaysia seems to maintain another category beyond legal citizenship, what I think of as the emotionally legitimate Malaysian.

This is where Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983) is important. Here, Anderson described the nation as an imagined political community in which millions of people who will never know one another nevertheless understand themselves as belonging to the same collective.

His argument makes me think about Malaysia in a slightly different way because the question is not only how we imagine kita. It is what happens when kita becomes easier to imagine once somebody has been made mereka.

Malaysia is hardly alone in this, but we have our own long history of classification.

Race, religion and citizenship are not abstract identities here. They have been woven into colonial administration, constitutional arrangements, political parties, education, elections and our everyday understanding of one another.

Merdeka ended colonial rule, but it did not automatically remove the habit of sorting human beings into categories and assigning political meaning to those categories.

Difference itself is not the problem. Malaysia does have different histories, communities and constitutional arrangements.

The trouble begins when difference becomes hierarchy, and hierarchy becomes permission.

Once that happens, it becomes easier to believe that some people deserve less sympathy, less security or less dignity because they have already been placed outside the circle of kita.

Carl Schmitt takes this somewhere much darker. In The Concept of the Political (1932), he argued that the fundamental political distinction was between friend and enemy.

I do not invoke Schmitt comfortably, especially given his own political trajectory, but his insight into political temptation remains disturbing. A frightened community can be brought together very quickly when somebody gives it an enemy.

Sometimes I look at Malaysian political discourse and wonder how much of this logic ironically remains with us.

Malays are warned that they may lose political power.

The minorities are told, directly or indirectly, that they can never take their place here entirely for granted.

Muslims are warned that Islam is under threat. Non-Muslims fear increasing religious control.

Almost every community carries a story about what somebody else supposedly wants to take away from it.

Religion makes this particularly sensitive because faith touches something deeper than ordinary political preference.

Religion itself is not the problem, and I resist the lazy argument that faith necessarily produces intolerance.

Religion has given Malaysians community, compassion and a language for speaking out against injustice.

We have even developed a bureaucratic mechanism for much of this in the form of the three R issues involving race, religion and royalty.

Between January 2025 and January 2026, 2,486 complaints sought the removal of such online content, with 1,493 pieces eventually taken down following MCMC monitoring and engagement with platforms.

Some speech does cross into threats, incitement and dehumanisation and should be taken seriously. But removing offensive content cannot become our main mechanism of response to hate.

Otherwise, we become very good at deleting the symptoms while refusing to discuss what keeps producing them.

The Rohingya make this contradiction painfully Malaysian. In December 2016, thousands gathered in Kuala Lumpur in solidarity with persecuted Rohingya Muslims.

Then Prime Minister Najib Razak and Hadi Awang appeared at the same gathering, setting aside political rivalry as solidarity was expressed through the language of humanity, Islam and the ummah.

A decade later, Suhakam is warning about discriminatory rhetoric, hostility and dehumanisation directed at Rohingya living among us. Reuters reported in July that at least nine Rohingya community schools had closed amid growing online hostility and fears over children’s safety.

I find that contrast difficult to ignore. The Rohingya did not suddenly become less persecuted when they came closer to Malaysia. What changed was their relationship to us.

Perhaps this is where the line between kita and mereka becomes most revealing. A persecuted Muslim far away can be embraced as part of kita. The same person living beside us can very quickly become mereka.

Hannah Arendt understood something fundamental about this. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), her discussion of statelessness gave rise to the idea often described as the right to have rights.

Rights become terribly fragile when a person does not belong to a political community willing and able to guarantee them.

Malaysia gives that philosophical problem a very concrete form. We are not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and still do not have a national asylum system.

Refugees are treated under immigration law as undocumented migrants, they cannot formally work and their children do not have access to public schools. They live physically among us while remaining politically outside much of what kita means.

That, for me, is where the Merdeka conversation needs to become more difficult.

Every year we talk about unity, harmony and tolerance. I am increasingly unsure that tolerance is enough. There is something slightly hierarchical within the word itself. I tolerate something whose presence I assume I have the authority to permit.

Perhaps we should stop performing harmony for just long enough this Merdeka to ask who benefits when ordinary people remain afraid of one another.

