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BENARNEWS- At least 117 former terrorists have been deradicalized since the start of the new year, Indonesia's security minister said Friday as he responded to criticism that a government program to persuade militants to renounce their violent ways has been ineffective.
Of those, nearly 50 are inmates at high-security facilities on Nusakambangan island who have pledged loyalty to the Indonesian state, said Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs.
"During 2020 there are already more than 117 (who have been deradicalized) throughout Indonesia. We have deradicalization programs, so those who have been exposed to or have been involved in terrorism can come to their senses," Mahfud told reporters in Jakarta.
"In Nusakambangan there are already 48 former terrorist inmates who have returned to the fold of the Republic of Indonesia, pledged loyalty to the state and showed behavior befitting of (citizens) of Indonesia," he said.
Nusakambangan is a prison island for hardened criminals that lies off the coast of Java. The penal complex consists of several prisons and houses 200 inmates who have been convicted of terrorism charges, according to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights.
Mahfud did not say when the 117 prisoners started joining the program.
In November 2019, Mahfud challenged a call by House Speaker Puan Maharani for the deradicalization program to be evaluated, saying a review was not necessary.
Revocation of passports
On Friday, the security minister said he and ministry of law officials discussed the idea of revoking passports of Indonesians who had joined the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Syria and Iraq.
"We can confirm that it is a decision made during a cabinet meeting, that FTF (foreign terrorist fighters) who have been identified will have their passports blocked, as they are not allowed to return," he said.
The government in early February announced that it would not repatriate hundreds of Indonesians who had joined IS and would block them from returning to their home country, saying the decision was made to protect citizens from the threat of terrorism.
Meanwhile, some observers questioned the effectiveness of the government's deradicalization programs, citing high recidivism among former terrorism convicts.
Zaki Mubarak, a terrorism researcher at the State Islamic University Jakarta, said only about 30 percent of those convicted of terrorism who participated in the program were genuinely repentant.
"It is impossible for people who have been brainwashed for years with radical teachings to change after participating in a one- to three-month deradicalization program," Zaki told BenarNews.
He said those programs should be reviewed and updated to better assist those former inmates who want to change.
"Supporting them through work training programs and providing working capital is also very necessary. At the same time they can be monitored and take part in anti-radicalism campaigns," he said.
Transparency needed
On Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake told a security conference in Jakarta that the Indonesian government should be transparent about what works to instill confidence in its deradicalization efforts.
"They seem to be left alone without supervision," Miyake said of the former militants. "The government needs to do something so they don't rediscover radical ideology."
A 2016 report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a Jakarta-based think tank, said poor prison infrastructure, overcrowding and inadequate staff aided in facilitating radicalism.
"Prison authorities in Indonesia have had a few small successes in managing extremist prisoners, but overall, structural problems of the prison system and inadequate staff continue to defeat efforts at deradicalization, disengagement and rehabilitation," IPAC said at the time.
Despite donor funding aimed at improving prison management and capacity, pro-IS inmates continue to recruit and radicalize fellow prisoners with impunity, it said.
"A few have organized terrorist actions from inside prison more than once and former prisoners continue to show up in new terrorist plots with alarming regularity," IPAC said.


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BENARNEWS- Dutch King Willem-Alexander offered the first royal apology to Indonesia on Tuesday for "excessive violence" by Dutch forces during a campaign to re-occupy the then-Dutch East Indies region after the Southeast Asian nation proclaimed its independence in 1945.
The king delivered the apology after he and his wife, Queen Maxima, were welcomed by Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his wife, Iriana, at the presidential palace near Jakarta on the first full day of a four-day visit.
"In the years immediately after the Proklamasi, a painful separation followed that cost many lives," Willem-Alexander said, referring to Indonesia's proclamation of independence on Aug. 17, 1945.
"In line with earlier statements by my government, I would like to express my regret and apologize for excessive violence on the part of the Dutch in those years," he said. "I do so in the full realization that the pain and sorrow of the families affected continue to be felt today."
In welcoming the king, Jokowi said his government was committed to building ties based on "mutual respect, mutual benefit and equality."
"I want to say that we certainly cannot erase history, but we can learn from the past," Jokowi said.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi also welcomed the apology.
"There is one new element – that the king expressed remorse and apologies for the violence carried out by the Dutch side. I think it is quite clear and does not need a further explanation," Retno told reporters.
Indonesia declared independence in 1945 after Japan, which occupied the then-Dutch East Indies for 3½ years, surrendered unconditionally following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the Dutch, which had colonized the region to control the spice trade, officially recognized Indonesia's sovereignty only in December 1949.
The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army waged violent anti-insurgency operations that led to the killings and summary executions in South Sulawesi and West Java between 1946 and 1947. 

Estimates of the deaths in the South Sulawesi massacre vary from 1,500 to 40,000, while authorities said almost 500 people were killed in the West Java village of Rawagede.
In 2013, the Dutch government for the first time made a general apology for the mass killings carried out by its troops in Indonesia.
Deadly accident
The king's visit, which runs through Friday, was marred by news of a fatal boating accident that killed seven people and injured 20 others, including two Dutch Embassy staff members.
Two boats – one carrying park rangers and the other carrying members of the presidential guard corps – collided on Monday while surveying a location to be visited by the Dutch royal couple in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan province, according to Yusuf Latief, spokesman for the national search and rescue agency.
Those killed included local military chief Bambang Kristianto, Yusuf said.
The royals planned to visit Palangkaraya on Wednesday to discuss conservation within the Borneo rainforest.
The king called the accident tragic.
"We are deeply saddened by the tragic boat accident, yesterday, on the Sebangau River," he said. "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and with the injured."
The king's office said the visit through Thursday would focus on economic ties, nature conservation, culture and science. The Netherlands is among the largest importers of Indonesia' palm oil.
On Tuesday, officials from both nations signed business deals valued at $1 billion (14.3 trillion rupiah) in the areas of sustainable palm oil production, human resource development and disease control.
"In the European region, the Netherlands is Indonesia's second largest trading partner, largest investor and fourth largest tourism contributor," Jokowi said.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia on Wednesday recorded its first death from the novel coronavirus, while the neighboring Philippines announced that a second person there had died of COVID-19 and the World Health Organization officially declared the fast-moving global outbreak a pandemic.
A 53-year-old British woman who had tested positive for the virus after arriving in Bali late last month for a vacation on the Indonesian island died at a local hospital, said Dewa Made Indra, the head of Bali's COVID-19 task force. The woman also suffered from diabetes, hypertension and a chronic lung disease, he said.
"Her treatment was carried out in accordance with the procedure for COVID-19 patients," he told journalists.
John Nickell, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Jakarta, confirmed the woman's death from the virus.
"We are supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Indonesia and are in contact with local authorities," he said in a statement.
At least 21 people who came into contact with the woman were being monitored for possible symptoms, Indra said.
The woman was among eight new novel coronavirus cases confirmed by the Indonesian health ministry on March 10. On Wednesday, officials said that seven more cases had been detected, bringing the nationwide total to 34 after Southeast Asia's most populous country announced its first cases on March 2. Authorities said 735 people had been tested for the virus.

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A medical worker dressed in protective gear pulls a gurney from an ambulance at Sanglah Hospital in Bali, Indonesia, March 11, 2020. [Reuters]

In the Philippines, health authorities said late Wednesday that a second person diagnosed with COVID-19 had died of the disease, in the first death recorded in the country since early February.
"The Department of Health (DOH) confirms circulating reports regarding the death of a confirmed COVID-19 patient in Manila," the department announced in a statement without going into details other than saying it was "currently gathering and validating more information on the reported death."
The department also confirmed 16 new cases of the coronavirus that raised the nationwide number to 49 detected cases, a number that has spiked since late last week.
Earlier this week, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared a national health emergency over the viral outbreak after health authorities on Saturday confirmed the first locally transmitted case of COVID-19.
On Wednesday in the Philippine capital, health workers assisted by the fire department sprayed disinfectant in normally crowded areas of Manila, including City Hall, near the central market as well as in the district of Santa Cruz, home to some of the city's slums.
Mall operators banned people who had a fever from going into their shops, and stationed guards who wore masks and were armed with temperature guns to check visitors.
"The DOH and deployed surveillance teams are now conducting extensive information-gathering and contact tracing activities on the new cases," the health department said, promising to provide more details as soon as the information became available.
Two of those who tested positive were among 445 Filipinos who were repatriated after serving as crew members or were passengers on the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that docked in Japan last month. As many as 35 Filipinos tested positive for the virus while on the ship, and were treated in Japanese hospitals.
"From the beginning, DOH was aware of the risk that some of the repatriates might test positive for COVID-19. This is why strict infection prevention and control measures were enforced during the quarantine period to protect our people and the health workers attending to them," Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.
"We commend the health workers who have been tirelessly caring for our repatriates for the past month. First, those from Wuhan, and now those from Japan. Their dedication to their work and their countrymen is truly inspiring," Duque said.
The outbreak has forced the cancellation of crucifixion reenactments scheduled for April 10 in farming villages around San Fernando city, north of Manila. About a dozen Catholics have themselves nailed to wooden crosses on Good Friday as penance for their sins in an event that attracts thousands of tourists, Agence France-Presse reported.
COVID-19, which first broke out in China's Wuhan city, has been spreading rapidly across the globe in recent weeks, with more than 113,000 cases detected in at least 109 countries and territories. At least 4,000 people have died, mostly in China, according to the latest information from the World Health Organization (WHO).
On Wednesday in Geneva, the U.N. agency finally came out to declare the outbreak a pandemic.
"This is the first pandemic caused by a #coronavirus," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a message posted on Twitter.
"We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic. This is the first pandemic that can be controlled," he added.
Visa on arrival revoked
Meanwhile, Thai officials announced that they were revoking visa-on-arrival programs with 18 nations and Taiwan following a meeting on COVID-19. Included on the list are China, India, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
"Travelers must seek visa at Thai Embassy and go through screening such as having medical certificate to lessen chance of spreading COVID-19," Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda said after the meeting.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who also attended the meeting, announced a harsher stance.
"Travelers from South Korea, China including Hong Kong and Macau, Italy and Iran must be quarantined at home with officials monitoring their conditions ... All visitors must apply for a visa like in the past," he said.
Thai officials announced six new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the nationwide total to 59.
Included among them were two immigration officers at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport, who may have handled passports from infected travelers, a health official told AFP.
In Malaysia, officials reported 20 new cases on Wednesday, increasing the total to 149. The health ministry reported it had been alerted by its counterparts in Brunei that one of the sultanate's confirmed cases had been to a gathering at a mosque in the Malaysian state of Selangor attended by 10,000 people, before returning home and showing symptoms.
On Sunday, Bangladesh confirmed its first three cases of COVID-19, two people who had traveled to Italy – one of the global hotspots of the viral outbreak – and a family member of one of the victims.
Wilawan Watcharasakwet in Bangkok contributed to this report


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia unveiled a U.S. $1.6 billion emergency stimulus plan on Friday to protect itself from the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed thousands worldwide, as other Southeast Asian countries also took aggressive steps to control their soaring numbers of infections.
In neighboring Malaysia, the new government banned mass gatherings until May and acknowledged that the country's tourism sector had been hit with losses of almost 3.4 billion ringgit (around $800 million) during the first two months of the viral outbreak.
"These won't be the last measures," Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters as she announced tax breaks that economists believe would drastically impact Southeast Asia's largest economy, pushing its budget deficit by 2.5 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), from an initial target of 1.78 percent.
As of Friday, Indonesia's confirmed that cases of infections had doubled to 69, and three more people had died of COVID-19, bringing the number of nationwide fatalities from the disease to four.
"We have taken serious steps, but once again, I say, at the same time, we do not want to create panic, do not want to create anxiety," Indonesian leader Joko "Jokowi" Widodo told reporters. "We all need to stay calm and work hard on this challenge."
Jokowi issued his statement as Malaysia's new prime minister said in a televised address that his government expected the outbreak to slash full-year GDP by up to 1.2 percent. In Kuala Lumpur, the health ministry said it had recorded 197 cases in Malaysia – a big spike from 39 on Thursday, with no reports of deaths.
"Based on current trends, this epidemic is expected to go on for a reasonably long period of time," Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said. "It will not end in the near future."
To mitigate the pandemic's impact, he said Malaysia would quickly implement a $4.7 billion stimulus package announced last month. Muhyiddin said religious and sports events and other mass gatherings would either be cancelled or postponed until after April as the government moved to control the epidemic.
The situation in other countries
As of Friday, the coronavirus has infected more than 132,000 people across the globe and killed almost 5,000, most of them in China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
On Friday, Thailand confirmed five more cases, bringing its tally of infections to 75, with one death reported.
The kingdom had earlier implemented a measure that would authorize disease control officials to issue quarantine orders or detain people suspected of carrying the virus.
But Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said it was "rather irrelevant to compare our efforts with those of other countries" in controlling the pandemic.
"It may not be right to jump to conclusion that the government is unable or failed to tackle problems before considering all perspectives of the issue," Prayuth said in a statement Friday.
Without providing figures, Prayuth said the epidemic could also deliver a "significant impact" and lead to an economic slowdown. He urged Thais "not to panic" over the pandemic as he expressed confidence that the government "will get through this crisis."
Thailand, whose robust tourism sector earned more than $60 billion from 39 million visitors last year, has temporarily suspended issuing visas-on-arrival to tourists from 19 countries and territories.
Last week, Bangkok designated six nations, including China, Italy and Iran, as "dangerous communicable disease areas" and urged people arriving from those areas to self-quarantine for 14 days.
In Bangladesh on Friday, health authorities said citizens returning home from abroad while carrying the coronavirus could face stiff penalties, including imprisonment of up to six months, for flouting quarantine regulations.
"The returnees [with confirmed coronavirus infections] from overseas, please remain in self quarantine," Mirjady Sabrina Flora, director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, told a news conference in Dhaka, warning that violators may face charges under the nation's law on epidemic diseases.
Flora made the statement days after the South Asian country of 165 million people confirmed its first three cases of the epidemic.
"We have asked the district officials to take action under the Communicable Disease Prevention, Control and Eradication Act 2018," Abul Kalam Azad, chief of the Directorate General of Health Services, told BenarNews without elaborating. 

Meanwhile, a wave of travel bans from Southeast Asia to the Middle East threatens to affect up to 12 million Filipinos working abroad, who remitted more than $35 billion last year – about 10 percent of the Philippines' GDP – according to World Bank figures.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday cancelled mass gatherings and ordered a sweeping lockdown of the capital, affecting 12 million people. In a televised announcement, he also ordered school closures for a month and prohibited domestic sea, air and land traffic in and out of Manila, starting Sunday.
Duterte, who has not experienced symptoms of the coronavirus, has opted to undergo tests in what officials had described as a precautionary move.
Manila has reported 52 coronavirus cases, with two fatalities as of Friday, according to WHO.
Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- The alleged leader of a militant group blamed for Indonesia's deadliest terror attack – the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people – went on trial on Wednesday, charged with a criminal conspiracy to carry out acts of terrorism.
Para Wijayanto, 55, suspected chief of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), could face the death penalty if found guilty under the country's tough anti-terrorism laws.
"[Para] planned or directed others to carry out acts of terrorism," chief prosecutor Solehudin said, reading out the indictment at the East Jakarta district court.
Court documents said Para restructured JI, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, after it was outlawed by a court in 2007.
"The defendant also wrote a new manual book on the JI struggle," the indictment said.
Para spent 140 million rupiah ($9,000) on military training for JI members to support global "jihad," the prosecution said.
A lawyer for Para, Faris, rejected the allegations and challenged the prosecutors to prove their indictment in court, but the trial was adjourned until April 1.
Police said last year that Para had been on Indonesia's most-wanted list since 2003. He was arrested in Bekasi near Jakarta in late June with his wife, Masitha Yasmin.
The JI threat
Police allege that Para assumed leadership of JI and rebuilt terror cells after 2007, when a court in the world's largest Muslim-majority country declared it an illegal organization.
In 2000, Para undertook military training in the southern Philippines, where he learned intelligence and bomb-making skills, according to authorities, who described the suspect as a civil engineering graduate from a reputable university in Java.
Para allegedly had roles in several deadly JI attacks, including the coordinated bombings on Christmas Eve 2000 that killed 18 people, and the 2002 Bali bombings.
Police have blamed JI members for other attacks including the 2003 bombing at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, in which 12 were killed, the 2004 attack on the Australian Embassy that killed nine, and the 2009 twin bombings at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed seven along with two suicide bombers.
In addition to his efforts in rebuilding JI, Para provided intelligence and helped recruit militants in Poso, Central Sulawesi province between 2005 and 2007, police said. Poso was the scene of previous clashes between Muslims and Christians that left thousands dead.
Sidney Jones, an expert on Islamic militancy in Indonesia and director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), said last year that while JI was a threat, she cautioned against lumping it with Islamic State (IS).
"As far as we know, JI leaders like Para Wijayanto and Abu Rusdan still see violence in Indonesia as counter-productive. They don't support violence and are fervently opposed to ISIS," Jones told BenarNews in July, using another acronym for the IS.
She said Para and other JI leaders wanted the group to expand gradually to create a Muslim state in Indonesia.
"That doesn't mean that they don't see violence as legitimate, it's just that they, for the time being, aren't engaged in violence because in their opinion, there's no public support and it creates more harm than good," she added.
Jones said JI had severed ties with its co-founder, cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is serving a 15-year-jail term, after he founded the Indonesian Mujahideen Council.
Bashir was arrested after the 2002 Bali bombings, but prosecutors could not link him to that attack. The cleric was jailed after his 2010 arrest and sentenced in 2011 to 15 years on charges that he helped fund a training camp for Islamic militants in Aceh province, and incited extremists to carry out terrorist attacks.
Last year, the government announced that Bashir, 80, would be released from custody on humanitarian grounds because of his age and ill health. Later, officials said Bashir could be paroled if he signed a pledge of allegiance to the state, but he refused to do so.


