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Fwd: MGG - Who Is Abu Ha#san bin Tan Abdullah? By web aNtu 15/8/2000 8:11 am Tue

Subject: [sangkancil] [MGG] And Who Is Abu Ha#san bin Tan Abdullah? When the Merdeka celebrations kick off on August 31 at the Shah Alam stadium, it would reflect the contradictory and contrary trends which tear this society apart. The Yang Dipertuan Agung is the Sultan of Selangor, but the mentri besar, Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san Omar, is forced out for an offence under the country's syariah laws, one which the Prime Minister wants forgotten as a "personal" matter that should not be aired in public. He had no such intent when instead of showing due consideration for the alleged homosexual tendency -- alleged because the prosecutor and judge was more intent on convicting him no matter what than in searching for the truth -- he ordered the man destroyed politically and personally without proof and ensuring the judiciary's compliance. So, when he attends the Merdeka celebrations, this would stick in his gullet, that this celebrations is against a backdrop of everything that is wrong with his administration. That his ebulliently irrepressible culture and tourism minister persuaded the government to have a month-long mishmash of celebrations, little known that the Anwaristas would see that as a red-rag to a bull, and behave likewise. The Prime Minister would have constant proof of the divisiveness inherent in the celebrations. His enemies could not have chosen a better spot for him to rue in his misfortune. For the crisis which forced Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san to resign is not about to go away. When the Jawa Pos article on the Selangor sex scandal appeared in July, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, ordered Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san and the man his wife's sister married to undergo DNA tests to determine the father of her 11-year-old son. Once the results were known, he ordered the mentri besar to resign in 24 hours. But the Prime Minister would not meet him, and he had to leave his resignation letter with an aide instead. So, contrary to the Prime Minister, the deputy prime minister and Dato' Abu Ha#san said, he was forced out on a morals charge, that he had had an affair with his sister-in-law, who gave birth to his son, which he covered up by getting an MCA official to convert to Islam and marry her. This is not new. It did not raise a ruckus so long as no one made a fuss about it. When the Jawa Post raised it in an article, and a question about this disallowed by the Speaker in the last meeting of the Selangor state a#sembly, his days were numbered. He had no choice but to resign. But the Prime Minister could not let the egg fall on his face, as it would in the wake of the judicial a#sa#sination of his protege and prime minister-to-be, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. UMNO is so divided that every office holder has enemies galore quick to put the knife in. It was an UMNO official who gave the details to a Keadilan state a#semblyman to raise the ruckus in the Selangor state a#sembly. The Prime Minister, as is his wont, ordered the affair swept under the carpet. It cannot be. Private moral crisis should not be the stuff of political careers. Otherwise, half the cabinet could not pa#s muster. But when the Prime Minister moved to destroy Dato' Seri Anwar on still-unproven moral charges of s###my, such lapses had to be suitably punished. The Prime Minister and his deputy must explain why, since the DNA tests proved Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san to be the father of his sister-in-law's child, they insist this is a private matter, when they proclaim to the world about another private moral crisis, which unlike Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san's, remain unproven, is treated as a matter of seven official punishment. The Selangor syariah court, which is all too zealous to arrest beauty queens and karaoke singers in bars for breaching Islamic moral code, should act against the former mentri besar for breaching a more serious moral code, for not just zina but for the more serious breach of having sexual relations with his wife's sister. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. So, who is this MCA official who married Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san's sister-in-law to let him off the hook? He is Mr Tan Hoon @ Jefri Tan Hoon @ Abu Ha#san bin Tan Abdullah, the chairman of the MCA Ampang Jaya division, within the parliamentary constituency of the Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker, Dato' Ong Tee Keat of the MCA. He is opposed to Dato' Ong, which probably accounts for the MCA leaders' quick distancing from this crisis. It is now important that this Abu Ha#san surface and explain his role. He benefitted much from contracts and other help the mentri besar and his administration put in his way. Indeed, he should also be made to account for his deliberate role in abetting Dato' Seri Abu Ha#san to breach Islamic law. The government has a stronger case against him that it ever had on Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. If it wants to tell the world its system of justice is fairer than fair, it should demand a severe sentence on those committing offences for which without proof it would send its critic to a total of 33 years. M.G.G. Pillai pillai@mgg.pc.my

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