Can Malay political confidence exist without Chinese insecurity? Can religious conviction remain strong without producing enemies of the faith? Can citizenship matter deeply without turning the non-citizen into somebody less human?

Merdeka freed us from colonial rule, but independence does not automatically free a society from its need to create outsiders.

That may be one of the harder freedoms we have yet to achieve – learning to know who we are without first deciding who does not belong.

So among all the flags, songs, food, costumes and speeches this Merdeka, perhaps Malaysia is finally old enough for a more uncomfortable question: why must we manufacture mereka for kita to exist?

If our sense of belonging grows only when somebody else’s becomes weaker, then the problem is not that we have failed to love Malaysia enough. We just do not know how to be kita without first creating a mereka. – Malay Mail

The post Merdeka: Why must we manufacture ‘mereka’ for ‘kita’ to exist?  appeared first on Aliran.

Vijay Prashad

On 2 September, fragments from a US missile tore through the roof of a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, in Iran’s southern county of Sirik. Four people were killed, including a child, and 68 were wounded.

The US has made a custom of bombing weddings – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and now Iran.

When US Vice-President JD Vance was asked about the dead, he shrugged: “Things happen.”

The sentence should be entered into the record of this war. Imperialism turns other people’s catastrophes into the passive voice.

The attack on the wedding was part of a new round of US strikes along Iran’s southern coast and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington said that it had targeted missile and mine-laying capabilities.

Tehran replied with missiles and drones against US facilities in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This was not a ceasefire marred by occasional violations, as much of the North Atlantic press insists on calling it. For six months, the conflict has followed a recognisable cycle: the US attacks, Iran retaliates, there is a pause and some indirect diplomacy, both sides prepare again, then Washington attacks once more. A pause between blows is not peace.

The Trump administration continues to claim that Iran’s navy, missile forces, and military infrastructure have been destroyed.

Yet the evidence of Iran’s repeated retaliation refutes this boast. Iran’s systems have certainly been damaged by ferocious bombardment, but damaged is not disarmed.

On 4 September, Iranian army spokesperson Brigadier-General Mohammad Akraminia told Irna news agency that the first Iranian missiles and drones had been launched within 15 minutes of the US attack. He said that the army struck four US bases in three countries: two in the UAE, Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, and a base in Kuwait.

In separate communiqués, Iran said it hit satellite communications, equipment stores and aircraft hangars at Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, as well as troops and radar systems at Al Minhad in the UAE.

The activation of air defences and acknowledgements by regional governments of these strikes establish the central fact: Iran retains both the capacity and the will to reach the US base structure.

This is the war’s most important development. The US built its power in West Asia on an asymmetry. It could bomb a country from protected airfields and command centres scattered across the region, while the attacked country was unable or unwilling to touch those bases.

Iraq fired Scud missiles towards Israel in 1991 but did not systematically attack the vast US military architecture in the Gulf. Baghdad feared that striking US bases would bring down even greater destruction. Greater destruction came anyway. Iran studied that lesson.

Iran has now begun to reverse the asymmetry. The expensive network of bases designed to project US power has become a collection of targets. Al Udeid in Qatar, the headquarters of US air operations across the region; the Fifth Fleet facilities in Bahrain; air bases and logistical hubs in Kuwait and the UAE; Camp Titin in Jordan; and installations in Iraq and Syria can no longer be treated as a secure rear.

An Arabic language assessment published after the latest attacks described this precisely: bases in Kuwait and the UAE have become front-line positions, while combined waves of decoy drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles seek to saturate Patriot and Thaad defences and then strike command, radar, communications and logistical systems.

The technique matters because an interceptor costing millions of dollars can be drawn towards a drone costing a tiny fraction of that sum.

The vulnerability is political as well as military. Every US facility sits on another country’s territory. Governments in the Gulf must ask whether Washington’s military presence is a shield or a lightning rod.

Iran need not destroy every base, only demonstrate that the bases impose danger on the states that host them.

Gulf governments might then restrict the use of their territory for US attacks, pushing US operations towards distant facilities such as Diego Garcia, the UK’s base in Cyprus, and to US aircraft carriers (increasingly vulnerable themselves to long-term deployment fatigue).