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BENARNEWS- A mass Muslim gathering in Indonesia has been cancelled amid fears it could accelerate the spread of novel coronavirus, but thousands of pilgrims have already travelled to the island of Sulawesi where it was due to take place, a local official said Wednesday.
The four-day gathering was organized by Tablighi Jamaat, the Muslim missionary movement whose event in Malaysia in late February has been linked to 508 of the country's 790 infections, as well as COVID-19 cases in other countries.
"After coordinating with the national police chief and the South Sulawesi regional police chief and Gowa District head all night, the Ijtima Jamaah Tabligh event, which will take place tomorrow, will be officially canceled," South Sulawesi Gov. Nurdin Abdullah said.
Although local officials had called for a postponement, "the local committee still held the event, so that thousands of participants from a number of regions in Indonesia and hundreds from abroad are already present," Nurdin said in an Instagram post.
Police will isolate the participants and take them back to seaports and airports "with necessary security," he said, calling for the public to remain calm.
An organizer of the event, Arifuddin Saeni, earlier told reporters that participants were "still coming."
"There are people from Thailand, Arabia, India and the Philippines," Reuters quoted Arifuddin as saying.
Local police chief Boy Samlo told BenarNews on Wednesday that he had not issued a permit for the gathering. "We are still trying to persuade the organizers to postpone it," he said.
Samlo declined to give an estimate for the number of participants, but The Australian newspaper quoted a local official from Gowa Regency as saying that as many as 3,000 pilgrims had already arrived, most of them from around Indonesia.
Coronavirus cases in Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have been traced to the international event held as Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur from Feb. 27 – March 1, with participants falling ill after returning home.
Autonomy
As Malaysia and the Philippines instituted lockdowns and banned group worship, and the World Health Organization appealed for "urgent measures" to stop the spread of coronavirus in Southeast Asia, sprawling and decentralized Indonesia was taking a different approach.
Officials in Jakarta had not issued comments on the events as of Wednesday. Since the fall of autocratic President Suharto in 1998, provincial governments have enjoyed a degree of autonomy in managing their affairs.
"Up to now, we have not considered planning a lockdown policy," Jokowi said in a statement issued from the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, on Monday. He urged Indonesians to avoid crowds and practice social distancing.
Indonesia's death toll from the pandemic jumped to 19 on Wednesday, from seven the previous day, while the number of confirmed cases rose to 227 after the discovery of 55 new infections, officials said.
But with mass gatherings cancelled across the globe, amid fears of the pandemic overwhelming hospitals and claiming many lives, about 7,000 people were expected to attend the inauguration Thursday of an archbishop Siprianus Hormat on Flores Island, in predominantly Christian East Nusa Tenggara province.
"Thousands are expected to attend, [around] 1,800 inside the church and 5,000 outside," Jalemu Ardu Marius, spokesman for the East Nusa Tenggara provincial government, told CNN Indonesia.
Thousands gather for prayer
In Bangladesh, tens of thousands of devotees attended a massive coronavirus prayer session on Wednesday without seeking permission to hold the public event, police said.
Local police chief Tota Miah said some 10,000 Muslims gathered in an open field in Raipur town in southern Bangladesh to pray "healing verses" from the Koran to rid the country of the deadly virus. Organizers claimed the number of worshippers was 25,000.
"They held the Khatme Shifa prayers after dawn to free the country from the coronavirus," Miah told the news service AFP.
The number of positive cases in the country of 168 million people stands at 14, with one death, although some medical experts fear not enough tests were being conducted.
Filipino participant died of COVID-19
In the southern Philippines, authorities said they were trying to track down dozens of people who attended the Muslim gathering in Malaysia.
But Zia Alonto Adiong, an official of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the effort was stymied by the reluctance of the Health Department in Manila to release the identities of the 17 coronavirus patients who have died thus far.
The Health Department said that one casualty, whom it identified as Patient No. 201, had travelled to attend the gathering in Kuala Lumpur.
"But we cannot cross-check his name to our list because the health department will not release the identity," Adiong said.
The patient died Tuesday at a medical center in Marawi City, and was later confirmed to be positive for COVID-19.
The global death toll from the pandemic has passed 8,600, with close to 208,000 confirmed cases, according to a tally Wednesday from the World Health Organization's Emergency Dashboard.
Recession Predicted
In Thailand, the country's Muslim authority or Sheikhul Islam cancelled Friday group prayer services in and around Bangkok and in "government controlled areas" around the country. But Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said the nation had no need to impose a lockdown.
"If we use the word lockdown, it sounds chaotic. ... We don't want that," Prayuth told reporters. "If it reaches that level, and I have to shut down (the country), what about food supplies? How do we live our lives?"
A prominent economist predicted a recession in Thailand due to COVID-19, as the nation reported its highest number of infections in a single day – 35, bringing the total to 212.
"The Thai economy at this time, is expected to enter a recession, in technical terms, in the first half of this year," Anusorn Thammajai, a prominent economist, told BenarNews.
"Growth was definitely negative in the first quarter, with the economy contracting by almost 2%, and growth may continue to be negative in the second quarter," he said.
The World Health Organization on Tuesday urged Southeast Asian countries to ramp up measures to combat COVID-19.
"The situation is evolving rapidly. We need to immediately scale up all efforts to prevent the virus from infecting more people," WHO regional director Poonam Khetrapal Singh in a statement.
Eight of the 11 countries in the Southeast Asian region have confirmed cases of COVID-19, officials said.
"More clusters of virus transmission are being confirmed," Singh said.
"We clearly need to do more, and urgently," she said, warning that some countries were clearly heading toward community transmission of the deadly virus.
Tia Asmara in Jakarta, Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Froilan Gallardo and Mark Navales in the Philippines, Pimuk Rakkanam and Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok, and Radio Free Asia, an online news service affiliated with BenarNews, contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- About 8,000 people who had planned to attend an international gathering organized by a Muslim group were quarantined Thursday in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province after the event was cancelled amid fears of the spread of COVID-19.
The move came as Indonesia's death rate from novel coronavirus infections hit 25, the highest in Southeast Asia, and President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo ordered his government to ramp up testing.
The religious event – which drew participants from across Indonesia and countries including Malaysia, Pakistan and India – was cancelled hours before opening, despite reports that hundreds of infections in eight countries had been traced to a similar gathering in Malaysia in February.
The gathering was to run through Sunday in South Sulawesi's Gowa Regency, but the local government cancelled it at the last minute following public outcry.
Ali Yubra Kamaruddin, a spokesman for the Muslim missionary group sponsoring the event, Tablighi Jamaat, said about 8,000 pilgrims who had already arrived were being quarantined.
"We have provided an isolation place away from local people and medical personnel to monitor their health," he told BenarNews. "Considering the circumstances, we decided to cancel the event. Participants who have not arrived have been asked not to come."
Regional police spokesman Ibrahim Tompo said security forces were guarding the location to prevent the pilgrims from leaving it.
Meanwhile, 411 foreigners from nine countries had been quarantined at a hotel and would be allowed to leave based on their ticket travel dates, the Associated Press reported, citing the local governor, Nurdin Abdullah. Indonesians would face a 14-day compulsory quarantine upon returning to their homes.
A similar event organized by Tablighi Jamaat at the Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur in late February had been linked to 579 of Malaysia's 900 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Thursday.
In addition, cases traced to the gathering have been confirmed in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.
1,500 attend ordination
On Thursday, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo called for more coronavirus testing as officials announced that six more people had died from COVID-19, making Indonesia's death toll of 25 the highest in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia now has 309 confirmed COVID-19 cases, Health Ministry spokesman Achmad Yurianto said, after 82 more people tested positive, the nation's biggest jump in infections a single day.
COVID-19 has infected more than 227,000 people and killed more than 9,300 worldwide, according to the latest figures compiled by infectious-disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
But even as the Muslim gathering was cancelled, about 1,500 people attended the ordination of a new Catholic archbishop on Indonesia's Flores island in the mainly Christian province of East Nusa Tenggara on Thursday, officials said.
Provincial spokesman Samuel Pakereng said those who attended had their temperatures checked and were given hand sanitizer.
Doni Munardo, the head of the Indonesia COVID-19 task force, had asked church officials to postpone the ceremony, according to CNN Indonesia.
"Please delay the inauguration ceremony of the archbishop of Ruteng, for humanitarian reasons," he said in text message seen by reporters on Thursday.
Mass coronavirus tests
Also on Thursday, Jokowi ordered his government to ramp up COVID-19 testing.
"Immediately carry out rapid tests with greater coverage to be able to detect early those people with COVID-19," Jokowi said in a video conference with ministers and other officials.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said up to 27 trillion rupiah ($1.7 billion) has been set aside to help support efforts to eradicate the coronavirus.
"The handling of COVID-19 will be a top priority and funding can come from money intended for programs that are of lesser priority," she told reporters.
The funds will be used to buy personal protective equipment for medical personnel, disinfectants, and test kits, and to improve the capacity of hospitals, she said.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said a military plane would be deployed to transport medical supplies from the Chinese city of Shanghai.
"The supplies include disposable masks, N95 masks, PPE (personal protective equipment), gloves, goggles, protective shoes and thermometers," Prabowo spokesman Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak said.
Jokowi ordered vacant towers used to house athletes during the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta be converted into a quarantine facility for up to 2,000 COVID-19 patients.
The president also revealed that he has not been infected.
"My wife Iriana and I took COVID-19 tests four days ago and the test results are negative, praise be to God," Jokowi told reporters.
Jokowi and cabinet ministers took the tests after Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi contracted the coronavirus and was hospitalized last week.
Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Ordinary citizens, activists and celebrities are raising money online to buy protective gear for health workers on the frontline of Indonesia's fight against COVID-19, which has killed at least five doctors and a nurse who treated infected people.
Hospital workers have gone on social media to raise awareness about the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks, gloves and hazmat suits.
On Friday, talk show host Najwa Shihab launched the "Unity against Coronavirus" fund-raising campaign featuring several musicians. Those efforts have raised more than 200 million rupiah (U.S. $12,000).
"As we stay home, thousands of medics are working hard, risking their lives to treat COVID-19 patients," she wrote on the local fundraising website kitabisa.com. "Let's show our solidarity with Indonesian medical workers who are on the front line in the fight against coronavirus."
A similar appeal by Instagram star Rachel Venya has raised more than 6.7 billion rupiah ($404,000) since its launch last week.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose to 579 on Monday, an increase of 65 from the previous day, according to the Health Ministry. Another patient died, bringing the nationwide death toll to 49, while 30 patients have recovered, ministry spokesman Achmad Yurianto said. Jakarta has become the country's coronavirus epicenter, with 353 cases and 29 deaths.
The Indonesian Doctors Association reported that five physicians and at least one nurse who treated COVID-19 patients had died after being infected with the disease, while another physician suffered a fatal heart attack caused by exhaustion.
The Indonesian death toll from the disease, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, is the largest among countries in Southeast Asia.
The pandemic so far has killed more than 16,300 people and infected at least 370,000 others worldwide, according to the latest data compiled by infectious-disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
On Monday, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo announced that medical workers who treat coronavirus patients would be given a monthly bonus of up to 15 million rupiah ($900) a month.
"The Ministry of Finance will provide monthly incentives. Specialists are given 15 million rupiah, general practitioners and dentists 10 million ($600), midwives and nurses 7.5 million ($450), and other medical personnel 5 million ($300)," Jokowi said.
Jokowi said the family of medical personnel who died would be given 300 million rupiah ($18,000) each.
Meanwhile, the former 2018 Asian Games athletes' village in central Jakarta that was converted into a facility to treat COVID-19 patients opened on Monday. The facility is equipped with a lab, pharmacy, radiology and intensive care unit.
Yurianto said it could treat up to 3,000 patients who exhibit mild to moderate symptoms.
PPE shortages
One Indonesian doctor treating coronavirus patients reported that, as a result of a shortage of protective gear, he was forced to wear a raincoat.
"It's getting harder by the day. Patients continue to come, most of them showing symptoms such as coughing, fever and difficulty breathing. I wore only a raincoat all day and the nurses were wearing plastic aprons," Gia Pratama, a doctor and writer, wrote on Twitter.
In addition, public and private hospitals have made online appeals for donations.
The Cempaka Putih Islamic Hospital in Jakarta posted that it had a shortage of N95 masks, hazmat suits, protective goggles and gloves.
Yurianto said help was on the way with the government planning to distribute 105,000 pieces of protective gear to health workers in 22 provinces.
"A total of 125,000 rapid test kits will also be distributed throughout Indonesia and we will start moving today," Yurianto said.
The military's Hercules C-130 cargo aircraft delivered 7.2 tons of protective clothing, 800 kg (1,760 pounds) of masks, 110 kg (241 pounds) of gloves and 775 kg (1,700 pounds) of protective glasses on Monday.
The supplies were donated by China to help Indonesia fight the outbreak, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto told reporters at Halim Perdanakusuma airbase in Jakarta.
"This is a form of international cooperation between friendly countries. We support and help each other," he said.
State of emergency
In Jakarta, Gov. Anies Baswedan imposed a 14-day state of emergency for the capital city on Monday. His order means that all entertainment outlets are to be closed and the public transportation network will run with a reduced fleet and operating hours.
Businesses have been urged to reduce to a minimum the number of employees on duty.
Some groups have raised funds online for street vendors, app-based taxi drivers and others who are affected by the closures.
Fund-raising campaigns could be a signal that the public is not pleased by the government's handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, said Paulus Wirutomo, a sociologist at the University of Indonesia.
"It could be the case, but it's also evidence that by working together, we can get through this tribulation," he told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- President Joko Widodo announced Wednesday that his 77-year-old mother had died of cancer and told his cabinet ministers not to travel to Central Java to pay respects but to stay in Jakarta to focus on the national health crisis over the coronavirus pandemic.
Jokowi, as he is called, traveled late Wednesday to his hometown of Solo where he said in remarks at a funeral home that Sudjiatmi Notomihardjo had died.
"For the past four years, she has suffered from an illness, namely cancer," he said.
"During those hard times, the deceased, all of us, with the support of doctors, tried and endeavored to seek treatment. But God wanted something else," he said separately, in an Instagram post.
Jokowi asked for prayers for his mother "from afar," and thousands of Indonesians posted condolences.
"It has been a rough year for you, sir, my deepest sympathy," wrote one Twitter user.
The Indonesian president has been consumed in recent days by efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic, announcing benefits for laid-off workers, cancelling school exams, touring hospital wards, giving pep talks and lecturing citizens about "physical distancing."
Presidential spokesman Fadjroel Rachman said cabinet ministers had been told to remain in Jakarta because the funeral Thursday would be a family affair, adding they should focus on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Wednesday, Indonesia had reported 790 confirmed infections, 104 of them new, and a total of 58 deaths. That death toll is the highest in Southeast Asia and represents a mortality rate above 7 percent.
More than 20,800 people have died and nearly 459,000 have been infected worldwide, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo gives remarks about the death of his mother, Sudjiatmi Notomihardjo, in Solo, Central Java, March 25, 2020. [Kusumasari Ayuningtyas/BenarNews]

Underreported
Indonesia is not under "lockdown" like some of its neighbors, but in the vast, decentralized archipelago nation, many cities and localities have declared emergencies and imposed restrictions. Both Jakarta and Solo are under a state of emergency.
Authorities in Papua province announced Wednesday they would shut down airports, sea ports and entrances on the border with Papua New Guinea, effective Thursday, imposing the most stringent measures anywhere in Indonesia. At least three cases have been confirmed in the region where health services are poor.
Experts said Indonesia's high COVID-19 mortality rate reflects underreporting of infections as well as relatively poor quality of health care.
"It is likely that the number of positive cases is eight to 10 times as many," said Joko Mulyanto, an epidemiologist at Jenderal Soedirman University and a doctorate student at University of Amsterdam.
"[T]he death rate also depends on the quality of health care," he added. "In, China 49 percent of those who were admitted to the ICU survived. In Indonesia, almost all of them died."
He warned that hospitals could be at full capacity by mid-April and raised alarms over how Indonesia would handle the pandemic if large numbers of health workers become infected.
"If 30 percent of hospital staff could not work, the health system would collapse," he said.
A professor of public health at University of Indonesia made a prediction about COVID-19 cases.
"I estimate that the peak will take place in a month. Now it is still very early," Hasbullah Thabrany told BenarNews. He noted that Indonesia has only 1,200 lung specialists.
"This disease focuses in the lungs. But in the next few days the number of positive cases might be equal to the number of lung specialist doctors," he said.
A spokesman for the Papua COVID-19 Task Force, Silwanus Sumule, said that on Wednesday, in addition to its confirmed cases, the province had 36 patients with coronavirus symptoms and 728 people under surveillance, including five foreigners.
He described the situation in Papua as "worrying" because of inadequate health facilities, including a lack of test kits.
"To examine the samples now we need seven to 10 hours per sample. We have information that we will receive assistance in the form of 2,400 rapid test kits from the Health Ministry. This is what we have been waiting for," Sumule said.
Of 45 hospitals in Papua, only 15 have been designated as referral hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients.
"If we take 20 percent of the population of Papua, there could be 800,000 people infected by COVID-19. Of those, 160,000 would have to be treated in hospitals and 8,000 of them would have to be put in isolation," Sumule said.
Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Separatist rebels killed a New Zealand national working at a giant gold and copper mine operated by U.S.-based Freeport-McMoran in Indonesia's Papua province and wounded two Indonesian employees during an attack on Monday, police said.
The attack was the latest violence to hit the Tembagapura area near the Grasberg mine, the world's largest gold mine. Since late February clashes between armed Papuan separatists and government security forces have left a police officer, a soldier and four insurgents dead.
"Members of the armed criminal group fired at three PT Freeport Indonesia employees," Papua police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal told BenarNews.
"One victim died and two others were wounded," he said.
Kamal identified the slain New Zealander as Graeme Thomas Wall, 57, and the other two injured employees as Jibril M.A. Bahar, 49, and Ucok Simanungkalit, 52. Jibril suffered gunshot wounds to his abdomen and right thigh, and Ucok was hit in the right elbow and back, Kamal said.
The shooting occurred in the company's office and housing area in Kuala Kencana, in Mimika regency, PT Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said.
"We are very saddened by the loss of a colleague who died in the shooting incident in the PT Freeport Indonesia office area, in Kuala Kencana," Riza told BenarNews.
He said all staff had been transferred to a safe area nearby.
"Our top priority is ensuring the safety of all employees and their families," Riza via a text message.
The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) operations commander, Hendrik Wamang, said his group was responsible for the shooting.
"It is better for Freeport to close down and stop all mining activities in the Timika region. We will not stay idle. We will continue to fight our way," Hendrik said in a statement.
Inspector General Paul Waterpauw, the Papua police chief, said the shootings were carried out by a separatist faction led by Joni Botak.
"At the moment a joint team (of soldiers and police) are in pursuit of the group," the state-run Antara news agency quoted him as saying.
Also on Monday, another Papuan separatist group, the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP), issued a statement about the attack on the employees at the Grasberg mine.
"The TPNPB has allegedly claimed responsibility. The ULMWP urges the international media to treat claims about the shooting with extreme caution," Benny Wenda, the ULMWP chairman said in a statement.
"There is a long history of the Indonesian military carrying out killings, posing as West Papuans, in order to justify further militarization, security deals, and crackdowns," he added. "Since its formation, the ULMWP has always advocated a peaceful approach to the political conflict, and we will not allow the Indonesian State to use this incident as another excuse to delegitimize and criminalize us."
A low-level separatist conflict has simmered since the 1960s in Papua and West Papua, a region located on Papua Island at the far eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. The region declared its independence from Dutch colonial rule on Dec. 1, 1961. But that was rejected by the Netherlands and later by Indonesia.
In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded the region and annexed it. Six years later, the region held a referendum in which security forces selected slightly more than 1,000 people to agree to Papua's formal absorption into the nation, according to human rights advocacy groups.
Papua was rocked by weeks of violence in August and September last year after news about allegations that security forces on Java Island had mistreated Papuan students ignited mass protests. The unrest left more than 40 people dead.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered tougher and widespread social restrictions on Monday to stem the spread of COVID-19, amid warnings from health experts that the government's current intervention policies could be setting the stage for more than 140,000 deaths by mid-May.
Indonesia has the highest COVID-19 death toll among Southeast Asian countries, but authorities had so far ruled out so-called "lockdowns," saying social distancing and travel restrictions were enough to contain the virus in the vast, decentralized archipelago nation of 260 million.
"I'm seeking large-scale social restrictions, stricter and more disciplined and effective physical distancing," Jokowi said at the start of his cabinet meeting. "And this needs to be accompanied by civil emergency measures."
Indonesia recorded 129 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 1,414, with 122 deaths, the Health Ministry said.
A study commissioned by Indonesia's National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) made public on Friday said the nation needed strong government intervention to curb COVID-19-related deaths to 11,000.
Its modeling suggested that under a mild intervention scenario, Indonesia could see the death toll exceeding 144,000 from an estimated 1.5 million cases by May, according to the study.
Pandu Riono, an epidemiologist at University of Indonesia who worked on the study, described measures currently taken by Indonesia as mild intervention.
"These are only approximate figures and we hope this won't happen. Therefore, we are calling for stronger government intervention," Pandu told BenarNews. "We still have time."
Jakarta has been the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan called the city's situation "worrying," with hundreds of positive cases including 81 health workers in 30 hospitals.
Government statistics from Monday showed 698 confirmed infections and 74 deaths in the capital city.
But Anies suggested that some of 283 people buried in the capital in March could have been victims of the virus. "[T]hey had not been tested, or were tested but the results were still pending when they died," he said.
"I have instructed community leaders to monitor residents who are vulnerable to contracting COVID with underlying conditions. If there are elderly people living alone, they must be accompanied," he said.
Jakarta and some provinces have closed schools, shut down entertainment centers and ordered businesses to allow employees to work from home.
Officials have also urged Indonesians not to return to their hometowns in May to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month, which is expected to start on April 23.

