May 22, 10 9:35pm
A fight broke out - the verbal kind - at a bloggers meeting in Subang Jaya today when Hindraf founder P Uthayakumar was hit with claims that his struggle borders on extremism.Participants at the one-day Bloggers Universe Malaysia (BUM) 2010 conference described the lawyer's methods in highlighting the plight of the Indian Malaysians as "communalism".Blogger and founder of People's Parliament Haris Ibrahim said he was particularly turned off by a recent email statement from Uthayakumar.The statement was apparently about the lack of public attention on the police shooting of two Indian brothers - R Satchithantham, 28, and R Logeswaran, 35 - in Taiping on April 8, as compared to the killing of 15-year-old Aminulrasyid Amzah who was shot trying to evade police arrest on April 26."When I read your statement - and I am always for the equal rights for Malaysians - I am sorry to say but it sounds communalism,” said Haris.
"When Aminulrasyid died, he didn't die as a Malay boy, but as a young Malaysian, shot by police who acted brash," he said during the question-and-answer session after Uthayakumar delivered his talk at the segment titled 'Blogger's Role in Bridging the Religious Divide'.In his speech, Uthayakumar who is also the Human Rights Party pro-tem secretary-general, chided bloggers for not writing more on Indian rights, dismissing them as no different from BN-owned mainstream media.'There are also other poor communities'.However, another blogger idenitifed as Salahuddin Hisham chastised Uthayakumar (below), arguing that it is not just the Indian community that needs special attention."When you highlighted the plight of the estate workers, do you know that there are also Javanese and Chinese workers in the estates? There are also the Chinese, Malay, and people of other races who are poor, not just Indians.”During the discussion, tempers flared and voices were raised by a number of participants who tried to get their points across.Panel moderator Helen Ang appeared to have a difficult time getting the situation under control as the verbal jousting continued for almost 15 minutes.Uthayakumar, the brains behind the mammoth Hindraf rally in November 2007, is known to vocally espouse his views on Indian rights.He was also detained under the Internal Security Act for close to 18 months before his release in May 2009.
Source From : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/132495
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