Iran’s escalation ladder

Iran, moreover, has not climbed far up its escalation ladder. It could increase the volume of its launches, widen its targets to logistical hubs, ports, surveillance systems and fuel depots, or encourage allied forces in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen to enter the conflict fully. It could further obstruct the Red Sea or close the Strait of Hormuz.

Any step would deepen the economic crisis produced by the war. This is something that is not wanted by US President Donald Trump, who faces mid-term elections in November.

Iraq is an especially important hinge. Arabic language reports describe the government’s 30 September deadline to bring all weapons under state control and the refusal of several armed factions to disarm while US and Turkish troops remain in the country.

The factions’ demands are not marginal: they place the continued US military presence at the centre of the dispute. An attempt to coerce these groups into disarmament could produce an internal Iraqi crisis.

Failure to disarm them leaves tens of thousands of fighters, including units with missiles and drones, as a latent front against US bases. Washington cannot assume that the geography of the conflict will remain wherever it wishes to draw the line.

Then there is the highest rung: the nuclear question. The last verified figure from the International Atomic Energy Agency was that Iran holds 440.9kg of uranium enriched to 60%, recorded before inspections were disrupted by attacks on Iranian facilities.

Nobody outside Iran now knows with confidence where all that material is, what condition it is in, or whether enrichment has advanced.

Tehran has not declared that it will produce a weapon. But in August, Ebrahim Rezaei of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee argued that withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would be the best response to Trump’s intensified economic war. A withdrawal proposal has already circulated in parliament.

This uncertainty is itself a form of deterrence. US planners contemplating a nuclear or overwhelmingly destructive first strike cannot be certain that Iran has no small weapon or capacity to assemble one.

Iran may decide to enrich above 90%, test a device, and demand that attacks cease – the path taken by North Korea after watching Iraq and Libya.

That decision would carry immense dangers and has not been taken. But Washington’s war is making imaginable what decades of US policy was meant to prevent.

Iran’s advantage does not lie in possessing greater explosive power. The US retains the ability to inflict appalling destruction. Iran’s advantage lies in its capacity to impose costs, disperse its forces, keep Washington guessing, and endure blows without surrendering its sovereignty.

The US military, meanwhile, is consuming scarce interceptors and long-range munitions while arming Israel and Ukraine, defending installations spread across an enormous arc, and facing an electorate that does not want body bags or another endless war.

Iran has converted the US’s geographical reach from an advantage into an exposure.

This does not mean that Iran has won, nor that escalation is safe. A wounded empire is exceptionally dangerous. Trump wants an Iranian surrender that he can display before the US midterm elections, but coercion has not delivered it.

The White House has force without a sequenced political strategy: it can strike harder, but each blow opens additional Iranian options.

Tehran, by contrast, can move step by step while presenting each action as retaliation. Iran has informed the UN that the US began the attacks and that its own operations are reciprocal acts of self-defence. The civilians dead at the wedding make Washington’s moral position more threadbare still.

The road out is not mysterious. It would require the US to stop attacking Iran, end its blockade and coercive sanctions, and return to negotiations based on the June memorandum rather than seek capitulation. It would also depend upon regional states declining the use of their territory for further attacks.

A credible diplomatic process would be strengthened by a UN investigation into the bombing of the wedding and other attacks on civilians. Otherwise, the institution, which is seeking a new secretary general, risks becoming an accountant who arrives only after the building has burnt down.

Trump is caught between an opponent that will not surrender and an election clock that will not stop. He may yet order another spectacular strike in the hope that violence can manufacture victory.

But Iran has shown that US bases are not sanctuaries, that US weapons are not inexhaustible, and that US escalation does not command the final move.

The old asymmetry has been reversed. Washington can still destroy. It can no longer dictate. – Globetrotter.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of 40 books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

The post Iran reverses the asymmetry appeared first on Aliran.

Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands (Reach) ingin menyatakan bantahan tegas terhadap projek pembinaan jalan pintasan Cameron Highlands yang sedang dilaksanakan oleh pihak Kementerian Kerja Raya Malaysia (JKR) dengan kos melibatkan ratusan juta ringgit wang pembayar cukai.