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Indonesians wear facemasks as a precaution against the COVID-19 outbreak during obligatory Friday prayers at a mosque in Surabaya, capital of East Java province, March 20, 2020. [AFP]

90 boarding school students among Malaysia cases
In neighboring Malaysia, health authorities confirmed 156 more coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the total number of infections to 2,626, almost half of whom were linked to an international Islamic gathering held near Kuala Lumpur last month.
Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said 90 students of a Muslim boarding school had contracted COVID-19, in a cluster of cases "most probably" linked to the gathering.
"Initially when we went in, there were 71 positive cases, when we went in again today it spiked to 90 positive cases in total at the school and one outside," Noor told reporters, referring to the Maahad Tahfiz An-Nabawiyyah residential school in Hulu Langat, a district in Selangor state.
Malaysia announced on Monday that it would enforce tighter restrictions starting April 1. The nation took the move after police arrested more than 800 people on Sunday for flouting curbs on movement aimed at blocking the pandemic's spread.
Defense Minister Ismail Sabri told reporters that the enhanced restrictions would include limiting operating hours for grocery shops, supermarkets, convenience stores and gas stations from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Worldwide, at least 37,000 people have died and more than 775,000 have been infected by the coronavirus, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Thai Deep South region extends lockdown
In Thailand's restive Deep South, authorities extended a lockdown on Monday to contain the spread of COVID-19, as confirmed cases in the predominantly Muslim border region topped 100 and a second local person died of the disease, authorities said.
"After a rapid increase in infections, to contain the spread and unfavorable factors, the provinces need to adopt strict measures," according to the lockdown order sent to Deep South officials.
The Deep South, which has seen years of violence from a separatist insurgency, borders Malaysia and encompasses the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala, as well as four districts in neighboring Songkhla.
The lockdown allows only official travel and entry and exit of supply trucks. Violators could face up to two years in prison.
Thailand reported 136 new cases Monday, bringing its tally of infections to 1,524, with nine fatalities. Under the Buddhist-majority nation's state of emergency, which began on Thursday, about 400 checkpoints had been set up to screen for COVID-19.
While Thailand's restrictions on movement have not been as sweeping as in countries such as the Philippines, it has enacted stronger measures to combat the pandemic, including closing bars and shutting down schools.
Also on Monday, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha approved 1.5 billion baht (about $46 million) to buy medical supplies and equipment from China, Dr. Sukhum Kanchanapimai, permanent secretary for the Public Health Ministry, told reporters.
"We could immediately import 400,000 pieces ... and can distribute them nationwide," Sukhum said.
Mariyam Ahmad in Pattani, Thailand contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia will release some 30,000 inmates early to prevent the coronavirus from spreading inside prisons, the ministry in charge of corrections facilities said Tuesday, as the president declared a national emergency over the health crisis.
Prisoners who would have served two-thirds of their sentences by December 2020 were to be freed, said a decree signed on Monday by Yasonna Laoly, the minister of law and human rights.
Juvenile inmates who would have served half their sentences by December were also set to be released, according to the decree, a copy of which BenarNews saw.
"The number is about 30,000 and the decree came into force at the time of the signing," Rika Aprianti, a spokeswoman for the ministry's director general of corrections, told BenarNews.
Most of Indonesia's prisons are overcrowded, officials have said.
Andreas Harsono, an Indonesian researcher at Human Rights Watch, urged the government to release political prisoners as well to help curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). These include pro-independence activists from Papua province and people who pose a relatively small security threat, he said.
The country's prisons and detention centers hold almost 270,000 inmates, more than double the total capacity, he said. 

"The Ministry of Law and Human Rights, which manages prisons, should also look at alternatives to custody or consider early releases or parole for detainees, who are near the end of their prison terms or who pose little security risk, such as those imprisoned for unpaid fines," he said in a statement.
"Those with underlying health conditions and older people at high risk of suffering serious effects from the virus should be given priority," Harsono said.
As of Tuesday, Indonesia had confirmed 1,528 coronavirus cases and 136 deaths from the disease, the Health Ministry said. The numbers are an increase of 114 and 14, respectively, from Monday.
The capital, Jakarta, is the epicenter of the outbreak in Indonesia, with 747 confirmed cases and 83 deaths.
COVID-19 has spread to 31 of 34 provinces in Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia. Jakarta and some other jurisdictions have closed schools and entertainment centers while restricting travel.
Without stronger government intervention Indonesia could see an estimated 1.5 million COVID-19 infections and 144,000 deaths, according to a study conducted by health experts at the University of Indonesia that was released last week.
Globally, more than 40,700 people have died and at least 823,000 have been infected, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Health emergency
Meanwhile, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo declared a national health emergency.
"We have decided at the cabinet meeting that our option is large-scale social restrictions," he said Tuesday.
Jokowi did not provide details, but Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said some of the restrictions would affect travel, and that non-resident foreigners would be barred from entering the country.
"Exceptions will be made for permanent residents, diplomats and other official visitors," Retno told reporters.
The ban will take effect on April 2 and end when authorities deem the pandemic to be under control, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights said in a statement.
Also on Tuesday, Jokowi announced that he had signed a decree allowing the government to increase spending to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. The expenditure would widen the 2020 budget deficit to 5.07 percent of the gross domestic product.
The president said the government would set aside an additional 405.1 trillion rupiah (U.S. $24.8 billion) to be spent on medical supplies and social safety-net programs.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia, with 170 fatalities, surpassed South Korea on Thursday as the Asian country with the second highest death toll from COVID-19 as Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said his government would not prevent people from traveling to their hometowns to celebrate Eid al-Fitr amid the pandemic.
Jokowi's statement came as prison authorities announced on Thursday that 18,000 inmates had been released to curtail the spread of coronavirus in the nation's overcrowded prison system.
"I want to encourage participation at the community level ... so that revellers who come from greater Jakarta can self-isolate (in their hometowns)," Jokowi said at a cabinet meeting.
The government was considering granting more holidays in the future to compensate for people's inability to celebrate Eid, he said.
Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim festival marking the end of the Ramadan, Islam's holy month of fasting, is expected to fall on May 24, subject to the sighting of the new moon. Last year, almost 15 million people traveled from the greater Jakarta region to their hometowns across the world's largest Muslim-majority country.
COVID-19 cases
Indonesia recorded 13 new deaths on Thursday to bring the total to 170 and 113 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the national tally to 1,790, according to the Health Ministry.
"One child aged 11 died of dengue shock syndrome and COVID-19 in East Java," ministry spokesman Achmad Yurianto told BenarNews.
The number of confirmed deaths in Indonesia is the highest in Asia outside China. South Korea has recorded 169 fatalities so far, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Globally, 51,485 people have died and more than 1,002,159 have been infected, the JHU's Coronavirus Resource Center said.
Despite the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said that the decision to allow Eid travel was intended to "keep the economy alive."
He appealed to Eid revellers to stay put, saying that the government would provide compensation for those who comply. He did not elaborate.
"Please realize that that if you go home, you may bring the disease," Luhut said.
Holiday travelers will be subjected to rapid coronavirus tests to minimize infections, he said, adding that details were being worked out.
Juvenile offenders among inmates released
Rika Aprianti, a spokeswoman for the Corrections Directorate General, said among the 18,000 inmates released so far were juvenile offenders and adult prisoners who had served at least two-thirds of their sentences.
"Our target is to release 30,000 inmates in total, but it could end up being more," she told AFP news service. "This is part of the plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prisons."
Previously, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said corruption convicts should be among inmates eligible for early release to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Prisoners who would have served two-thirds of their sentences by December 2020 were to be freed under assimilation and reintegration schemes, according to a decree signed by Yasonna.
But under a 2012 government regulation, corruption convicts are exempt from the program.
Yassona argued that the regulation should be revised to allow 300 graft inmates who are older than 60, many of them former high-ranking government officials and wealthy businessmen, to be released early.
"We will propose the emergency revisions to the president," he told lawmakers on Wednesday.
But the proposal drew criticism from anti-corruption activists.
"This is an opportunistic and shady move to change the rules under the pretext of coronavirus," Donal Fariz, a campaigner at Indonesia Corruption Watch, told a news conference.
He said Yassona had sought to have the regulation revised since 2015.
Andreas Harsono, an Indonesian researcher at Human Rights Watch, had urged the government to release political prisoners as well to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. These include pro-independence activists from Papua province and people who pose a relatively small security threat, he said.
The country's prisons and detention centers hold almost 270,000 inmates, more than double the total capacity, he told BenarNews.
Islamic State update
Meanwhile, a Jakarta-based think-tank said it had monitored a "reduced level" of pro-Islamic State activity in Indonesia as a result of the pandemic.
"The number of arrests under Indonesia's counter-terrorism law fell in the first three months of 2020," the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) said in a report released Thursday.
It said 23 suspects were arrested across the country during that period, compared with 68 arrested and indicted in the previous three months (October to December 2019).
IPAC warned that Indonesian authorities need to monitor fund-raising efforts in connection with the virus, including appeals for protective equipment for health workers.
"Most of the private fund-raising efforts taking place in connection with the pandemic are going to be legitimate, but the history of Indonesia over the last two decades has been that whenever disasters occur, extremists seek to benefit," the report said.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's Islamic affairs authority issued an unprecedented edict Friday forbidding Muslim revelers from traveling home for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, saying to do so would be a sin as the most world's populous Muslim-majority nation grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.
The statement from the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) marked the first time it forbade Muslims from returning to their home villages and towns for the holiday, an annual tradition when millions of people hit the road to celebrate the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
"The virus spreads very easily. Doing something like that at a time of a pandemic is haram [forbidden]," Anwar Abbas, secretary general of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), said in the statement which is not enforceable by law.
The council issued its statement a day after President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said people could travel to celebrate Eid in their hometowns late next month provided that they self-isolate. Previously, his government had discouraged citizens from going home for Eid because of public health concerns around the viral outbreak.
Vice President Ma'ruf Amin, who serves as MUI chairman, said he had sought a fatwa (a non-binding legal opinion) forbidding Muslims from traveling to their hometowns.
"I will try to push the MUI to issue a fatwa. There are already fatwas on Friday prayers and the handling of the corpses (of people who died of coronavirus)," he said during a video conference with West Java Gov. Ridwan Kamil, who had requested that the council issue a religious edict on the home-coming tradition known as mudik.
"If there's a fatwa from ulema, people will listen," Ridwan told Ma'ruf.
This year's Eid al-Fitr festival is expected to fall on May 24, subject to the sighting of the new moon. Last year, almost 15 million people traveled from the greater Jakarta region to their hometowns and villages across the sprawling archipelago.
On Friday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Indonesia rose to nearly 1,986 after 196 new cases were reported – the biggest one-day jump during the outbreak, the Health Ministry said. In addition, the death toll rose to 181 – 11 more than on Thursday.
Also on Friday, the Reuters news service reported that nearly 4,400 burials occurred in the capital Jakarta last month alone, a number that was 40 percent higher than any month since at least January 2018. The figure, based on a review by Reuters of cemetery statistics, cited the governor of the Jakarta region as saying this suggested that the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 could be higher than officially reported.
Globally, more than 58,000 people have died and more than 1 million have been infected, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

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Indonesian Muslims attend congregational Friday prayers in Medan, North Sumatra, April 3, 2020. (AFP)

June-July peak
The State Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, warned that the viral outbreak in Indonesia could peak in June or July with more than 105,000 cases.
This week, Jokowi declared a national health emergency and ordered large-scale social restrictions.
But on Thursday he decided to allow Eid revelers to travel to their hometowns and urged authorities at village level to monitor visitors to ensure that they comply with self-isolation orders.
"I want to encourage participation at the community level ... so that revelers who come from greater Jakarta can self-isolate (in their hometowns)," Jokowi said at a cabinet meeting.
The government was considering granting more holidays in the future to compensate for people's inability to celebrate Eid, he said.
Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said the decision to allow Eid travel was intended to "keep the economy alive."
Holiday travelers will be subjected to rapid coronavirus tests to minimize infections, he said, adding that details were being worked out.
Authorities in several provinces, including the capital, Jakarta, have closed schools and entertainment centers while urging businesses to allow employees to work from home.
About 300,000 train tickets had been canceled following the government's earlier calls to postpone travel ahead of Eid, according to the state-railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI).
A spokesperson for PT Kereta Api Indonesia, Yuskal Setiawan, said passengers had cancelled their tickets from March 23 to March 30, adding the railway would refund tickets cancelled through April 15.


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BENARNEWS- The Indonesian Medical Association expressed alarm Monday after the number of doctors who died of COVID-19 jumped to 25, and urged the government to be transparent about its coronavirus data amid criticism about low testing rates.
Health authorities confirmed 218 new infections on Monday, the biggest daily rise during the pandemic in Southeast Asia's most populous nation, taking the national tally to 2,491. The national death toll rose to 209 after officials recorded 11 new coronavirus-related deaths.

"We need data that everyone can refer to and can be the basis for preventive strategies for health workers, so that we can focus on tackling COVID-19," Halik Malik, spokesman for the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) told BenarNews.
Naek L. Tobing, a well-known columnist on sexual health, was the latest physician to die of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, Halik said.
At least 18 other doctors and six dentists have died from the pneumonia-like disease, he said, as he also called on the government to be transparent about the number of health workers who had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
On Monday, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said that Indonesia was not among the 10 countries hit hardest by the virus.
"Let the public be aware that Indonesia is not alone in facing this epidemic, to put things in perspective," he told reporters.
Globally, more than 73,700 people have died and almost 1,325,000 have been infected, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Halik demanded that the government ensure the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for all health workers.
"If more health workers test positive (for COVID-19), health services will be disrupted, not to mention that they could transmit the disease to patients and their families," he said.
Indonesia has one doctor per 3,000 people, compared to about five for neighboring Malaysia, according to the World Bank.
The chairman of the COVID-19 task force, Doni Monardo, said he would ask authorities to compel some doctors and dentists to avoid practicing their professions during the coronavirus outbreak.
Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said last week that there were more than 8,400 ventilators in 2,867 hospitals across the archipelago nation of 260 million people.
He told parliament that Indonesia had more than 40,000 specialist doctors and 11,000 medical interns.
Meanwhile, Jokowi urged authorities on Monday to increase the capacity of laboratories, amid criticism about the country's low rates of testing.
"The speed of laboratory examinations should be increased, so that we can find out test results more quickly," Jokowi said.
So far, the government has tested 11,500 people using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method, said COVID-19 task force spokesman Achmad Yurianto.
Yurianto said the government had distributed 390,000 pieces of PPE to all hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients and would continue to send more until the outbreak is under control. About 50,000 test kits would be arriving in Jakarta from South Korea on Sunday, local reports said.
No Mass Eid Prayers
Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi said on Monday all congregation prayers including tarawih during the fasting month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr prayers would be banned to curb the spread of COVID-19.
"The tarawih prayers should be performed individually or in congregation with the family at home. Eid gatherings can be done through social media and video calls," Razi said in a ministry circular distributed last week.
Ramadan is expected to start on April 23, subject to the sighting of the new moon.
He also said there would be no iftar (breaking of the fast) gatherings at government offices, in mosques and private companies during Ramadan.
The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest mass Islamic organization, has also urged Muslims to follow government recommendations on COVID-19 prevention.
"To all NU members, always obey guidelines and policies of the central and regional governments to prevent the spread of COVID-19," NU deputy chairman Robikin Emhas said in a circular last week.
On Friday, the Indonesian Council of Ulema, the country's Islamic affairs authority, issued a statement forbidding Muslim revelers from traveling home for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, saying to do so during the coronavirus pandemic would be a sin.
Bangladesh bans group prayers at all mosques
Other Muslim-majority nations, such as Bangladesh, have also taken drastic steps, including restricting the size of Friday prayers and daily prayers at mosques, to control the daily spike in COVID-19 infections. 

"The disease (coronavirus) is spreading through mass gatherings at mosques, temples, pagodas and other religious centers. Our neighboring countries have experienced such incidents," the Bangladeshi religious affairs ministry said in a statement Monday.

It said the government's move to restrict Friday prayers was in line with opinions of Muslim scholars, as well as Saudi Arabia's decision last month to temporarily halt daily prayers inside and outside the walls of the two mosques in Mecca and Medina.
Only 10 people, including five mosque officials, will be allowed for Friday prayers at mosques, according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Bangladesh, with a population of 165 million, has so far reported a total of 123 cases of coronavirus infections and 12 deaths.
The South Asian country, where testing is not widespread, has ordered a 10-day break from work and later extended the shutdown of job activities to April 14 to tackle the spread of the coronavirus. The government has also unveiled a multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package to prop up key industries battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Malaysia announces stimulus package
On Monday, Malaysia announced a $2.3 billion stimulus package to lighten the financial impact of COVID-19, following an earlier round of support outlay announced last month, bringing the government's total economic package to 260 billion ringgit ($59.6 billion).
In a report released last week, the World Bank slashed economic growth forecasts in Southeast Asia, with predictions that Malaysia and Thailand would plunge into recession even in a best-case scenario.
Malaysia, which has reported 62 deaths and 3,793 coronavirus infections – the highest reported number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia – imposed restrictions on movement and ordered schools and some shops to close since March 18 in a bid to block the pandemic's spread. Authorities had extended the initial two-week lockdown to April 14 as the government ordered more stringent restraints.
Also on Monday, Malaysia's foreign ministry said 161 of its nationals who had participated in a religious gathering in New Delhi last month had been placed under quarantine by the Indian government.
"From the total, 126 were at various quarantine centers in New Delhi while 35 others outside New Delhi," Deputy Foreign Minister Kamarudin Jaffar said in a press statement.
The ministry also acknowledged that New Delhi authorities had arrested eight Malaysian nationals believed to have joined an event organized in March near the Indian capital by Tablighi Jamaat, a prominent Muslim missionary group. It did not provide details.
New Delhi authorities imposed a citywide lockdown starting on March 23, followed by a national one starting March 25, after hundreds of coronavirus cases were linked to the Tablighi gathering.
India has reported 4,778 confirmed cases with 136 deaths as of Monday, according to JHU's latest data.
Malaysian health authorities, meanwhile, announced on Monday that about 82 people linked to a mass gathering in February at a church in Sarawak state had been infected by the virus and two deaths had been reported among that cluster of confirmed cases.
Noah Lee and Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur and Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian police are searching for a group of men suspected of burning to death a transgender woman whom they had accused of stealing a wallet and a mobile phone.
The transgender, identified as Mira, was allegedly attacked and burned alive by five men in the Cilincing area in North Jakarta on Saturday, said Sandya Institute, a group that advocates for sexual minorities and human rights.
Mira died of her injuries the next day in a North Jakarta hospital, it said. "We at Sandya Institute condemn this incident and demand justice for Mira," Sandya Institute executive director Roberto said in a statement.
Wirdhanto Hadicaksono, chief investigator at the North Jakarta police, confirmed the incident but did not give details, pending results of an investigation.
"It is true that a transgender was set on fire in the Cilincing area," Wirdhanto said.
"We are pursuing the perpetrators. Let's hope the case will be uncovered soon," he told BenarNews.
Amnesty International called on authorities to urgently investigate the murder.
"This despicable murder must be investigated urgently," Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesia's executive director, said in a statement.
"Without prompt action from the authorities to cast light on this horrifying crime and bring perpetrators to justice, transgender people in Indonesia will feel even further neglected and vilified by their government," he said.
A neighbor witnessed the attack, according to a local news portal.
The Suara.com news site reported that Mira was attacked by a truck driver, who accused her of stealing his wallet and cellphone.
The driver then called some of his friends believed to be local thugs, one of whom allegedly poured gasoline on Mira's body and set her on fire after kicking her, Suara.com said, citing a neighbor's account.
"I said, 'Don't pour gasoline on her. She's a human being,'" the neighbor, identified by the initials O.N., was quoted as saying by the news portal.
"They didn't listen to me. There was little I could do," the neighbor said.
Sandya Institute urged the government to protect the transgender community from violence and harassment.
"It should also be noted that a transgender was set on fire during the COVID-19 crisis, which has put additional pressure on transgender people," said Roberto, who uses only one name, like many in Indonesia.
Thousands of persecution cases
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, meanwhile, have criticized Indonesian officials during the past few years for alleged anti-LGBT statements and discriminatory policy proposals.
Arus Pelangi, an NGO that promotes the rights of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community,  said it had recorded 1,850 cases of attacks and discrimination against transgender people between 2006 and 2018.
"Violence against transgenders is not only carried out by members of the public but also authorities," said Roberto of the Sandya Institute.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's government has been criticized for failing to curb anti-gay rhetoric and actions by officials in recent years.
Police have raided places frequented by gay people and briefly detained hundreds suspected of being homosexual.
Several local governments have also cracked down on LGBT people.
In 2018, the Pariaman city government in West Sumatra province issued a bylaw that imposes a fine of up to 1 million rupiah (U.S. $62) on LGBT people "who conduct activity that disturbs public order" or commit "immoral acts with the same sex."
In 2017, a 30-year-old transgender woman named Zoya was burned to death in Bekasi, a city in West Java province, after several men accused her of stealing an amplifier from a local mosque, Amnesty International said.


