About 20 of 50,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) registered with the Registrar of Societies (ROS) have been investigated, since November, for allegedly receiving funds from individuals and organisations abroad.
Deputy Home Affairs Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed expects more NGOs to come under the microscope, since the police have no plans to put a halt to this investigation.
“The probe needs to be done to ensure that NGOs do not become a front for certain parties that plan to undermine democracy because many countries in the West and Asia may also have been toppled by outsiders using the NGOs,” Nur Jazlan told reporters after launching the search for Ikon Muslimah Johor 2016 in Johor Bahru today.
The NGOs probed includes Bersih, whose chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah has been accused of using funds received from Open Society Foundations (OSF) to undermine parliamentary democracy in Malaysia.
News reports said OSF, chaired by George Soros, not only channelled funds to Bersih but also to other local organisations with the aim to influence the result of general elections.
Every single person in Malaysia can only have one reaction to this information that the police are probing pro-democracy NGOs for receiving foreign grants (which are usually minimal amounts to keep the life and limbs of certain activists together whilst they campaign for progress).
Why is it therefore OK for the sitting Prime Minister to personally receive foreign funding to the tune of US$1 billion, which he claims came from a little known Saudi named Prince Saud AbdulAziz Al Saud, for the avowed purpose of helping him win the last election in contravention of legal limits on funding?
Is it OK to break the law to preserve a party which has been in power, whilst it is not OK to support those challenging that law breaking party, who has openly bribed and bought votes?
The only people who might choose to think so are the law-breakers themselves – they should remember they are the SERVANTS of the people and not in charge and they have no right to bend the rules to save themselves whilst using those same rules to persecute others far weaker and poorer than themselves.