Sebagai sebuah pertubuhan alam sekitar yang telah berkhidmat di Cameron Highlands selama lebih dua dekad, kami berpendapat projek ini gagal menangani punca sebenar masalah kesesakan lalu lintas yang dihadapi oleh rakyat dan pelancong setiap hari, khususnya di kawasan Kea Farm.

Persoalan utama yang perlu dijawab oleh pihak JKR ialah, adakah projek jalan pintasan sepanjang beberapa kilometer ini benar-benar mampu menyelesaikan kesesakan kronik di Kea Farm?

Berdasarkan pemerhatian, kajian lapangan dan maklum balas penduduk tempatan, jawapannya adalah tidak.

Masalah sebenar di Cameron Highlands bukan kekurangan jalan pintasan, tetapi kegagalan menangani kesesakan di pusat tumpuan pelancong seperti Kea Farm yang kekurangan tempat letak kereta, sistem pengangkutan awam yang berkesan serta pengurusan trafik yang menyeluruh.

Kami melihat projek ini seolah-olah ‘merawat kanser di otak tetapi memberi ubat di kaki’. Punca masalah tidak disentuh, namun wang rakyat dibelanjakan dalam jumlah yang sangat besar untuk projek yang manfaatnya dipersoalkan.

Lebih membimbangkan, projek ini dilihat bakal memberikan nilai tambah yang besar kepada beberapa pemilik tanah persendirian yang mempunyai pegangan tanah yang luas di sepanjang jajaran jalan baharu tersebut. Dengan adanya akses jalan yang dibiayai oleh kerajaan, nilai tanah-tanah berkenaan akan meningkat dengan ketara.

Rakyat Cameron Highlands berhak mengetahui siapakah penerima manfaat sebenar projek ini.

Adakah projek ini benar-benar untuk rakyat atau hanya menguntungkan segelintir pihak tertentu?

Sejak tahun lalu, Reach telah menghantar memorandum dan surat rasmi kepada Menteri Kerja Raya Alexander Nanta Linggi serta beberapa pegawai kanan kementerian bagi menyuarakan kebimbangan ini. Malangnya, sehingga hari ini, kami tidak menerima sebarang maklum balas rasmi terhadap persoalan yang dibangkitkan.

Kami juga telah mengemukakan aduan kepada Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM) bagi memohon siasatan terhadap keseluruhan rasional dan pelaksanaan projek ini. Namun sehingga kini, tiada perkembangan yang dimaklumkan kepada pihak kami.

Keadaan ini menimbulkan persoalan besar mengenai ketelusan, akauntabiliti dan kesediaan agensi kerajaan untuk mendengar suara rakyat yang akan menerima kesan langsung daripada projek tersebut.

Reach ingin menegaskan bahawa kami bukan menolak pembangunan. Kami mengalu-alukan peruntukan dan pelaburan kerajaan di Cameron Highlands.

Namun pembangunan mestilah berdasarkan keperluan sebenar rakyat, mematuhi prinsip kelestarian alam sekitar dan memberikan manfaat kepada majoriti penduduk, bukannya kepada kelompok tertentu.

Sekiranya kerajaan mempunyai ratusan juta ringgit untuk dibelanjakan di Cameron Highlands, dana tersebut seharusnya disalurkan kepada projek yang lebih mendesak seperti:

• Penyelesaian kesesakan trafik di Kea Farn
• Sistem pengangkutan awam yang lebih efisien
• Kemudahan tempat letak kereta berpusat
• Pemulihan cerun dan kawasan berisiko tanah runtuh
• Pemeliharaan sumber air dan alam sekitar
• Infrastruktur yang memberi manfaat terus kepada penduduk tempatan.

Oleh itu, Reach memohon campur tangan segera Perdana Menteri Anwar Ibrahim, kerajaan persekutuan, Kementerian Kerja Raya serta semua agensi berkaitan untuk mengkaji semula projek ini secara menyeluruh.