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BENARNEWS- Southeast Asian leaders agreed at a special online summit on Tuesday to ensure a social safety net for the region's vulnerable populations and backed reallocating funds toward fighting the COVID-19 outbreak.
The leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later in the day held a separate online summit with leaders from China, Japan and South Korea to discuss the global public health crisis, whose ripple effects have battered economies worldwide. Tuesday's meetings were held via video-calls because of COVID-19 concerns.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the chairman of ASEAN in 2020 and whose country hosted the regional bloc's special summit, said all its members were struggling to prevent the coronavirus from negatively affecting their people.
"It is in these grim hours that the solidarity of the ASEAN community shines like a beacon in the dark," he said in his opening statement.
Nations in the bloc, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, have recorded more than 20,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 900 deaths from the disease.
In a joint statement, the members agreed to: "Cooperate in ensuring a social safety net for our people, preventing social disruption and instability as a consequence of negative impact of the pandemic, continue efforts to design and implement risk-informed and shock-responsive social protection systems to reduce the vulnerabilities of at-risk populations and improve their overall resilience."
In addition, members said they would intensify cooperation to obtain adequate provisions of medicine, essential medical supplies and equipment including diagnostic tools and personal protective equipment.
They also agreed to support reallocating existing funds to battle the pandemic and to establish a "COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund."
"We have no choice but to unite to fight this virus," Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said.
While the ASEAN leaders did not set a target amount for the fund, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said it should be used to procure test kits, personal protective equipment and medical tools.
In addition, it should be used to support research and development in medicines and vaccines to help ASEAN become more self-reliant, he said.
Thai officials said the fund should involve reallocating 10 percent of existing ASEAN development funds along with donations from the so-called Plus Three nations – China, Japan and South Korea.
Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, called for closer cooperation in the face of what he called "an unfolding catastrophe – unprecedented in scale and devastating in impact for all."
"We are particularly concerned with food security in this period of lockdowns. Our most urgent priority is ensuring sufficient supply of rice for our people," Duterte said.
The Philippine leader said ASEAN must be open for trade.
"Crisis or no crisis, no country can stand alone," he said. "Let us, therefore ensure the supply chain connectivity and the smooth flow of goods within our region."
Duterte called on ASEAN to establish an early warning system to prepare for future pandemics.
"We have to improve and expand existing ASEAN's mechanisms to cover public health emergencies," he said.
Malaysia's leader urged his ASEAN counterparts to start discussing an economic recovery plan focusing not just on the financial aspects, but also on social safety nets.
"We must not allow ASEAN to revert back to our comfort zone – but make ASEAN emerge as a new growth center, a new power-house not just for our 600 million people, but for the world," Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told the summit.
During the ASEAN Plus Three meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed establishing a regional center for infectious diseases.
"International cooperation is essential for combating the virus that is spreading beyond borders," Abe said, according to Japanese media. "We should share information and knowledge in a free, transparent and swift manner."
The proposal drew support from the other participants.
"ASEAN countries agreed to act on Japan's proposal and discuss it further," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.
Li Keqiang, the premier of China, where the coronavirus was detected, meanwhile proposed establishing a fast route for essential personnel to travel to other countries, according to a news release from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta.
"Keqiang said that APT countries need to leverage their strengths in economic complementarity and strong business ties to further ease tariffs, eliminate barriers, boost the flow of trade and investment, and keep markets open to each other, in an effort to restore growth in East Asia as quickly as possible," it said, referring to the ASEAN Plus Three countries.
"With all the necessary control measures in place, we should consider opening a 'fast-track lane' for essential personnel on urgent visits in the areas of commerce, logistics, production and technological services. This will be conducive to maintaining the necessary flow of people and goods and stabilizing the industrial and supply chains."
ASEAN lawmakers welcomed Tuesday's online summits before they got into full swing.
"It's high time that ASEAN leaders get together to find a regional response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis," Charles Santiago, a Malaysian MP who chairs the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said in a statement issued by the group.
"Neither the virus nor the consequences of the measures taken to stop the pandemic will stop at one's border. The current situation, as well as the management of its long term impact, requires regional solidarity and a global solution," he added.
Deadly day in Indonesia
The ASEAN leaders met on the day that Indonesia recorded its highest single-day death count since Southeast Asia's most populous nation confirmed its first coronavirus cases in early March.
The toll rose to 459 after 60 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, according to the country's COVID-19 task force. The number of confirmed cases increased by 282 to 4,839, task force spokesman Achmad Yurianto said.
Worldwide nearly 122,000 people have died and nearly 2 million have been infected by COVID-19, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
In a report issued over the weekend, epidemiological experts at the University of Indonesia warned that COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization could hit 1 million on the main island of Java by July if the government did not ban people from traveling to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan.
The government previously banned civil servants, soldiers and police from taking part in the annual exodus. The ban did not cover the rest of nation.
Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, downplayed the prediction even though Indonesia has the highest COVID-19 death toll in East Asia outside of China.
"So far, I believe, Indonesia is in good shape," Pandjaitan told reporters on Tuesday.
Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Lex Radz in Kuala Lumpur and Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Police in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province shot and killed two suspected members of a militant group linked to Islamic State (IS) on Wednesday, a spokesman said.
Earlier in the day, the suspected members of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) had shot and wounded a police officer outside a bank in the town of Poso, provincial police spokesman Didik Supranoto said.
Footage from a surveillance camera seen by BenarNews showed one of the men pointing a gun at the officer as he parked his motorcycle in front of the bank.
The officer put up a fight, but one of the attackers shot him in the chest, while the other tried to seize his weapon.
Police chased the attackers who escaped on a motorbike and killed them in an ensuing gun battle, Didik said.
"Our officers were forced to take firm action because they put up a fight," Didik told BenarNews.
Didik said the two men had been on the list of people wanted for involvement with MIT, whose leaders have pledged allegiance to IS.
The spokesman said police found homemade bombs wrapped around the bodies of the two suspects, whom he identified as Ali (alias Darwin Gobel) and Muis Fahron (alias Abdullah), as well as a handgun, a mobile phone and a bullet. He did not elaborate on the bombs.
Didik said the men joined MIT in 2018. Previously, police said that group's membership had been reduced to seven people, but new recruits raised its number to 16, including its leader Ali Karola.
Poso police chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Darno said officers raided a nearby house believed to be the suspects' hideout and found bullets, homemade bombs and a motorbike.
Central Sulawesi police chief Inspector Gen. Syafril Nursal told reporters in Poso that the remains of the suspects would be brought to a police hospital in Palu, the provincial capital, for formal identification.
Didik said the wounded officer was in stable condition.
The director of the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Development in Central Sulawesi, Mohammad Affandi, criticized the police for using lethal force.
"The two MIT members should have been captured alive so the motive for the attack and their network could be revealed," Affandi told BenarNews.
The government launched Operation Tinombala, a joint military-police task force, in January 2016 with a mission to capture or kill MIT militants.
Santoso, who led MIT before being killed by security forces in 2016, was the first Indonesian militant to publicly pledge allegiance to IS.
The militant leader had operated out of the mountains in Poso where he conducted para-military training for militants. The training sessions drew recruits from other parts of Indonesia, as well as from abroad, including at least six Uyghurs, Indonesian authorities said.
The world's largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesia has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks in the past two decades, with more recent strikes being blamed on militants affiliated with IS.


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BENARNEWS- During a special online meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts to discuss regional efforts to combat COVID-19, Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo spoke up for migrant workers affected by the pandemic.
The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc agreed later on Tuesday to ensure a social safety net for their countries' most vulnerable people. But they but did not mention migrants in a joint statement issued after their meeting and a similar online meeting with officials from Japan, South Korea and China.
"I appreciate the good cooperation among Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to protect migrant workers," Jokowi said during the meeting.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi pointed out that nearly 7 million workers migrate among ASEAN nations, calling them the heart of "our community building process."
"As each ASEAN country adopts their own national measures to contain COVID-19, we must not lose sight of our commitment to assisting and protecting our nationals, particularly the vulnerable ones, in other ASEAN countries," Retno wrote in an op-ed published in the Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
"With more than 1 million Indonesians working in Singapore and Malaysia, I have been in close contact with my counterparts to ensure the protection of our migrant workers in their respective countries," she wrote.
Throughout the region, migrants are facing tough times coping with the COVID-19 outbreak, workers and NGOs that advocate for them say.
In Thailand, Nich Wan, a Cambodian from Battambang, who had worked at a construction site and runs a small grocery business north of Bangkok, said he was stuck in place with little income from his business and no construction work.
"I could not make enough money with little sales as COVID rages on and I have to stay here. I thought I could go home during Songkran [the Thai New Year], but the border was shut down," Nich told BenarNews.
Bangladeshi Abdul Salam, 47, who has been working in Malaysia for five years, recently took a job at a hardware store where he was paid 25 ringgit ($5.75) a day. A week later, the government imposed its movement control order (MCO), a partial lockdown on industries and services except for those listed as essential.
The MCO extension through April 28 has caused him to fear he will not have money for food. He is spending as little as possible and, like his 15 housemates, eats once a day.

"I asked for a 500 ringgit ($115) advance from my boss at the beginning of the MCO as I needed to send money home. I sent most to my family in Bangladesh, leaving me with a small amount to spend," he told BenarNews, adding that he and his housemates had chipped in three to five ringgit (69 cents to $1.16) to buy food supplies.
NGOs reach out
Siti Nursuraya Ali, the founder of Malaysian-based NGO Anak Kami, has been working with the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur to provide aid to Indonesian migrants, and had hoped to have a similar role with Bangladeshis.
"We tried to engage with the Bangladesh embassy but they were not very cooperative, at least to us," she told BenarNews. "They wanted a database from us but did not want to give us proper documentation for us to help."
Indonesians in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, have appealed for food assistance from the government in Jakarta, the foreign ministry said.
"There are 3,000 Indonesian citizens in the southern Philippines. The Indonesian consul general in Davao City is trying to reach out to the most vulnerable of them," said Judha Nugraha, director for protection of Indonesians overseas at the foreign ministry. "The mosque at the consulate general in Davao has handed out cash and staples to Indonesians in nine areas of the southern Philippines."
Meanwhile, officials with the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) said they were seeking government assistance in aiding refugees and asylum seekers who have been affected by the Movement Control Order.
Suhakam pointed to a government pledge that no one would be left behind as part of its economic stimulus package in response to the pandemic.
On March 27, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced a stimulus package that allocated $29.6 billion for public welfare, $23.1 billion to support businesses and $460 million to bolster the economy, under what it dubbed as "The People-Centric Economic Stimulus Package." Since then, it has allocated another $2.3 billion to help small businesses.
"Allocations should be made to assist and provide for the basic needs of the refugee and asylum seekers community. This includes funds for temporary shelter for those facing eviction by landlords," the statement said.
In Thailand, the majority of almost 3 million migrants from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar work in factories, construction site, eateries, department stores and fisheries in Bangkok and its adjoining provinces, according to rights groups.
Many lost their jobs after the Bangkok metropolitan administration and provinces ordered non-essential businesses closed on March 22. More jobs were lost when Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha issued an emergency decree and night-time curfew to curb the virus spread.
The government recently launched a $58 billion (1.9 trillion baht) stimulus package, but it does not include aid for migrant workers.
To make matters worse, some migrants who were laid off did not receive compensation owed to them under the law, rights workers told BenarNews.
"We don't know exactly how many migrant workers left the country and how many remain here," Patima Tungpuchayakul, director of the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) told BenarNews. "The government doesn't either and it is asking about the number as well."
Government social security officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Assistance for returnees
According to NGO officials on Indonesia, citizens who have returned from jobs overseas face similar needs amid the pandemic.
Nearly 33,000 workers had returned from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan by the end of March, according to the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency (BP2MI).
"We want to provide guarantees to migrant workers because they are foreign exchange heroes," Benny Ramdhani said after being sworn in as the BP2MI chief by Widodo on Wednesday.
Bangladesh, which is not a member of ASEAN, has been dealing with its own influx of citizens who have been sent home from foreign nations – including many who had been jailed for overstaying visas.
The Bangladesh state-run news agency BSS reported that 366 Bangladeshis, mostly migrant workers and some stranded travelers, returned from Saudi Arabia on a special chartered flight Wednesday night.
"Those people boarded the flight after a health check and none of them were COVID-19 positive," Golam Moshi, Bangladesh ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told BenarNews.
He said 15 Bangladeshis infected by the coronavirus had died in Saudi Arabia.
The United Arab Emirates has provided a list of more than 200 Bangladeshi workers who had been in their jails, Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told BenarNews.
"We are examining whether they are genuinely Bangladeshi nationals."
Syed Saiful Haque, chief of the WARBE Development Foundation, an NGO dedicated to the welfare of expatriate workers, said at least 250,000 Bangladeshis from different countries had returned home on their own or had been deported because of the pandemic in host countries in the Middle East as well as in Malaysia and Italy.
"Of course, the coronavirus causes a crisis in the host countries, but sending foreign workers back is unfair because these migrant workers hugely contributed to their economy," Abdul Momen said.
Last year, Bangladeshi migrant workers sent back $15.5 billion (1.3 trillion taka) to their families, according to government estimates.
Those who have returned are receiving a stipend and are eligible for government loans, Expatriate Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad told BenarNews.
"Every returnee will get 5,000 taka ($59) upon arrival at an airport. The family members of an expatriate worker who died of coronavirus will get 300,000 taka ($3,541)," he said.
"We will give each of the workers a loan ranging from 500,000 taka ($5,902) to 700,000 taka ($8,263) if they invest in economic activities especially in the agriculture sector," Ahmad said.
Armies of workers
According to Haque of WARBE, the number of Bangladeshi migrants working overseas, including undocumented workers is close to 10 million worldwide.
That figure is about the same as the army of overseas workers from the Philippines, a sector that has also been heavily affected by the virus. Many of these Filipinos and Filipinas work abroad as domestic servants, service sector workers and seamen.
Joanna Concepcion, chair of Migrante International which looks out for the welfare of Philippine overseas workers, said many more workers had lost their jobs because of COVID-19, and that their expected return home was likely to impact the economy.
"Over 400,000 OFWs [Overseas Foreign Workers] are expected to return home in the coming months due to COVID-19," she said.
Latest statistics from the Philippine foreign office show that currently there are 736 Filipinos working abroad known to have been infected with the virus, and 88 deaths so far. They are spread to about 41 countries and regions around the world.
Manila, at the same time, has not stopped workers from leaving, especially those who already have contracts. The foreign office, in fact, has said that it would not stop Philippine nurses and health workers from leaving to help other countries fight the pandemic.
Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta, Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur, Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok, Kamran Reza Chowdhury and Jesmin Papri in Dhaka, and Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An earlier version misidentified the embassy that NGO Anak Kita works with to provide aid to immigrants.


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BENARNEWS- A married couple accused of stabbing an Indonesian security minister in a brazen attack linked to an Islamic State affiliate went on trial Thursday, in a hearing conducted remotely as part of social distancing measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Syahrial Alamsyah, 51, and his wife, Fitri Diana, face charges of criminal conspiracy and using violence to instill terror in the October 2019 attack on then-Minister Wiranto, according to the indictment read out at the West Jakarta district court. They could face the death penalty, if convicted.
Syahrial (alias Abu Rara) and Fitri listened to their indictment via a video link while in detention at the Gunung Sindur prison in Bogor, about 55 km (34 miles) south of Jakarta.
Wiranto, who was then coordinator minister for security, legal and political affairs, was stepping out of a car during a working visit to Pandeglang town in Banten province on Oct. 10, when the couple used knives to attack him and two other people who were accompanying him, investigators said.
Wiranto, 73, suffered two deep wounds in the stomach. He has since recovered after surgery.
The attack was witnessed by villagers and children who had gathered to welcome Wiranto, a former armed forces chief. Videos of the incident circulated on social media soon after the stabbing.
At the time police said the couple were loosely linked to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local militant network linked with Islamic State (IS), and that authorities had monitored them for three months.
The indictment also accused Syahrial and Fitri of involving a child in terrorism, by allegedly bringing their 12-year-old daughter to the attack.
"The actions of the defendants created an atmosphere of fear in the Pandeglang community and among the Indonesian public in general," prosecutor Herry Wiyanto said, reading from the indictment.
The court heard that Syahrial had pledged allegiance to IS in October 2018 in East Java province and since then had diligently consumed online lectures by Aman Abdurrahman, the JAD founder and chief ideologue who was sentenced to death in 2018 for orchestrating a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia.
Syahrial had bought his bladed weapons online and practiced stabbings before carrying out the attack, the indictment said.
Faris, a defense lawyer for the couple, described the attack as "an ordinary stabbing."
"We'll see if the prosecutors can prove their charges," he told reporters.
The court also heard an indictment against Syahrial's alleged associate, Samsudin, 43.
Samsudin (alias Jack Sparrow) was accused of a criminal conspiracy by inviting Syahrial and others to conduct military training, plotting an attack targeting foreign workers at a cement factory in Banten province; and planning the robbery of a gold shop for terrorism financing.
The suspects communicated to each other via WhatsApp groups called "Defenders of Tawhid (Monotheism)" and "Islamic State," according to the indictment.
The hearing was adjourned until April 23.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks since the early 2000s, with more recent strikes blamed on IS-affiliated militants.
Authorities blame militants for the country's deadliest terror attack – the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people – and several other deadly blasts.
Updated to clarify that the trial began Thursday.


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BENARNEWS- The leader of the world's largest Muslim country on Thursday ordered all civil servants and security force members not to travel home during Ramadan, as traditions of the upcoming fasting month become the latest casualties of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo issued the order while the sultan of Selangor state in neighboring Malaysia announced that he would not join people at local mosques to break the daily fast or perform special nighttime prayers during Ramadan to help stop the domestic spread of the highly contagious and deadly virus.
"We have decided today that for the civil servants, the military and police and the employees of state-owned enterprises are prohibited from going home," Jokowi said. He was referring to an annual exodus from Jakarta and other major cities as millions of Indonesians travel to their home towns and villages to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
Jokowi said his government was evaluating whether to impose the prohibition on the rest of the nation. Indonesia, home to about 225 million Muslims, employs about 4.4 million civil servants and 1.3 million police and soldiers, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
"We cannot ban those who lost their jobs and income in this pandemic crisis from returning to their villages," he said.
On Thursday, health authorities in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's most populous nation, confirmed 337 new cases of COVID-19 – the single biggest daily jump in the country, taking the total number to close to 3,293. Forty more deaths from the virus were also recorded, taking the national toll to 280 – the highest death toll in Asia outside of China, where the virus emerged.
Jokowi's order added to a wide mix of coronavirus-related messages and directives issued in recent days by governments, state-level officials, and Islamic authorities across the region regarding Ramadan-time travel to hometowns, group prayers in mosques and bazaars where Muslims can purchase food for Iftar, the meal they eat to break their daily fasts.
In 2020 the holy month is to start in South and Southeast Asia on April 23 or 24, depending on when the new moon appears.
Meanwhile in Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah's private secretary issued a statement on Wednesday.
"The Sultan with a heavy heart has decided not to hold a break fasting [meal] and tarawih prayers with the people in mosques throughout the state," spokesman Mohamad Munir Bani said, referring to special nightly group prayers at mosques during Ramadan.
"The sultan made the decision after taking into consideration the safety factors following the COVID-19 outbreak, which is yet to be fully contained and also to avoid the risk of infection among the people."
On Thursday, Malaysian health officials said that 109 new cases and two more deaths from the coronavirus had been recorded, bringing the national caseload to 4,228 and the death toll to 67.

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Muslims practice social distancing linked to COVID-19 while attending Friday prayers at a mosque in Bali, Indonesia, March 20, 2020. (AP)

Contrasting statements
President Jokowi issued his order about a week after he announced that Muslims would be able travel home to celebrate Eid, an announcement that drew a sharp response the next day from the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the nation's top Islamic clerical authority.
"Doing something like that at a time of a pandemic is haram[forbidden]," Anwar Abbas, the MUI secretary general, said in a statement not enforceable by law.
Even before those statements, many Indonesians had decided against traveling amid the pandemic. By the end of March, 300,000 had canceled train tickets they had booked for Ramadan, according to a spokesman for the state-railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI).
Jakarta college student Verayanti, who goes by one name, said she had canceled her train ticket to Yogyakarta scheduled for a week before Eid.
"I don't want to risk it. I'll go home in July [during the school break]," she told BenarNews.
Yani, 22, an informal worker in Central Jakarta who also goes by one name, said she had not decided whether to cancel her train ticket to her hometown in Purworejo, Central Java, at the end of May.

