DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI AD TE, DOMINE: DOMINE, EXAUDI VOCEM MEAM.

Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
Let Thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

The De Profundis takes its name from the first two words of the psalm in Latin. It is a penitential psalm that is sung as part of vespers (evening prayer) and in commemorations of the dead. It is also a good psalm to express our sorrow.

WHAT SORROW?

Suhakam faces an imminent downgrade in status from A to B if the human rights body fails to be in compliance with the Paris Principles on Human Rights. Status A allows Suhakam and Malaysia to have speaking rights on human rights issues at all UN organs and other international bodies.

“Status B denies these rights and reduces the country virtually to the category of an outcast on human rights,” according to a Suhakam commissioner

The Human Rights Council went through a long litany of complaints against Malaysia in Sept last year.

Aside from the ISA “to silence the opposition and bloggers”, mention is made of “a whole raft of emergency ordinances which undermine fundamental rights and liberties such as freedom of assembly, expression, the right to due process”.

Also brought up was the dubious role of the half million strong untrained Rela (People’s Volunteer Corps or Ikatan Relawan Rakyat) in arresting undocumented workers and criminals, and the lack of protection for domestic workers.

The Human Rights Council has since recommended that Malaysia “rescind the ISA” and “release all detained under the Act or charge them in a court of law in accordance with international fair trial standards”.

Malaysia blacklisted for human trafficking.

The United States has put Malaysia back on the blacklist of countries trafficking in people after removing the country from the list last year.

The State Department annual 'Trafficking in Persons Report 2009', which examined efforts in more than 173 countries to combat trafficking for forced labour, prostitution, military service and other purposes, has Malaysia sharing the blacklist with 16 other countries.

Among the 17 countries on the blacklist are Zimbabwe, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

Malaysia is the one of five Asian nations on the blacklist - the others are Burma, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and North Korea.

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It is a crying shame. In things that are most important to us, the agencies commissioned have only done a lot of paper shuffling and a lot of talking.

It is a crying shame that as we approach developed nation status, we are sliding, not imperceptibly but perilously.

It is a crying shame that we are lumped in the company of renegade states like Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia.

It is a crying shame that it is now proven that commissioned and Royally appointed agencies are toothless and impotent.

It is a crying shame that they do not resign when they cannot perform.

It is a crying shame that the world looks down on Malaysia with opprobrium.

Can we take the laborious climb up the slope of acceptability? We can if we have these agencies report to Parliament and not to the Executive. We need to take away this pervasive overt protection that the Executive employ for their own preservation.

These two down-gradings are a slap in the face to our Sovereign who appointed these on the advise of the PM. In short, the Agong has been wrongly advised.

The donkey, it has been said, came about because too many committees were appointed to design a horse.

Flowers are placed on the The Pillar of Shame - a statue to mark the Beijing Tiananmen crackdown,

in Hong Kong on June 3, 2009.

June 4, 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

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Read More at Malaysiakini, HERE & HERE