Kami juga menggesa supaya satu sesi libat urus awam yang telus diadakan bagi membolehkan rakyat Cameron Highlands mengetahui justifikasi sebenar projek ini serta menilai sama ada ia benar-benar mampu menyelesaikan masalah yang telah sekian lama membelenggu daerah ini.

Jangan jadikan Cameron Highlands mangsa kepada projek gajah putih yang mahal tetapi gagal memberikan penyelesaian kepada rakyat.

Dengar suara rakyat. Selesaikan masalah sebenar. Lindungi Cameron Highlands untuk generasi akan datang. – Reach

English version

Objection to the Cameron Highlands bypass road project

Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands (Reach) wishes to express its strong objection to the Cameron Highlands bypass road project currently being implemented by the Public Works Department (JKR), a project that involves hundreds of millions of ringgit in taxpayers’ money.

As an environmental organisation that has served Cameron Highlands for more than two decades, we believe this project fails to address the real causes of the traffic congestion faced daily by residents and visitors, particularly in the Kea Farm area.

The fundamental question that JKR must answer is this: will a bypass road spanning only a few kilometres truly solve the chronic traffic congestion in Kea Farm?

Based on our observations, field assessments and feedback from local residents, the answer is clearly no.

The real problem in Cameron Highlands is not the lack of a bypass road. Rather, it is the failure to address congestion at major tourist hotspots such as Kea Farm, where inadequate parking facilities, the absence of an efficient public transport system, and poor traffic management continue to create serious bottlenecks.

We view this project as a case of ‘treating cancer in the brain by applying medicine to the foot’. The root cause of the problem remains untouched, yet an enormous amount of public funds is being spent on a project whose effectiveness is highly questionable.

Even more concerning is the perception that this project will significantly increase the value of large privately owned land parcels located along the proposed alignment. By providing government-funded road access, the value and development potential of these lands will inevitably rise.

The people of Cameron Highlands have every right to know who the real beneficiaries of this project are. Is this project genuinely for the benefit of the public, or does it primarily serve the interests of a select few?

Over the past year, Reach has submitted memorandums and official letters to the works minister and several senior officials within the ministry to raise these concerns. Unfortunately, we have not yet received any official response to the issues highlighted.

We have also lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), requesting an investigation into the rationale, planning and implementation of this project. However, no updates or feedback have been provided to us thus far.

This situation raises serious questions regarding transparency, accountability and the willingness of government agencies to listen to the voices of the people who will be directly affected by the project.

Reach wishes to emphasise that we are not against development. We welcome government investment and development initiatives in Cameron Highlands.

However, development must be based on the actual needs of the people, adhere to principles of environmental sustainability, and provide benefits to the majority of residents rather than a privileged few.

If the government is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of ringgit in Cameron Highlands, such funds should be directed towards projects that address more urgent needs, including:

• Solving traffic congestion in Kea Farm
• Establishing a more efficient public transport system
• Developing centralised parking facilities
• Carrying out slope rehabilitation and landslide risk mitigation work
• Protecting water resources and the natural environment
• Implementing infrastructure projects that directly benefit local residents

Reach respectfully calls on the prime minister, the federal government, the Ministry of Works, and all relevant agencies to review this project comprehensively.

We also urge the authorities to conduct a transparent public engagement process so that the people of Cameron Highlands can understand the true justification for the project and evaluate whether it is genuinely capable of resolving the long-standing issues faced by the district.

Do not allow Cameron Highlands to become a victim of another white elephant project – one that is costly, environmentally damaging, and incapable of delivering a meaningful solution for the people.

Listen to the people. Address the real problems. Protect Cameron Highlands for future generations. – Reach

The post Bantahan terhadap projek jalan pintasan Cameron Highlands / Objection to the Cameron Highlands bypass road project appeared first on Aliran.

The legendary ‘Mr Opposition’ Dr Tan Chee Khoon took part in several Aliran activities, including a Reflections on the Malaysian Constitution forum.

Aliran awarded him the Outstanding Malaysian Award 1984 for his lifelong courage, social concern, and fearless defence of justice and freedom.

The following year, he became the first chairman of the Aliran Trust Board.

Production: Aliran

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