"I want to go home during Lebaran (Eid), to gather with my family, but I'm also afraid that I would bring the disease home. Hopefully, everything can be settled before Lebaran," Yani told BenarNews.

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Hundreds of people look for Ramadan bargains at a shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur, June 11, 2018. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews]

Malaysian protective measures
In Malaysia, the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia, a respected association representing doctors across the nation, issued a statement on Wednesday calling for the government to extend its so-called movement control order (MCO), which restricts the movement of people during the pandemic and is set to expire on April 14.
"A premature withdrawal or excessive relaxation of MCO restrictions will potentially undo all the good that has been achieved from staying home these past four weeks. The war against COVID-19 is far from over – many sacrifices have and will continue to be made this year," the academy said.
Earlier, Federal Territory Minister Annuar Musa had called for a study to determine if Ramadan bazaars should be banned or if they could be "modified."
"Of course, the bazaars in their current shape most probably cannot be allowed," he said pointing out that many contain hundreds of stalls that attract thousands of people in a tight space. "But they can be modified – we cannot be reactionary and just ban [them]."
"Maybe this year, instead of 50 at one location, we have just 10 spread out from one another."
Officials in seven Malaysian states – Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu, Sarawak, Penang, Malacca and Kedah – did not wait for a study, announcing their own bans this year.

"The decision was made in an effort to ensure people's safety following the COVID-19 outbreak," Negeri Sembilan Chief Minister Aminuddin Harun said last week.
"Traders should be more creative. We can't allow them to do business in the open air because we refuse to take risks. I hope everyone can be patient for now," he told reporters in Seremban.
Farhan Yassin, 32, of Klang in Selangor state, said his family's main source of income, especially during Ramadan, was from sales. This year, starting in February, the family spent about 10,000 ringgit (U.S. $2,300) for Ramadan supplies and had planned on selling dodol, a sugar palm-based confection, and spring rolls.
"We usually sell at the bazaar at Shah Alam Stadium, the biggest one near our home in Klang, but this year we were not able to secure a spot at the market," he told BenarNews. "We were planning to just set up shop in the neighborhood but with the lockdown, we need to explore other avenues."
Bangladeshi concerns
Meanwhile in Bangladesh, Muslim leaders have not decided whether Ramadan-time group prayers should be cancelled because of public health concerns around the viral outbreak. However, the Ministry of Religious Affairs this week instructed devotees of all faiths to confine their prayers to their homes, but said that staff members of mosques, churches and temples could carry on with their work on site, but would have to limit the number of staffers praying together to 10 or fewer people.
"We are in a fix on whether we should suggest discouraging prayers at mosques during Ramadan," Anis Mahmud, director general of the Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh, told BenarNews.
"We have time. We will ask for the opinion of Islamic scholars and hold a special meeting to decide whether we will ask people to say their prayers at home or if they can go to mosques," he said.
Islamic scholar Maulana Farid Uddin Masud, chairman of the Bangladesh Jamiatul Ulama, a national body of Islamic scholars, expressed concerns that millions of Muslims go to mosques at night to pray during Ramadan and millions travel from Dhaka and other cities to their homes for Eid.
"To contain the coronavirus, we have to avoid large gatherings of people," he told BenarNews.
He said the government should seek opinions from Islamic scholars before issuing a directive regarding the holy month.
"But I would urge people not to go to their ancestral homes to celebrate Eid al-Fitr this year," he said.
Friday prayers in Thailand
In Buddhist-majority Thailand, Wisut Binlateh, the director of the Sheikhul Islam Office, which governs Islamic-related affairs in the country, said his organization's main concern during Ramadan was Tarawih because some imams had allowed Friday prayers despite a ban linked to the pandemic.
"Muslims can perform Tarawih at home instead and we should be able to carry out fasting activities without a problem given current safety measures," he told BenarNews.
As for those clerics who defied the Sheikhul Islam's order, "We are thinking of dismissing imams who allowed mosques to hold Friday prayers and may consider secondary punishment," he said.
Philippines: Compromise
In the Philippines, Luzon island, home to Manila, has been on lockdown for weeks, preventing millions of people from moving about during the pandemic. Earlier this week, President Rodrigo Duterte, acting on a task force recommendation, extended the lockdown until the end of April.
For Jackia Lao, a resident of Manila, that means not being able return to her hometown of Marawi, to observe Ramadan with her family, an annual tradition.
"I can't go home to Marawi because of the lockdown," she told BenarNews.
"The fasting will continue. We are not affected and it can't prevent us because it's a sacrifice," she said, adding that social distancing would affect nightly prayers at Philippine mosques.
Tia Asmara and Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta, Hadi Azmi in Kuala Lumpur, Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka, Mariyam Ahmad in Pattani, Thailand, and Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales in Cotabato, Philippines, contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Government security forces in Indonesia's Papua province killed two suspected separatist rebels and arrested another during a raid on their hideout, a police spokesman said Friday.
The raid by a joint team of police and soldiers on Thursday in Mimika regency followed the arrest of six people suspected of delivering supplies to insurgents, Papua police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal said.
Those killed and arrested were members of a rebel faction linked to the March 30 killing of a New Zealander who worked at the nearby Grasberg gold and copper mine operated by U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan Inc., he said.
"Decisive action has been taken against armed criminals who carried out the shootings at the PT Freeport Indonesia office complex in Kuala Kencana," Kamal said in a statement to BenarNews.
"During the gunfight, two members of the armed criminal group died and one person with the initials I.S. was arrested," Kamal said, referring to the killings of the rebel suspects.
New Zealand national Graeme Thomas Wall was the lone fatality, and two other Freeport employees, both Indonesians, were injured in last week's attack. Hendrik Wamang, a commander of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), said his group was responsible for the shootings.
Kamal said police confiscated homemade weapons, 162 bullets, dozens of arrows, bows and three Morning Star separatist flags after Thursday's raid.
A TPNPB spokesman, Sebby Sambom, cast doubt on police claims about that the Mimika incident involved his group.
"According to preliminary reports we have received, those killed and arrested were civilians," Sebby told BenarNews.
"But we will wait for confirmation from the TPNPB leadership in Timika," he said, referring to the Mimika regency's capital city.
No response to ceasefire offer
This week, the rebel group proposed a ceasefire with Indonesian forces to allow both sides to focus on the coronavirus pandemic.
Sebby said his group was willing to implement a ceasefire provided that the Indonesian government withdrew troops and police reinforcements from the province.
There has been no response from Indonesian authorities to the offer, which followed an appeal by United Nations Secretary-General of António Guterres, he said.
"If Indonesia does not want to take up our offer, there's no problem. We were following the call of the U.N. secretary-general and that is a plus for the TPNPB in the eyes of the international community," Sebby said.
He said if there was no ceasefire agreement, his army would continue with attacks on various targets, including Freeport Indonesia.
"A large influx of refugees to neighboring Papua, New Guinea, will be inevitable because these areas are becoming increasingly insecure," he said.
Papua and West Papua, a region on Papua Island at the far eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, has seen a low-level separatist conflict since the 1960s.
The region was rocked by weeks of violence in August and September 2019 after news about allegations that security forces on Java Island had mistreated Papuan students ignited mass protests. The unrest left more than 40 people dead.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's president on Monday called for greater transparency and increased rates of testing amid the coronavirus pandemic, after his government was criticized for not being forthcoming about the extent of the outbreak in Southeast Asia's most populous nation.
The government has been the target of complaints that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and other officials downplayed the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic during their initial response to the public health threat.
"The numbers of patients under monitoring, people under monitoring, positive cases, recoveries, deaths and rates of CPR testing, should be made available openly so that everyone can access the data properly," Jokowi told members of his cabinet. "These should be updated every day in a more integrated way."
Jokowi said PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests to detect COVID-19 infections should be ramped up by adding more labs – 29 now from just three in early March. Only 26,500 tests have been done to date.
"I want PCR tests to be expanded to reduce queues in areas where there are COVID-19 outbreaks," he said.
"This is good progress, but what I want is for us to be able to test more than 10,000 a day," Jokowi said without elaborating on a time frame for such testing.
On Monday, Indonesian authorities confirmed 316 new cases of the coronavirus disease, bringing the nationwide total to 4,557 cases. The daily death toll rose by 26 to 399, officials said.
Outside of China, Indonesia remains the country in East Asia with the highest number of fatalities from the outbreak. More than 116,000 people have died and at least 1.8 million have been infected worldwide, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Back in February, when no cases had been officially detected, Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said that no one had been infected by the virus in Indonesia thanks to prayers. He urged people to "just enjoy" things.
In mid-March, Jokowi said his government was deliberately holding back some information on COVID-19.
"We did not disclose some information to the public because we did not want to stir panic. We have worked hard to overcome this," Jokowi said at that time.
The government has also been criticized for low rates of testing, with health experts expressing fears that the number of positive cases was much higher that official figures suggested.
New restrictions
The Ministry of Health, meanwhile, has approved proposals to institute large-scale social restrictions for regions bordering the capital city, Jakarta, over the next two weeks, officials said.
The greater Jakarta area, which includes the cities of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, is home to 30 million people.
Jakarta officials imposed the same measures on April 10, banning gatherings of more than five people and ordered residents to stay at home.
The measures call for closing schools, places of worship and businesses except for establishments providing essential goods and services including grocery stores, pharmacies and telecommunications. Violators could face fines of up to 100 million rupiah (U.S. $6,378).
The health ministry rejected proposals for similar measures for Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan province, and Sorong in West Papua province, citing a lack of epidemiological justification because there were no widespread outbreaks in the regions.
Prisoner unrest
Elsewhere in Indonesia, authorities in North Sulawesi said that a riot at a prison in Manado on Saturday might have been sparked by fears of the spread of COVID-19 among inmates. Parts of the prison were burned during the riot.
A prisoner died of a heart attack after the riot, North Sulawesi correctional official Edy Wardoyo told local media.
"The source of the problem is still being investigated, but it could be because of recent measures to fight COVID-19," said Nugroho, director general of corrections at the Law and Human Rights Ministry. He referred to the recent release of 30,000 inmates nationwide who had served two-thirds of their sentences to ease pressure on prisons during the virus outbreak.
He said the inmates who rioted might have wanted to be released too, even though they were not eligible.
Eighteen drug inmates suspected of inciting the riot were to be moved to a high-security prison complex on the island of Nusakambangan off the coast of Java, said the director of correctional security at the ministry, Tejo Harwanto.
Bangladeshi leader boosts outreach packages
Meanwhile in South Asia on Monday, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that her government was setting up a special fund to support health workers and other frontline workers combatting COVID-19 as part of economic stimulus and social outreach packages that now total more than U.S. $11 billion.
"[I have] already instructed officials to make a list of public sector health workers who have directly served coronavirus patients and they will be given special allowance," Hasina said in a national address Monday night. "Funds amounting to 1 billion taka (nearly U.S. $11.8 million) will be allocated for them."
"We are going to introduce insurance for doctors, nurses, health workers, local level administrative officials, members of law enforcement agencies and the armed forces, members of the BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) and other public servants who have directly been involved in fighting the coronavirus," she said.
In addition, the government is going to allocate 7.5 billion taka ($88 million) to cover their health insurance costs.
The funds are to be drawn from COVID relief and economic packages that have swollen to $11.26 billion. Hasina on Monday did not give a breakdown, but the increased figure includes $8.5 billion in financial aid, social outreach measures and incentives for industries crippled by the pandemic that the prime minister unveiled in late March and early April.
Part of the packages – 95 billion taka ($1.1 billion) – is to go to aiding agricultural industries such as farming including dairy and poultry, along with fisheries.
"The formation of a fund meant to provide working capital in the agricultural sector has been undertaken," the prime minister said.
"We had bumper production of rice last year and we have forecast a good yield in the current season, too. Necessary measures have been adopted to maintain the existing supply chain of agricultural products and distribution network."
Bangladeshi newspapers hit hard
Apart from dealing a severe blow to key export-oriented sectors, particularly the garment industry, where more than 1 million have lost their jobs or been suspended as a result, the pandemic has hit the country's newspaper industry hard, Bangladeshi press groups say.
At least nine newspapers have stopped printing, and owners of papers in most cases have shuttered newsrooms and offices at short notice and without paying employees their salaries and dues, said Sheikh Mamun-Ur-Rashid, a member of the steering committee of the Press Institute of Bangladesh.
According to the Ministry of Information, 551 daily newspapers are registered in Bangladesh, of which about half are concentrated in the Dhaka area.
"All those nine newspapers are Dhaka-based, and many more outside Dhaka are facing the same situation," Rashid told BenarNews, referring to the papers that stopped printing, as he called on Hasina to include journalists in her government's financial outreach to industries that are struggling economically due to the pandemic.
Kamran Reza Chowdhury and Sharif Khiam in Dhaka contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Southeast Asian leaders agreed at a special online summit on Tuesday to ensure a social safety net for the region's vulnerable populations and backed reallocating funds toward fighting the COVID-19 outbreak.
The leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later in the day held a separate online summit with leaders from China, Japan and South Korea to discuss the global public health crisis, whose ripple effects have battered economies worldwide. Tuesday's meetings were held via video-calls because of COVID-19 concerns.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the chairman of ASEAN in 2020 and whose country hosted the regional bloc's special summit, said all its members were struggling to prevent the coronavirus from negatively affecting their people.
"It is in these grim hours that the solidarity of the ASEAN community shines like a beacon in the dark," he said in his opening statement.
Nations in the bloc, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, have recorded more than 20,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 900 deaths from the disease.
In a joint statement, the members agreed to: "Cooperate in ensuring a social safety net for our people, preventing social disruption and instability as a consequence of negative impact of the pandemic, continue efforts to design and implement risk-informed and shock-responsive social protection systems to reduce the vulnerabilities of at-risk populations and improve their overall resilience."
In addition, members said they would intensify cooperation to obtain adequate provisions of medicine, essential medical supplies and equipment including diagnostic tools and personal protective equipment.
They also agreed to support reallocating existing funds to battle the pandemic and to establish a "COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund."
"We have no choice but to unite to fight this virus," Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said.
While the ASEAN leaders did not set a target amount for the fund, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said it should be used to procure test kits, personal protective equipment and medical tools.
In addition, it should be used to support research and development in medicines and vaccines to help ASEAN become more self-reliant, he said.
Thai officials said the fund should involve reallocating 10 percent of existing ASEAN development funds along with donations from the so-called Plus Three nations – China, Japan and South Korea.
Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, called for closer cooperation in the face of what he called "an unfolding catastrophe – unprecedented in scale and devastating in impact for all."
"We are particularly concerned with food security in this period of lockdowns. Our most urgent priority is ensuring sufficient supply of rice for our people," Duterte said.
The Philippine leader said ASEAN must be open for trade.
"Crisis or no crisis, no country can stand alone," he said. "Let us, therefore ensure the supply chain connectivity and the smooth flow of goods within our region."
Duterte called on ASEAN to establish an early warning system to prepare for future pandemics.
"We have to improve and expand existing ASEAN's mechanisms to cover public health emergencies," he said.
Malaysia's leader urged his ASEAN counterparts to start discussing an economic recovery plan focusing not just on the financial aspects, but also on social safety nets.
"We must not allow ASEAN to revert back to our comfort zone – but make ASEAN emerge as a new growth center, a new power-house not just for our 600 million people, but for the world," Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told the summit.
During the ASEAN Plus Three meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed establishing a regional center for infectious diseases.
"International cooperation is essential for combating the virus that is spreading beyond borders," Abe said, according to Japanese media. "We should share information and knowledge in a free, transparent and swift manner."
The proposal drew support from the other participants.
"ASEAN countries agreed to act on Japan's proposal and discuss it further," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.
Li Keqiang, the premier of China, where the coronavirus was detected, meanwhile proposed establishing a fast route for essential personnel to travel to other countries, according to a news release from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta.
"Keqiang said that APT countries need to leverage their strengths in economic complementarity and strong business ties to further ease tariffs, eliminate barriers, boost the flow of trade and investment, and keep markets open to each other, in an effort to restore growth in East Asia as quickly as possible," it said, referring to the ASEAN Plus Three countries.
"With all the necessary control measures in place, we should consider opening a 'fast-track lane' for essential personnel on urgent visits in the areas of commerce, logistics, production and technological services. This will be conducive to maintaining the necessary flow of people and goods and stabilizing the industrial and supply chains."
ASEAN lawmakers welcomed Tuesday's online summits before they got into full swing.
"It's high time that ASEAN leaders get together to find a regional response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis," Charles Santiago, a Malaysian MP who chairs the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said in a statement issued by the group.
"Neither the virus nor the consequences of the measures taken to stop the pandemic will stop at one's border. The current situation, as well as the management of its long term impact, requires regional solidarity and a global solution," he added.
Deadly day in Indonesia
The ASEAN leaders met on the day that Indonesia recorded its highest single-day death count since Southeast Asia's most populous nation confirmed its first coronavirus cases in early March.
The toll rose to 459 after 60 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, according to the country's COVID-19 task force. The number of confirmed cases increased by 282 to 4,839, task force spokesman Achmad Yurianto said.
Worldwide nearly 122,000 people have died and nearly 2 million have been infected by COVID-19, according to the latest data compiled by disease experts at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
In a report issued over the weekend, epidemiological experts at the University of Indonesia warned that COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization could hit 1 million on the main island of Java by July if the government did not ban people from traveling to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan.
The government previously banned civil servants, soldiers and police from taking part in the annual exodus. The ban did not cover the rest of nation.
Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, downplayed the prediction even though Indonesia has the highest COVID-19 death toll in East Asia outside of China.
"So far, I believe, Indonesia is in good shape," Pandjaitan told reporters on Tuesday.
Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Lex Radz in Kuala Lumpur and Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Police in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province shot and killed two suspected members of a militant group linked to Islamic State (IS) on Wednesday, a spokesman said.
Earlier in the day, the suspected members of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) had shot and wounded a police officer outside a bank in the town of Poso, provincial police spokesman Didik Supranoto said.
Footage from a surveillance camera seen by BenarNews showed one of the men pointing a gun at the officer as he parked his motorcycle in front of the bank.
The officer put up a fight, but one of the attackers shot him in the chest, while the other tried to seize his weapon.
Police chased the attackers who escaped on a motorbike and killed them in an ensuing gun battle, Didik said.
"Our officers were forced to take firm action because they put up a fight," Didik told BenarNews.
Didik said the two men had been on the list of people wanted for involvement with MIT, whose leaders have pledged allegiance to IS.
The spokesman said police found homemade bombs wrapped around the bodies of the two suspects, whom he identified as Ali (alias Darwin Gobel) and Muis Fahron (alias Abdullah), as well as a handgun, a mobile phone and a bullet. He did not elaborate on the bombs.
Didik said the men joined MIT in 2018. Previously, police said that group's membership had been reduced to seven people, but new recruits raised its number to 16, including its leader Ali Karola.
Poso police chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Darno said officers raided a nearby house believed to be the suspects' hideout and found bullets, homemade bombs and a motorbike.
Central Sulawesi police chief Inspector Gen. Syafril Nursal told reporters in Poso that the remains of the suspects would be brought to a police hospital in Palu, the provincial capital, for formal identification.
Didik said the wounded officer was in stable condition.
The director of the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Development in Central Sulawesi, Mohammad Affandi, criticized the police for using lethal force.
"The two MIT members should have been captured alive so the motive for the attack and their network could be revealed," Affandi told BenarNews.
The government launched Operation Tinombala, a joint military-police task force, in January 2016 with a mission to capture or kill MIT militants.
Santoso, who led MIT before being killed by security forces in 2016, was the first Indonesian militant to publicly pledge allegiance to IS.
The militant leader had operated out of the mountains in Poso where he conducted para-military training for militants. The training sessions drew recruits from other parts of Indonesia, as well as from abroad, including at least six Uyghurs, Indonesian authorities said.
The world's largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesia has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks in the past two decades, with more recent strikes being blamed on militants affiliated with IS.


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BENARNEWS- A trend is emerging of young women and girls leaving Malaysia to marry or provide "sexual comfort" to jihadists with the Islamic State (IS), officials warn.

The arrest on Feb. 17 of a 14-year-old girl from Johor state may be the most troubling example to date of this trend. She is suspected of planning to travel to Egypt to marry a 22-year-old Malaysian IS recruit, who was studying at al-Azhar University in Cairo. From there the couple planned to travel on to Syria via Turkey, Malaysian news outlets reported.

The phenomenon compounds a national security problem for Malaysia: aggressive efforts by IS and home-grown sympathizers to recruit young fighters for its violent cause via social media.

IS now is going farther by trying to persuade girls as young as 14 and 15 to join its ranks and engage in activities including "sexual jihad," The Star quoted Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, deputy chief of the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP)'s counter-terrorism division, as saying Feb. 22.

"We will not allow them to be exploited by IS or any other terror groups," Ayob told the newspaper. "We are pooling our resources to ensure that these children do not fall into the trap."

"These young girls can easily be influenced by the militants via social media, especially Facebook," he added.
Detained
Meanwhile, the girl in question is being held under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act of 2012 as authorities investigate the case, the Malaysian Insider reported.  

According to Bernama, she attended a religious school in Shah Alam.

"However, our investigation is ongoing to determine whether the religious school where she was studying was in any way involved in spreading the militant group's ideology," Bernama quoted Ayob as saying.

"However, we believe the girl has been exposed to the group's ideology from the internet, long before studying in that religious school."
Last year, seven Malaysian women ventured to Syria to join the militants, and seven more were prevented from going, Ayob told The Star. Most were in their 20s.
Syria
The 14-year-old, who was arrested Feb. 17 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, had been in touch with militants from Malaysia based in Syria, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement cited by The Star.

"We will investigate further to uncover the mastermind behind the recruitment of Malaysian girls for the IS," he said.

"We will not allow Malaysia to be used as a training ground or hideout for terrorists and militants. Anyone in support or in league with any terrorist will be detained," Khalid added.


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BENARNEWS- More than a month after Philippine government troops claimed they had killed one of FBI's most wanted terrorists – Malaysia's Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan – the U.S. agency says it is still conducting biological tests to confirm his death.

"Further tests have yet to be finalized in order to confirm a full DNA match for Marwan," Laura Eimiller, spokesperson for the FBI's field office in Los Angeles, told BenarNews last week by phone from southern California.

"The results will be provided to investigators as well as our law enforcement partners in the Philippines," she added.

At press time the bureau had yet to remove Marwan's profile from its list of "Most Wanted Terrorists".

Earlier reports proved untrue
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The FBI may not be taking any chances as this is not the first time Manila has reported that its forces had killed Marwan, who has a U.S. $5 million American government bounty on his head. 

Three years ago, the Philippine government claimed it had killed Marwan in an airstrike on the southern Jolo island. 

He survived the aerial assault but a local commander with the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group, which operates on Jolo and is also linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, expelled Marwan out of fear that he could attract more raids by government forces, the Associated Press reported.

Born in Muar, a coastal town overlooking the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia's Johor state, Marwan trained as an engineer in the United States. But he went on to become one of Southeast Asia's most wanted terrorists and a main suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings. 

Marwan, who is 48 or 49, according to his FBI profile, went on the run after those attacks, which killed 202 people. The profile also notes he is thought to be the head of the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) terrorist organization as well as a member of the central command of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesia-based terrorist group.

Manila now claims that its police commandos killed the suspected bomb-maker in the Bali plot during a raid in the southern Philippines on Jan. 25. 

After commandos presumably killed Marwan, they cut off one of his thumbs as a DNA sample, and they photographed the bloody corpse. The Philippines sent the sample to the FBI for laboratory testing.

On Feb. 4, the bureau's field office in Los Angeles issued an initial statement saying that a DNA analysis suggested that the sample belonged to Marwan, but more testing needed to be done to confirm a match, AP reported.

"Although the results of the DNA examinations do not provide absolute identification, the results do support that the biological sample provided by Philippine authorities came from Marwan," David Bowdich, the field office's assistant director in charge, said in the statement.

A heavy price

But while the Philippines is claiming success in taking out Marwan, Filipinos are mourning the loss of 44 members of their country's Special Action Force (SAF), who went into Mamasapano town, Maguindanao province, to get Marwan. The commandos were killed after getting trapped in a firefight with different Moro rebel factions while retreating from the marshy area around Mamasapano, according to newswire reports and Filipino media.

The firefight, which also left 18 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and five civilians dead, died down when the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) intervened, according to the Philippine Star.  

The SAF commandoes had gone into the hostile zone to hunt down both Marwan and Abdul Basit Usman, a suspected Filipino terrorist wanted in connection with at least nine bombings carried out in the southern Philippines. Abdul, who was in the area at the time of the raid, evaded capture. 

"The operation against Marwan was successful. In exchange for this triumph, we paid a heavy price," Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III told the nation in a televised address on Feb. 6. 

"I am the father of this country and 44 of my children were killed. They can no longer be brought back. This tragedy happened during my term, and I will carry this to the end of my days," Aquino went on to say, according to a transcript of his speech.

"Terrorists such as Marwan and Usman murder innocent people without hesitation or remorse, which is why operations to neutralize them are inherently dangerous. Marwan was an international terrorist, who had been long sought not only by us, but also by other countries. We did not expect them to follow like obedient sheep when presented with an arrest warrant."

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BENARNEWS- Authorities have named two Malaysian members of the Islamic State (IS) terror group who allegedly took part in the videotaped execution last month of a Syrian man, Malaysia's The Star newspaper reported Wednesday (March 4).

The two belong to Majmu'ah al Arkhabiliy, a new unit within IS made up of Malaysian and Indonesian nationals, which replaced an older one named Katibah Nusantara Lid Daulah Islamiah in Syria and Iraq, the newspaper said, citing a senior police official. 

The wing is believed to consist of more than 100 fighters from across Southeast Asia, the Malay Mail Online reported.

The two Malaysians in the 30-minute video, which was posted on Facebook on Feb. 22, were identified as Muhammad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi, 25, from the town of Durian Tunggul in Malacca state, and Mohd Faris Anuar, 20, from Gurun, Kedah state.

Ayob Khan Mydin, deputy chief of the Royal Malaysian Police's counter-terrorism division, released grainy, black-and-white photos of the two men, and one of Wanndy's wife. She was identified as Nor Mahmudah Ahmad, 26, from Baling, Kedah state, according to the The Star, which broke the story.

She and her husband went off to Syria together in January, while Faris left for the Middle East last September.

The video showed Wanndy signaling with his index finger toward the camera, which Faris operated in recording the Syrian's beheading, police believe. Another militant, identified as an Indonesian, is also seen holding up the Syrian's head after decapitation and yelling "Allahuakbar," the Star reported.

Investigators determined that the voice of the person shooting the video belonged to Faris. 

The footage was uploaded to a Facebook account under the name of one Abu Hamzah al-Fateh, the Star reported, but the page is no longer visible. 

Arrests

In an effort to stem IS's influence in Malaysia and prevent the group from radicalizing and recruiting youths, the Malaysian government since last year has aggressively pursued suspected IS members and sympathizers.

On Tuesday, The Star reported the arrests of three more people with alleged links to IS, including a civil servant said to be one of its most senior members in Malaysia.

The man, arrested in Kuala Lumpur on Monday (March 2), allegedly set up Facebook accounts for Malaysians fighting with IS in Syria, The Star reported. 

"The third suspect is a 39-year-old government department officer, identified as a senior IS member," Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement announcing the arrests.

The other two are a 29-year-old woman, arrested in Muar on Saturday, who is suspected of recruiting a 14-year-old girl to join the extremist group; and a 22-year-old man, nabbed in Perak on Monday, thought to have funded the girl's planned trip to Cairo to marry a Malaysian IS recruit. 

All three are being held under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) for terrorism activities, The Malaysian Insider said. 

The 14-year-old girl was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in mid-February just before boarding a plane to Egypt.

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BENARNEWS- The number of jihadists from Malaysia keeps growing, and authorities now have identified more than 500 Facebook accounts that try to recruit young Malaysians for the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, a top counter-terrorist official said last week.
"In the first half of last year, we identified 30 Malaysians who went to Syria to join IS," Ayob Khan Mydin, deputy chief of the Royal Malaysian Police's counter-terrorism branch, told The Star newspaper.
But despite a governmental crackdown on IS that began in 2014, "the number rose to 61, which included a 14-year-old boy who went with his parents, by the end of the year," Ayob said.
"The tactic has changed, they are now recruiting the whole family. It is really worrying."
The profiles on the Facebook accounts belonged to Malaysians and they described the extremist group favorably as "peaceful under the rule of caliphate Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi," Ayob added, referring to the leader of IS.
"There is a Malaysian who warned his family that if they worked with the government or stopped him from joining the IS, he would return and would, if he had the chance, kill them," Ayob said.
In February, Ayob went on record saying that the government's war against IS in cyberspace needed to be intensified to prevent the group's ideology from spreading in Malaysia via social media, the state-run Bernama news agency reported then.
This would require the involvement and cooperation of relevant state agencies and religious authorities, he said. Religious officials could help correct people's misunderstandings of "jihad" and other Islamic terms skewed by IS online, he told Bernama.
Pro-IS accounts flood Twitter
As The Star was breaking the story about pro-IS Facebook accounts targeting Malaysians, the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, on Friday released a new study into IS's online presence via another powerful social media tool: Twitter.
From September 2014 through December 2014, at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were being used by IS supporters worldwide, although the accounts were not all active simultaneously, according to the report.
"Thousands of accounts have been suspended by Twitter since October 2014, measurably degrading [IS's] ability to project its propaganda to wider audiences," J.M. Berger, one of the co-authors," said in a blog on the Brookings' website that accompanied the study's release.
"If suspensions are carried out on a consistent basis, they do have an effect on the targeted network," he added.
Wanndy: Avid Facebook user
According to The Star, the pro-IS Facebook accounts were still active as the newspaper went to press for Friday publication.
But one that's no longer visible is a Facebook page using the name Abu Hamzah al-Fateh. The account belongs to Muhammad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi, a 25-year-old from Durian Tunggal, Malacca state and suspected IS member.
Last week, according to The Star, police identified Wanndy and another Malaysian national, Mohd Faris Anuar, 20, from Gurun, Kedah state, as members of an IS unit that filmed the decapitation of a Syrian prisoner.
The 30-second video of the killing appeared on al-Fateh's (Wanndy's) Facebook account on Feb. 22.
"This is punishment for a spy who betrays Islam ... a lesson to us all," read an excerpt from a message allegedly posted by Wanndy on Facebook along with the video, The Star reported.
On Feb. 3, the holder of the same Facebook account posted a message that offered a glimpse into his thinking.
"Ten years ago, I was the blacklisted kid in my kampung. Parents would not allow their children to be friends with me," he wrote, referring to his small village back home. "Yes, I was naughty, bad ... but with jihad, Allah has blessed me with many friends and has understood my flaws."
"I have reached this stage because of jihad and the role of one servant of Allah, who first talked to me in Facebook. Facebook is the place where I came to learn all these things," he added, according to The Star.


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BENARNEWS- Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Monday dismissed criticism that a draft anti-terrorism law could impinge on human rights by being too draconian.
"Preventive" laws were needed to tackle terrorist threats, the minister told local media as Malaysia's House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) opened its first session of 2015.
During the month-long session the government is expected to introduce a bill framing the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Among other things, this tougher law would aim to contain the domestic influence and recruitment efforts of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
"We need the Prevention of Terrorism Act [POTA] because other laws are punitive, this is preventive," Malay Mail Online quoted Zahid as telling reporters Monday.
Critics say the bill too closely resembles the Internal Security Act (ISA), which the government repealed in 2012. POTA, they say, would allow authorities to detain a suspected terrorist without trial for two years and even longer.
"They can say anything they want. As the government, we have to protect the people," Zahid added in response to concerns raised by human rights advocates that POTA would effectively bring back the Internal Security Act.
Last week, he denied that the two laws could be "equated."
Yet Zahid acknowledged that, under POTA, authorities could hold a suspect indefinitely without trial beyond the first two years of detention, Malay Mail Online reported Thursday.
"However, those who are suspected of being involved in terrorism and are detained without trial can still obtain justice because they will be allowed to appoint their own lawyers," he said on March 5.
MPs want to see bill
On Monday, the home minister called on members of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat bloc to back the POTA bill.
N. Surendran, vice president of the opposition People's Justice Party (PKR) and an MP who represents  Padang Serai, in northwestern Kedah state, was among those questioning the draft law's potential to encroach on civil liberties.
"This is a crucial bill which will have wide impact on civil liberties and law enforcement powers. Yet, we have not been given copies of the bill even though the sitting has started," Malay Mail Online quoted the lawmaker as saying.
A threat from homecoming jihadis
The idea of drafting tougher anti-terrorist legislation was floated nearly five months ago by Prime Minister Najib Razik, the same leader who repealed the ISA.
In late November, he introduced a white paper in parliament detailing the extent of the national security threat posed by IS and other jihadist groups.
Malaysia's anti-terror laws needed to be toughened because of a danger from Malaysian members of IS importing terrorism and fomenting violence after returning home from combat tours in the Middle East, Najib told parliament then.
"Looking at the potential threat from this group, we fear the return of Malaysians from the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq will be detrimental to national security," AFP quoted Najib as saying Nov. 26.
Meanwhile, the king of Malaysia, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam, touched on the themes of Najib's white paper during a speech Monday inaugurating the first parliamentary session of 2015.
"I welcome the continuous efforts to strengthen security measures and ensure public order, particularly to tackle the threat of terrorists in Sabah and curb the spread of extremist ideology among the people, such as the militant Islamic State (IS)," the king said, referring in part to the Malaysian portion of Borneo island, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian government announced Wednesday it would start screening Muslim pilgrims before they go abroad, after two citizens joined the Islamic State (IS) terror group under the pretext of undertaking the minor pilgrimage (umrah) to Saudi Arabia.
The government wants to ensure that Malaysians are going to Mecca and Medina solely to perform a pilgrimage and not veering away from those holy sites to join IS's ranks in the Middle East, The Star newspaper quoted Tourism and Culture Minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz as saying.
"There are cases of missing umrah pilgrims from Malaysia who went missing after performing the umrah to join the IS,'' Nazri told reporters in Nusajaya, Johor state, on Wednesday.
The people who will be screened will include pilgrims travelling to Mecca by themselves as well as those going there through pilgrimage packages sold by travel agents, he said.
Security agencies will also need to develop procedures to ensure that Malaysian pilgrims return home after going on umrah, he said.
"We will work closely with the Saudi government to tackle the issue as the issuance of umrah visas comes under their jurisdiction,'' Nazri said.
And, as an added safeguard against Malaysians joining IS under the guise of foreign tourism, the government will implement a similar screening policy for Malaysians planning to holiday abroad, he said.
Case of the stray pilgrims
Earlier on Wednesday, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar announced that two people had broken away from their umrah tour group and joined up with IS militants in Syria, the state-run Bernama news agency reported.
The two had used the services of an umrah agency in order to evade detection by the authorities, Khalid said, declining to reveal the identities of the missing "pilgrims."
Police don't believe the agency was in any way connected with IS or that it knowingly helped the two join the extremist group.
"So far, we have detected two such cases where on the pretext of going for umrah, they actually wanted to join the IS militants," Bernama quoted him as saying.
"They went not for a religious purpose .... imagine, the umrah being misused," said Khalid, who declined to reveal the identity of the two individuals.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is working to introduce a new law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), for parliamentary debate this month, said Wednesday that the bill was aimed at cracking down on Malaysians who planned to leave the country and fight for IS.
Till now, police have identified 61 Malaysians fighting alongside IS in Iraq and Syria, and that 10 of them had died in combat, Bernama quoted Zahid as saying.
"... The formulation of POTA is to ensure the security and wellbeing of the people and country," the minister told a monthly assembly at his ministry.


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BENARNEWS- Religious authorities in Malaysia's Penang state will not act against organizers and Muslim participants of a stray-dog adoption drive held there earlier this month, although it offended some Muslim groups. 

"Islam is universal and it preaches love to not only mankind but to all, including animals, environment and everything," The Malay Mail quoted Abdul Malik Kassim, chairman of the state religious affairs committee, as saying in explaining the decision.

Authorities also will not punish a Muslim woman who was photographed holding a puppy at the same event, he added. 

"In Islam, this is known as Rahmatar Lil'Alamin. In Islam, there are clear guidelines on how to do this," he said. 

Abdul was responding to a call from Rafizal Abdul Rahim, chief of the youth wing of the ruling United Malays National Organization (Umno) party in Penang, to investigate the four-day event at a mall in George Town that concluded on Sunday.

A local group called Save Our Strays (SOS), along with students from Han Chiang College, had organized the Opt-To-Adopt drive to encourage non-Muslims to adopt stray dogs so as reduce their numbers on the streets. 

But a picture of the woman in a headscarf with the mongrel pup angered some Muslim groups, after the image was uploaded onto the Penang Kini community page on Facebook.

In Islam, dogs are widely seen as unclean creatures, and therefore taboo. 

"We regret, and are disappointed and angry, and condemn the program because we feel there is a hidden agenda by certain parties after the 'I Want to Touch A Dog' program last year," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted Rafizal as saying.

Hidden agenda?

In October, social activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi had organized the "I Want to Touch a Dog" campaign in Selangor state. 

Besides attracting volunteers and dog owners, that event drew many Malay Muslims, who took the opportunity to touch and interact with dogs and learn how to clean themselves after touching the animals.

That event sparked the ire of conservative Muslims, who argued that it countered Islamic teaching that compares canines to excrement, the Malay Mail reported. 

Progressive Muslims, however, were quick to defend Azmi. 

Some Islamic religious scholars, including former Perlis state Mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, counter-argued that if touching a dog was comparable to touching excrement, Muslim veterinarians, toilet cleaners and parents too should be deemed "haram" (prohibited) for coming in contact with feces while cleaning up their charges. 

Eventually, however, Azmi bowed to pressure and publicly apologized for organizing the "I Want to Touch a Dog" event. 

In Penang, SOS founder April Sham denied that the adoption program encouraged Muslims to touch dogs.

April demanded that Penang Kini apologize for linking the event to religion and tarnishing its efforts to raise awareness about stray dogs, Malaysiakini reported.

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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's government will propose amendments to the 1948 Sedition Act during the current Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) session, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Thursday.

The purpose is to help protect the sanctity of Islam and other religions, and to act against those calling for secession of the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, he said. 

Without the change to the law, "trouble and chaos" could ensue and an irresponsible few who dare to insult Islam could destroy the country, Zahid, who is also vice president of Malaysia's ruling United Malays National Organization (Umno) party, warned during his monthly ministerial address, the Malay Mail reported.

"As long as I am home minister, I will ensure this amended law, the Sedition Act, will defend the position of Islam, the rulers, and Malays under my responsibility," he said. 

Referring to a recent controversy about a stray-dog adoption program in Penang state, where a Muslim woman was pictured holding a puppy, Zahid said such an event would not have happened before the spread of liberalism, which had now reached an "extreme" point.

Opposition lawmakers, social activists and some NGOs have repeatedly called for the repeal to be repealed, arguing that it has been used to curtail freedom of speech and stifle dissent. 

Several individuals, including a University of Malaya law professor, have been hauled up for having committed various "offenses" under the current act's provisions.

Unsuccessful bid for moderation

In his bid for reform and moderation, Prime Minister Najib Razak had pledged in June 2012 to abolish the Sedition Act, which was originally introduced by the British in 1948 to deal with communist insurgents. 

He proposed that it be replaced by a National Unity Act, the provisions of which would be fleshed out by a National Unity Consultative Council. 

However, he faced opposition and dissent from his own party members and hard-line Malay NGOs. 

Even a former chief justice, Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad, said that abolishing the Act in its entirety would be a mistake. 

It would pave the way for Malaysians to insult and question the position of the Malays, the rulers, Islam and the Malay language, the Malaysian Insider had quoted Hamid as saying. 

Hamid, however, also noted that a clause in the Sedition Act, which makes it an offense for Malaysians "to bring into hatred or contempt or excite dissatisfaction" against the government, was undemocratic.

"If the government wants to make amendments that may gain the support of others, it should consider the sedition offense against the government. Right now, even committing sedition against the government is wrong. But this is not in line with democracy," he had said.

Eventually, at the Umno General Assembly last November, Najib announced that the act would be retained and strengthened with two extra provisions: one prohibiting insults against all religions, and the other prohibiting talks of Sabah and Sarawak seceding from Malaysia, the Malay Mail reported. 

The Sedition Act has been amended five times, the last time being in 1975. 


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian government announced Wednesday it would start screening Muslim pilgrims before they go abroad, after two citizens joined the Islamic State (IS) terror group under the pretext of undertaking the minor pilgrimage (umrah) to Saudi Arabia.
The government wants to ensure that Malaysians are going to Mecca and Medina solely to perform a pilgrimage and not veering away from those holy sites to join IS's ranks in the Middle East, The Star newspaper quoted Tourism and Culture Minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz as saying.
"There are cases of missing umrah pilgrims from Malaysia who went missing after performing the umrah to join the IS,'' Nazri told reporters in Nusajaya, Johor state, on Wednesday.
The people who will be screened will include pilgrims travelling to Mecca by themselves as well as those going there through pilgrimage packages sold by travel agents, he said.
Security agencies will also need to develop procedures to ensure that Malaysian pilgrims return home after going on umrah, he said.
"We will work closely with the Saudi government to tackle the issue as the issuance of umrah visas comes under their jurisdiction,'' Nazri said.
And, as an added safeguard against Malaysians joining IS under the guise of foreign tourism, the government will implement a similar screening policy for Malaysians planning to holiday abroad, he said.
Case of the stray pilgrims
Earlier on Wednesday, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar announced that two people had broken away from their umrah tour group and joined up with IS militants in Syria, the state-run Bernama news agency reported.
The two had used the services of an umrah agency in order to evade detection by the authorities, Khalid said, declining to reveal the identities of the missing "pilgrims."
Police don't believe the agency was in any way connected with IS or that it knowingly helped the two join the extremist group.
"So far, we have detected two such cases where on the pretext of going for umrah, they actually wanted to join the IS militants," Bernama quoted him as saying.
"They went not for a religious purpose .... imagine, the umrah being misused," said Khalid, who declined to reveal the identity of the two individuals.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is working to introduce a new law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), for parliamentary debate this month, said Wednesday that the bill was aimed at cracking down on Malaysians who planned to leave the country and fight for IS.
Till now, police have identified 61 Malaysians fighting alongside IS in Iraq and Syria, and that 10 of them had died in combat, Bernama quoted Zahid as saying.
"... The formulation of POTA is to ensure the security and wellbeing of the people and country," the minister told a monthly assembly at his ministry.


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BENARNEWS- Religious authorities in Malaysia's Penang state will not act against organizers and Muslim participants of a stray-dog adoption drive held there earlier this month, although it offended some Muslim groups. 

"Islam is universal and it preaches love to not only mankind but to all, including animals, environment and everything," The Malay Mail quoted Abdul Malik Kassim, chairman of the state religious affairs committee, as saying in explaining the decision.

Authorities also will not punish a Muslim woman who was photographed holding a puppy at the same event, he added. 

"In Islam, this is known as Rahmatar Lil'Alamin. In Islam, there are clear guidelines on how to do this," he said. 

Abdul was responding to a call from Rafizal Abdul Rahim, chief of the youth wing of the ruling United Malays National Organization (Umno) party in Penang, to investigate the four-day event at a mall in George Town that concluded on Sunday.

A local group called Save Our Strays (SOS), along with students from Han Chiang College, had organized the Opt-To-Adopt drive to encourage non-Muslims to adopt stray dogs so as reduce their numbers on the streets. 

But a picture of the woman in a headscarf with the mongrel pup angered some Muslim groups, after the image was uploaded onto the Penang Kini community page on Facebook.

In Islam, dogs are widely seen as unclean creatures, and therefore taboo. 

"We regret, and are disappointed and angry, and condemn the program because we feel there is a hidden agenda by certain parties after the 'I Want to Touch A Dog' program last year," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted Rafizal as saying.

Hidden agenda?

In October, social activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi had organized the "I Want to Touch a Dog" campaign in Selangor state. 

Besides attracting volunteers and dog owners, that event drew many Malay Muslims, who took the opportunity to touch and interact with dogs and learn how to clean themselves after touching the animals.

That event sparked the ire of conservative Muslims, who argued that it countered Islamic teaching that compares canines to excrement, the Malay Mail reported. 

Progressive Muslims, however, were quick to defend Azmi. 

Some Islamic religious scholars, including former Perlis state Mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, counter-argued that if touching a dog was comparable to touching excrement, Muslim veterinarians, toilet cleaners and parents too should be deemed "haram" (prohibited) for coming in contact with feces while cleaning up their charges. 

Eventually, however, Azmi bowed to pressure and publicly apologized for organizing the "I Want to Touch a Dog" event. 

In Penang, SOS founder April Sham denied that the adoption program encouraged Muslims to touch dogs.

April demanded that Penang Kini apologize for linking the event to religion and tarnishing its efforts to raise awareness about stray dogs, Malaysiakini reported.

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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's government will propose amendments to the 1948 Sedition Act during the current Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) session, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Thursday.

The purpose is to help protect the sanctity of Islam and other religions, and to act against those calling for secession of the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, he said. 

Without the change to the law, "trouble and chaos" could ensue and an irresponsible few who dare to insult Islam could destroy the country, Zahid, who is also vice president of Malaysia's ruling United Malays National Organization (Umno) party, warned during his monthly ministerial address, the Malay Mail reported.

"As long as I am home minister, I will ensure this amended law, the Sedition Act, will defend the position of Islam, the rulers, and Malays under my responsibility," he said. 

Referring to a recent controversy about a stray-dog adoption program in Penang state, where a Muslim woman was pictured holding a puppy, Zahid said such an event would not have happened before the spread of liberalism, which had now reached an "extreme" point.

Opposition lawmakers, social activists and some NGOs have repeatedly called for the repeal to be repealed, arguing that it has been used to curtail freedom of speech and stifle dissent. 

Several individuals, including a University of Malaya law professor, have been hauled up for having committed various "offenses" under the current act's provisions.

Unsuccessful bid for moderation

In his bid for reform and moderation, Prime Minister Najib Razak had pledged in June 2012 to abolish the Sedition Act, which was originally introduced by the British in 1948 to deal with communist insurgents. 

He proposed that it be replaced by a National Unity Act, the provisions of which would be fleshed out by a National Unity Consultative Council. 

However, he faced opposition and dissent from his own party members and hard-line Malay NGOs. 

Even a former chief justice, Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad, said that abolishing the Act in its entirety would be a mistake. 

It would pave the way for Malaysians to insult and question the position of the Malays, the rulers, Islam and the Malay language, the Malaysian Insider had quoted Hamid as saying. 

Hamid, however, also noted that a clause in the Sedition Act, which makes it an offense for Malaysians "to bring into hatred or contempt or excite dissatisfaction" against the government, was undemocratic.

"If the government wants to make amendments that may gain the support of others, it should consider the sedition offense against the government. Right now, even committing sedition against the government is wrong. But this is not in line with democracy," he had said.

Eventually, at the Umno General Assembly last November, Najib announced that the act would be retained and strengthened with two extra provisions: one prohibiting insults against all religions, and the other prohibiting talks of Sabah and Sarawak seceding from Malaysia, the Malay Mail reported. 

The Sedition Act has been amended five times, the last time being in 1975. 

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BENARNEWS- March 27 will mark the first anniversary of a Malaysia-brokered peace settlement between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel group. But the long-sought peace could be in jeopardy due to fallout from a raid by government forces on Mindanao seven weeks ago that went terribly wrong.
"Trust has been affected," Al Haj Ebrahim Murad, the rebel group's chairman, told Reuters in an interview published Saturday, referring to the effect of the Jan. 25 raid in a rebel-controlled area on the southern Philippine peace process.
Under the peace agreement and accompanying ceasefire, MILF agreed to lay down its arms in exchange for formation of a southern autonomous region that would hold local elections by mid-2016. The rebel group has been fighting since the 1970s for autonomy for the predominantly Muslim Bangsamoro people of the southern Philippines.
The raid may also have set back a potential alliance between Manila and the MILF in governmental efforts to shore up a southern front against extremists.
Following the signing of the peace accord, MILF last year formally condemned the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Two other southern Philippine rebel groups – The Abu Sayyaf Group and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) – both have pledged allegiance to IS.
Bad day at Mamasapano
The ceasefire was supposed to be in place on Jan. 25, when Special Action Force (SAF) police commandos swooped into Mamasapano, Maguidano province, in pursuit of one of the world's most wanted terrorists, Zulkifli bin Hir, a Malaysian fugitive and main suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings. The U.S. government has a $5 million bounty on his head.
The Philippine government claims that its forces killed Marwan early during the raid, but the FBI has yet to confirm through lab testing on a DNA sample taken from the scene that he is dead.
The raid, however, culminated in disaster for both the government and MILF.
The commandos wound up being caught in a battle with rebels from different Moro factions, including MILF. Forty-four SAF commandos and at least 17 MILF fighters died in the firefight.
MILF officials have since accused the government of violating the terms of the ceasefire and of not alerting their side ahead of time about the operation, according to news reports.
MILF claims that its forces were attacked and acting in self-defense when the fighting broke out.
"We are studying to see if the approval of the police operation came from the highest level of government," Murad told Reuters.
Yet, the MILF leader added, the rebels were not backing away from the peace process and would keep working with Manila, even if there was a change of government with presidential elections set for May 9, 2016.
Who's to blame?
The order, in fact, came from Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, according to a report released last week by a police Board of Inquiry (BOI) that faulted the commander-in-chief for the botched raid.
For his part, Aquino said in a recent speech that he had authorized the operation, but he blamed Getulio Napenas, head of the police's SAF unit, for giving him wrong information about the operation and for bungling its execution.
On Saturday, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda criticized the BOI report, saying it was full of innuendo and speculation, Reuters reported.
Police investigators did not interview the president about his role in the covert operation to get Marwan, according to Lacierda.
"We must, therefore, separate the facts from potentially hastily-made conclusions and opinions," Lacierda said in a statement.
"The Board of Inquiry (BOI) should have allowed the facts to speak for themselves. The BOI in its efforts could have asked the president to clarify matters. The president would have answered any questions they may have had," he said.
The crisis, nonetheless, is shaping up as the worst of Aquino's presidency.
He is facing calls to resign over his decision that led to the worst single-day battlefield loss for Philippine forces since the Moro rebellion broke out in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, angry Filipino lawmakers have suspended debate over a congressional bill that proposes self-rule for the Moro region and on which the peace deal hinges, AFP reported.
MILF report due out
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has launched its own probe into the events that unfolded at Mamasapano on Jan. 25, and is expected to issue its findings this week.
However, according to news reports from the region, the rebel group won't be handing a copy of its findings directly to the Philippine government.
Reports Saturday conflicted as to whether MILF would submit its report to the Malaysian government or send it to Kuala Lumpur indirectly through the International Monitoring Team, a multi-national U.N. peacekeeping group deployed to the southern Philippines.
"That, to me, is not really a good move in connection with the peace process," InterAksyon.com quoted retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, chairman of the Association of Generals and Flag Officers (AGFO), as saying.
"While there is a third party facilitator, the Malaysian government, the MILF, to show good faith and that they recognize the authority of the Philippine government, they should submit their report to our government."


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BENARNEWS- The eldest daughter of jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was spending the night in jail after being arrested Monday for alleged sedition.

MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, vice president of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People's Justice Party), had gone to give police a statement for their investigation into the opposition-led #KitaLawan [#FightBack] rally held in Kuala Lumpur on March 7. 

Instead, officers detained her under the Sedition Act over the probe into the rally and also for making "contemptuous remarks that those in the judiciary system had sold their souls to the devil," national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

Khalid said she would be released once police completed their interrogation.

But Fahmi Fadzil, the party's communications director, accused the police of detaining Nurul Izzah because of a speech that the lawmaker gave in parliament last week, when she spoke out against her father's imprisonment on a sodomy charge.

"I am extremely angry, and we all should be, because as parliament members we should be free to criticize the government of the day without reprisal," Nurul Izzah told Agence France-Presse by phone. 

Nurul Izzah is the latest to be picked up in the government's sedition crackdown during the past year, which has seen dozens investigated, charged or convicted, including several top opposition politicians.

The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned" by the detentions under the sedition law of Nurul Izzah as well as other government critics.

"The Malaysian government's recent investigations and charges of sedition against critics raise serious concerns about freedom of expression, rule of law and the independence of the judicial system in Malaysia," departmental spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

"To further restrict freedom of expression will only lead to further erosion of important pillars of Malaysia's democratic system," she added.

Reacting to Nurul Izzah's arrest, Human Rights Watch said the Malaysian government was stifling free speech and criminalizing dialogue "that would be a normal part of political discourse in much of the rest of the world." 

Prime Minister Najib Razak and his government were using the Sedition Act like "an axe to hack down opposition politicians, community activists, and any others, who dare speak their minds," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of the global human rights group.

Immunity for MPs?

Monday's arrest prompted opposition lawmakers to question the concept of fair comment in the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives). N. Surendran, a fellow member of the Pakatan Rakyat opposition bloc, called the sedition investigation "unconstitutional." 

"Article 63(2) of the Federal Constitution confers immunity from any proceedings in court for anything said by an MP in the Dewan Rakyat," The Star newspaper quoted him as saying. 

Malaysia's government plans to expand the Sedition Act during the current Dewan Rakyat session, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said last week. 

The purpose is to help protect the sanctity of Islam and other religions, and to act against those calling for the secession of the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, he said.

More sedition arrests

Meanwhile, four men were charged with sedition on Sunday in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state, for allegedly possessing materials urging Sabah and Sarawak to leave Malaysia, The Star Online reported.

The materials are linked to the Facebook page "Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia," which advocates that the two Bornean states leave the federation of Malaysia. 

Sabah nationalists have been increasingly discussing secession as people are becoming more aware of poverty, immigration and political issues, such as "Project IC," which was designed allegedly to change the state's demographic and electoral roll by issuing identity cards to migrants, The Malaysian Insider reported

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BENARNEWS- The young boy in a black-knit cap and military fatigues faces the camera, raises a pistol and points it at the viewer.
"For all thogut in the world, this is for you," the boy says in Malay, using an Arabic word for followers of religions other than Islam.
The sound of a pistol shot ends the video, and it fades to black.
The scene appears in a two-minute, 12-second online video purportedly posted over the weekend by the Malay-language division of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, according to the Straits Times, the Singaporean newspaper that broke the story Tuesday.
In the video, with voice-over and subtitles in Malay, about 20 boys, some who appear to be as young as six, eat, pray and practice weapons maneuvers together.

"There has been a surge in Indonesian- and Malay-language material posted by [IS] online," the paper quoted Jasminder Singh, a terrorism expert at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, as saying.
"There have been previous videos featuring Arab and Central Asian children, and it is clear they are now reaching out to target supporters in Southeast Asia," he added.
So young
The video, seen by BenarNews, features footage of a group of young boys taking part in martial arts training, handling AK-47 assault rifles, and chanting Muslim prayers, among other activities.
It also features an appearance by the Indonesian jihadist Bahrumsyah, the Straits Times reported.
Bahrumsyah, also known as Abu Muhammad al-Indonesi, last year appeared in an IS propaganda video targeting an Indonesian audience. The online posting of that IS video led to an Indonesian government ban on the Islamic State.
The new video purports to be a trailer for a longer propaganda film "coming out" soon, according to a teaser message at the end in English.
In it, grown-up men ask boys whether they can shoot or handle AK-47s and the youngsters reply that they can.
"When you grow up, what do you want to be?" a man asks.
"Mujahid," one of the boys replies.
The video is the first known one depicting Southeast Asian children in training for combat, the Straits Times noted in its article.
Malay-language propaganda wing
The video, titled "Education in the Caliphate," was produced by IS's Malay Archipelago Unit, which was established in 2014 under the name Katibah Nusantara, the Straits Times reported.
It is not clear where and when the video was shot, but the newspaper said it was filmed in an area controlled by IS.
The boys in the video and photos obtained by the newspaper were students at the Abdullah Azzam academy, which is geared for children of Southeast Asian jihadists and where Malay is the language of instruction, the newspaper said.
The video is posted on Azzam Media's website, azzammedia.com, which advertises itself as part of the Divisi Media Khilafah Islamiyah Berbahasa Melayu.
The Malay language group is the one from which various languages in Southeast Asia are derived, such as Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia and Jawi in southern Thailand.
"The decision to say the school teaches in Bahasa Melayu, rather than Bahasa Indonesia, suggests a defiance of the boundaries of the nation state," the newspaper reported.
Regional counter-terrorism efforts
News about the video encouraging Southeast Asian Muslim children to kill non-believers comes at a time when both the Malaysians and Indonesia government say they are trying to clamp down on domestic efforts to recruit young people for IS's jihadist cause.
In Malaysia, the government is set to introduce two proposed laws for parliamentary debate this month: the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and draft Foreign Fighters Act (FFA).
For its part, the Indonesian government is dealing with last week's arrest of 16 Indonesians who were stopped as they tried to cross from Turkey into Syria to join IS, officials in Jakarta said. Another 16 Indonesians have been reported missing in Turkey since breaking away from a tour group in late February.
Both groups of 16 include a large number of children, according to news reports that cite government officials.
On Tuesday, Indonesian Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Marciano Norman said his agency and other authorities were moving to stop the video featuring the Southeast Asian children in military training from being disseminated in Indonesia via YouTube and social media.
"We will immediately coordinate with the ministry [of Communications and Information] to block the video," Marciano told reporters, according to the Jakarta Globe.


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BENARNEWS- Thailand this week made two breakthroughs in fighting international crime on its territory, arresting two Southeast Asians who allegedly ran an African ivory smuggling ring, and also apprehending an Iranian man suspected of running one of the country's most extensive counterfeit passport rackets.  

On Thursday, Thai authorities took into custody two alleged kingpins of a transnational ivory ring.

They were arrested in connection with the Dec. 31 seizure in northeastern Surin province of 51 pieces of African ivory worth about 5.8 million baht (U.S. $176,000), the Associated Press reported, citing national police.

The suspects, identified as Boon Ching Teo, a 51-year-old Malaysian, and Sirichai Sridanont, a 50-year-old Thai, are accused of trading in African ivory and smuggling the contraband across Thailand's southern border, AP said, quoting national police chief Gen. Somyot Pumpanmuang. 

The two face a maximum of four years in prison, if convicted.

Thailand, which is one of the top Asian markets for the illegal trade in ivory poached from slaughtered African elephants and rhinos, risks being sanctioned internationally for not doing enough to combat such trafficking, according to AP.

On Friday, the Southeast Asian office of TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network, praised Thai authorities for pulling off the bust.

"It is heartening to see positive enforcement efforts made by Thailand in recent months," TRAFFIC's regional program manager Kanitha Krishnasamy, based in Selangor, Malaysia, said in a news release. 

TRAFFIC also reported an announcement made a day earlier by James Dawos Mamit, Malaysia's deputy minister for Natural Resources and the Environment, who said that customs officials had seized 4,624 elephant tusks between 2011 and 2014.

The deputy minister also revealed that two Malaysians and a Chinese citizen were convicted under national laws for illegal ivory possession and trade, TRAFFIC said. 

The Chinese national was sentenced to two months in jail and a fine of 250,000 ringgit (U.S. $76,000) for possessing and exporting 16 pieces of ivory; one of the Malaysians was fined 200,000 ringgit (U.S. $60,000), or 36 months in jail, for possessing nine elephant tusks; and the other Malaysian was fined 2,000 ringgit (U.S. $610) for possessing two elephant tusks, according to TRAFFIC.

Facilitating illicit travel

On Wednesday, Thai police announced the arrest of the Iranian national, identified as 45-year-old Murel Gurat, AP reported.

For more than a decade, he had led one of the country's biggest passport forgery rackets and his arrest was the outcome of a two-year investigation, AP quoted authorities as saying.

Gurat was arrested Sunday during a raid in coastal Chonburi province.

Police and officials with the Department of Special Investigation seized forgery equipment and 1,053 stolen passports from more than 60 countries, AP quoted police Col. Songsak Raksaksakul, the agency's commissioner for transnational crimes, as saying.

"You never saw more than 1,000 passports from 65 countries that went missing show up here in one place. This is the evidence that showed that this network was well connected to other groups all over the world," Songsak told a news conference.

Most of the forged or stolen passports were European. The ring led by Murel purchased and doctored passports for people intending to travel to a third country for illicit reasons, AP reported, citing officials.

The Thai authorities are especially worried that fake passports are winding up in the hands of terrorists and others involved in transnational crime.

In Indonesia, for example, four Uyghur men from China's Xinjiang province with alleged ties to the Islamic State (IS) are in custody and awaiting trial on charges of raising money to help Indonesian radicals travel abroad to join the jihadist group.

The four are accused of using false Turkish passports purchased in Thailand to enter Indonesia illicitly via Malaysia.      

Gurat is facing multiple charges, including forging passports and false documents, as well as receiving stolen property, AP reported. The offenses carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. 


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BENARNEWS- An Islamic party and leading member of Malaysia's opposition bloc on Wednesday introduced a bill in the Kelantan state assembly that proposes harsh penalties for violations of the state's sharia criminal code.
But the so-called hudud bill, sponsored by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), is encountering widespread criticism from beyond the northeastern state, including from within the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition.
The issue has ratcheted tensions between PAS and a key partner, the multiracial, secular Democratic Action Party (DAP).
The DAP, along with other critics of PAS's proposed amendment to Kelantan's sharia code, warns that its passage in the state legislature – which the Islamic party controls – could do much harm at the national level.
"The DAP protests vehemently the action of Kelantan PAS that ... is tantamount to an act of provocation to break up Pakatan Rakyat," Agence France-Presse quoted Anthony Loke Siew Fook, the party's national organizing secretary, as saying in an emailed statement.
Amputations, stonings and crucifixions
Malaysia's states function on a dual-legal system. There are both sharia courts and parallel courts modeled on the British system.
Yet the constitution guarantees that Malaysia will remain a secular nation where people from different religions can co-exist and practice their faiths freely.
Malaysia's population has a predominantly Muslim Malay majority and non-Muslim ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
The state bill proposes harsh punishments such as amputations, stoning and crucifixion for Muslims found guilty of violating Kelantan's sharia law.
Sharia law is supposed to apply to Muslims only.
PAS officials have issued statements in recent weeks assuring non-Muslims that they would be immune from prosecution and punishment under Kelantan's amended set of hudud procedures.
Last month, Kelantan State Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah told reporters that the faith-based party would not give up in pushing for the hudud amendments.
"Although we have waited 23 years, we are still patient in our struggle to see to it that hudud is implemented in Kelantan as the supreme law and nothing is going to stop us, including our allies in PR," the Star Online quoted the PAS official as saying.
Once the bill passes, PAS is expected to introduce a private member's bill in Parliament "to pave the way for the Islamist party to implement hudud by amending the Federal Constitution," the Malaysian Insider reported Wednesday.
Unconstitutional?
Critics charge that implementing and enforcing the amendment at the state level could ultimately divide the nation along religious and ethnic lines.
"We are of the opinion that this move is not consistent with the Federal Constitution ...," twenty-two civil society groups, representing an array of faiths and ethnicities, said in an open letter published in the Malay Mail Online on Tuesday.
"... We would like to call for an open discourse and debate on the issue of hudud. As the implementation of hudud will, without any doubt, affect all Malaysians regardless of religious affiliation, ethnic background or state of residence, all Malaysians should be allowed to discuss the issue as all are stakeholders of this country," said the groups.
The signatories included the Islamic Renaissance Front, JIHAD for Justice, various Chinese organizations, the Tamil Foundation and the National Indian Rights Action Team.
"Non-Muslims should not be silenced just because they are allegedly not affected by the Islamic laws. Any Muslim who wishes to be involved in the discussion should also be allowed to do so without their religious credentials being questioned," the letter went on to say.
Some legal experts agreed that amending and enforcing the Islamic law in Kelantan could unleash wider problems.
"It would not be helpful to national unity to create marked distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims," The Star Online quoted Andrew Khoo, the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee chairman, as saying.
Calls for moderation
It remained unclear whether Malaysia's ruling United Malays National Organization (Umno) party was going to oppose the bill.
Md. Alwi Che Ahmad, a Kelantan assemblyman and Umno information chief for the state, said that Umno's state bloc would endorse PAS's proposed bill, "because of Allah and not because of politics," according to the Malaysian Insider.
But two Umno allies in the Barisan Nasional (National Front) ruling coalition oppose the proposal.
On Wednesday, the youth wing of the multi-ethnic Malaysian People's Movement Party – better known as Gerakan – lodged a motion at the high court in Kota Bharu, the capital of Kelantan, to challenge the constitutionality of the state's sharia criminal code.
"We believe there are no provisions in our Federal Constitution for the implementation of hudud laws in Malaysia. It was also never agreed when Malaysia was formed," Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang said, according to Malay Mail Online.
The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), one of the other parties in the ruling bloc, adamantly opposes the bill.
In a speech on Sunday, MCA President Liow Tiong Lai cited the bill as he warned about the rise of religious extremism in Malaysia.
The country's current leadership "must immediately begin to harness national unity among our multiracial communities and find a way for Malaysia to rediscover the spirit of moderation planted by our founding fathers," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Lawmakers in Kelantan, Malaysia, unanimously passed a controversial bill on Thursday that puts the northeastern state a step closer to enforcing a harsh set of penalties sanctioned by sharia law.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which on Wednesday tabled the bill in the state legislature it controls, now plans to introduce a parliamentary bill seeking the removal of legal obstacles at the federal level.
These have prevented PAS from implementing the penalties since 1993, when the faith-based party first tried to implement the Islamic penal code in Kelantan.
The set of criminal penalties framed by the bill – but which apply only to Muslims – include amputations for theft and stoning for adultery, Agence-France Presse reported.
The country's secular-based constitution forbids the Islamic penal code from being implemented, but PAS officials hope to change that by introducing a private member's bill in parliament, they say, according to local media reports.
"The Kelantan government wants the private member's bill to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat [House of Representatives] as soon as possible, and there is still time as the Dewan Rakyat sitting now will end on April 9," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted PAS Assistant Secretary-General Takiyuddin Hassan as saying after the assembly cleared the bill.
"We only need a simple majority for the private member's bill to be passed in parliament. I reiterate that all Muslim MPs will realize it is their duty to the religion to support and pass the amendments," said Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah, PAS's state deputy in Kelantan, referring to 132 Muslim lawmakers in the 222-seat lower house, according to Bernama.
Contentious legislation
PAS belongs to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance, whose member parties are bitterly split over the hudud issue.
Critics on both sides of Malaysia's political divide have accused PAS of pushing a law that, they say, could undermine the secular constitution and stoke religious and racial divisions in the multi-ethnic country.
The controversy promises to trigger the break-up of the opposition bloc.
"PAS has openly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted," AFP quoted Gobind Singh Deo, an MP with the partner Democratic Action Party (DAP), as saying in a statement issued Thursday.
"It is therefore now untenable for us to remain in any relationship with PAS."
And while the issue also divides the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, PAS officials are expressing confidence that they will have enough votes in parliament from members of the United Malays National Organization (Umno), the most powerful party in that bloc.
In Kelantan, all 12 assembly members who represent Umno in the state legislature backed the bill.
But Prime Minister Najib Razak's current position on the issue remains unclear.
According to the Star Online, the Umno leader is expected to issue a statement Friday revealing Barisan Nasional's stance on the issue.


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BENARNEWS-  Malaysian leaders on Monday paid homage to Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of neighboring Singapore, the city-state on the Strait of Johor which he governed autocratically and transformed into one of Asia's Tiger economies after its traumatic split from Malaysia 50 years ago.
Lee, who governed Singapore from 1959 to 1990, died early Monday at age 91.
Prime Minister Nazib Razak said the news saddened him.
"I pay tribute to Mr Lee Kuan Yew's determination in developing Singapore from a new nation to the modern and dynamic city we see today," Bernama quoted him as saying.
"His achievements were great, and his legacy is assured," Najib said in a message posted on Facebook earlier.
Wan Azizah Wan Ismail of the opposition People's Justice Party (PKR) recalled how Lee transformed the 269-square-mile island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula with no natural resources into one of the world's wealthiest nations.
"As the founder and first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew initiated developmental policies that were transparent and efficient, and was successful at attracting foreign investors to the point that his country was dubbed the 'Swiss of Asia'," she said, according to Malay Mail Online.
Formative years
Under Lee, relations between Malaysia and Singapore often were testy. He frequently clashed with Malaysia's founding prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, as well as Mahathir Mohamad, who led Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, the Straits Times noted.
Singapore was part of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965, when Tunku expelled Singapore from the Malaysian Federation because of political rivalries and simmering ethnic tensions.
That shared chapter in the founding history of the two nations was seminal for Lee, according to Singaporean Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo.
"The Malaysian years were part of his formation as a political leader. I think those were very difficult years. He did what he could within what was possible. In the end, he failed. Singapore had to leave Malaysia," Yeo told Channel News Asia in an interview.
Yeo recalled how, in a meeting after the separation, Lee spoke with great solicitousness to Tunku.
"In that final encounter, I saw he had deep respect for him, and that earlier relationship of a young man and older leader continued to be part of him. He needed not, at that point in his life, show respect to Tunku. But he did."
'He brooked no dissent'
Local papers recalled Lee's legacy as an iron-fisted leader who exerted strict controls over the press, public assembly and political opponents.
"The world can finally judge Lee Kuan Yew and determine if Singapore's glittering skyscrapers were worth the price of democracy and chewing gum, although he wouldn't have cared for such assessments anyway as it was he, and only he, who decided what was right for Singapore," said an obituary in The Malay Mail Online.
"At the helm of a nation-state in its infancy, Lee built Singapore after his own image – stern, disciplined and no-nonsense. He brooked no dissent and did not tolerate corruption. He focused on running an efficient, pragmatic and meritocratic administration."
With Lee's passing, Singapore could now perhaps achieve political liberalization to match its economic stature, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Lee Kuan Yew's tremendous role in Singapore's economic development is beyond doubt, but it also came at a significant cost for human rights – and today's restricted freedom of expression, self-censorship and stunted multi-party democracy is also a part of his legacy that Singapore now needs to overcome," Roberston said


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian government on Monday introduced for parliamentary debate two anti-terrorist bills whose purpose, officials say, is to combat a growing domestic threat from the Islamic State (IS) and other extremist groups.
The introduction of the bills came as Malaysian police announced the uncovering of two IS threats on home soil: a letter that purportedly threatened to kill the Indian spiritual leader Ravi Shankar, who was visiting Penang state over the weekend; and the arrest of two Iraqis in connection with the foiling of an alleged plot by an IS cell to attack the Saudi Arabian and Qatari embassies in Kuala Lumpur.
On the legislative front, the House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) is to debate the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) bill and the Special Measures Against Terrorism in Foreign Countries Bill – also known as the Foreign Fighters Bill – between April 6 and April 9, the last three days of its current session.
The Foreign Fighters Bill would allow authorities to suspend or revoke passports and travel documents of foreigners arrested on Malaysian soil and who are suspected of engaging in or supporting terrorism, the Associated Press reported.
ISA again?
POTA is particularly controversial because it would allow Malaysian authorities to hold a suspected terrorist for two years without trial.
On Monday, some MPs from the opposition criticized POTA. They said it effectively would revive the Internal Security Act (ISA), which was rescinded in 2012 and contained a similar provision about the indefinite detention of suspects.
Critics warn that the government also could arbitrarily use POTA to jail people who speak out against the government – as was the case, they say, with many people arrested under the old ISA and under the existing Sedition Act.
"There are severe restrictions of civil liberties under POTA. We see this as a threat to the very fragile fundamental liberties that we have in this country," Malaysiakini quoted opposition MP Wong Chen as saying.
"The only difference between ISA and this is that instead of ISA being indefinite from the beginning, this is renewable for two-year-blocks. So this is just another ISA in disguise," said Raja Bahrin, another lawmaker from the opposition, according to Free Malaysia Today.
The government has denied that it is resurrecting the Internal Security Act through POTA. Officials also have assured the public that the government's political critics would be immune from arrest under the proposed terrorist law, according to local news reports.
In a Sunday interview with the Star Online, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamid said that previous anti-terror-laws were too reactive, and that the emergence of the Islamic State group had "forced us to look into preventive laws."
"We also need to look at foreign fighters, the fighters fighting outside Malaysia. They want to use Malaysia as their hub, not only to train potential followers but to destroy the good image of Malaysia being a very moderate Islamic country. [Introducing these new laws] shows that the government is committed to show that we are seriously combating the terrorism threat," Zahid told the Star.
"The details are not worked out yet but I believe that if the foreign fighters are from countries with extradition agreements with us, the best method is to send them back to their country of origin," Zahid went on to say.
"If there is no extradition agreement, we want an agreement from those countries that detention and rehabilitation should be done in Malaysia."
If Shankar sets foot...
Meanwhile, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said his agency was investigating a report about the threatening letter against Ravi Shankar.
It was addressed to the manager of a hotel in Penang at which the Indian guru was booked to stay, and was sent to the Malaysian chapter of
Shankar's humanitarian NGO, the Star Online reported.
The letter featured IS's black flag and a photo of a beheaded person, according to the newspaper.
"If he steps foot in Malaysia, your hotel and venues of his activities will be destroyed and many thousands will die for him. We don't want Ravi
Shankar to step foot into a Muslim country," the letter read.
According to the Singapore-based Straits Times, Khalid confirmed the arrests of the two Iraqis in connection with the purported embassy plot.
The two were taken into custody on Thursday after having been under surveillance by intelligence officials since March 10.
"They were planning to attack the embassies on March 31 at the behest of IS," an unnamed source told The Star, according to the Straits Times.


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BENARNEWS- As Malaysia this week escalated a crackdown on newspapers, opposition politicians and other dissenting voices, a famed satirical cartoonist said he would be charged Friday under its Sedition Act for criticizing the government. 

"The use of the Sedition Act comes as no surprise for me as in a corrupt regime, the truth is seditious. Najib's regime is mentally corrupted and morally bankrupt," cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque – popularly known as Zunar – said Wednesday in a statement posted online.

He was referring to Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose government reportedly arrested as many as 114 people in March alone for alleged sedition.

"I would like to reiterate that the use of Sedition Act will not silence me. I will keep exposing the corruption and wrong-doings of the BN government," Zunar added in his statement, printed on the website of Aliran, a Malaysian human rights group.

Najib's United Malays National Organization (Umno) party leads the National Front (BN) coalition that governs Malaysia. 

The cartoonist said he was to be charged at the Kuala Lumpur High Court under a section of the act that carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison, a fine of 5,000 ringgit (U.S. $1,361), or both. 

Zunar has often lampooned Najib's policies in his biting cartoons.

But it was a Feb. 10 tweet, where the cartoonist spoke out against the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, which landed him in jail for three days in February. The imminent charge against him stems from that arrest.

Journalists in black

Zunar's announcement came amid a series of arrests this week, in which police took five prominent media figures into custody for a day on suspicion of sedition.

They included three editors of The Malaysian Insider (TMI), its chief executive officer and its publisher. 

"There is no tolerance for activities that promote sedition," Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bajar tweeted, The Star Online reported Tuesday.

In a show of solidarity with TMI, fellow members of the media from rival English-language publications The Star and Malaysiakini wore black as they covered Wednesday's parliamentary proceedings, TMI reported.

The TMI editors were arrested over an article published March 25.

It reported that the country's Conference of Rulers – a body of sultans and governors that meets to discuss religious matters – had rejected a proposal to amend federal law so that an Islamic criminal code could be enforced in Kelantan state.

The next day, an official representing the conference filed a police report denying that the sultans had deliberated on the issue, or that they had issued any statement about the hudud law. 

The Edge group also had been publishing stories about a financial scandal afflicting Najib's government over its handling of a state-run investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad, which is strapped with billions of dollars in debt, Fairfax Media reported. 

On Tuesday, the Center for Independent Journalism and the Southeast Asia Press Alliance issued a joint statement calling the arrests an assault on media freedom.

"In the wake of multiple arrests and detentions of those seen to be critical of the government, it is even more important for the media to continue to play its part as the fourth estate to hold the pillars of government accountable and to keep the public informed," the statement said.

'Acting maliciously'

The arrests of the five media people followed the weekend arrest of three high-profile opposition figures for organizing a march protesting Anwar's imprisonment. 

"This is an abuse of the sedition law, and an abuse of everything. The government is acting maliciously," Agence France-Presse quoted MP Tian Chua, vice president of Anwar's People's Justice Party, as saying before his own arrest on Saturday. 

Some of the government's critics are comparing the crackdown on journalists, opposition politicians and others to Operasi Lalang(Operation Weed) in 1987, when the government of then Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir arrested 106 dissenters under the Internal Security Act.

"The question can be legitimately asked whether the country is seeing a replay of the [1987] dragnet," senior opposition leader Lim Kit Sing – who himself was arrested under Operasi Lalang – said, according to AFP.

Human rights advocates are warning that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) introduced in Malaysia's parliament this week could be used to stifle dissent, since it would enable the government to detain suspects without trial for years at a time.

Government officials say that POTA would only target terrorists. 

"Only acts of terrorism come under the Act. Conflicting political views are not covered by this law," Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said, according to the Borneo Post. 

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BENARNEWS- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday confirmed the death of the Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir (also known as Marwan or Zulkifli Abdhir), more than two months after he was reported killed in a raid by government forces in the southern Philippines.
"After a thorough review of forensic data and information obtained from our Philippine law enforcement partners, the FBI has assessed that terrorism subject, Zulkifli Abdhir, also known as 'Marwan,' is deceased," David Bowdich, assistant director of the bureau's Los Angeles field office, said in a statement Wednesday.
Marwan was a main suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings, who had a $5 million U.S. government bounty on his head. He was 48 or 49 at the time of his death, and had trained as an engineer in the United States.
According to his profile on the FBI's website, which is now marked in red as "deceased," he had headed the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) terrorist group and belonged to the central command of al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah. It carried out the bombings in Bali 13 years ago, which killed 202 people.
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Marwan was killed in a raid by Filipino police commandos on his hideaway in Mamasapano, Maguidanao province, on Jan. 25. Filipino forces cut off one of his thumbs, which was eventually sent to the FBI as a DNA sample for laboratory testing.
On Feb. 4, the L.A. field office announced that the preliminary testing suggested a DNA match but more testing needed to be done to confirm that Marwan was dead.
His death, however, cost the Philippine government the lives of 44 members of its Special Action Force (SAF) after their unit became trapped in a battle with different Moro separatist rebels as they withdrew from the area.
"The FBI's case against Abdhir is one of many investigations the FBI has conducted in cooperation with our Philippine counterparts. Once again, the men and women of the FBI express sincere condolences to the brave officers of the Special Action Force who lost their lives while attempting to apprehend this dangerous fugitive," Bowdich's statement said.


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BENARNEWS- A court in Kuala Lumpur on Friday charged one of Malaysia's best-known satirical cartoonists with nine counts of violating the Sedition Act for criticizing the government in a series of tweets.
Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, 53, whose pen name is Zunar, later was arrested Friday under Section 233(1)(a) of the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Act, after he posted U.S. $6,147 (22,282 ringgit) in bail for the sedition charges. He was taken into custody for several hours and then released.
"We will fight this. Sedition is being used in the most ridiculous fashion," Latheefa Koya, Zunar's defense lawyer, told reporters following Friday's sedition hearing at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, and before her client was arrested under the other law.
Zunar is among scores of media figures, opposition leaders and activists whom Malaysian authorities have swept up in recent weeks and accused of seditious speech.
As many as 114 people reportedly were arrested for sedition last month alone in the country's biggest clampdown on dissent since 1987.
Zunar could be sentenced to a maximum of 43 years in prison if convicted of all nine counts, Latheefa said.
"Zunar has used Twitter to express what many thousands of others have felt, and now he is being charged nine times ...," Latheefa said, according to Agence France-Presse. "Looking at that alone, you can see how excessive and how completely misused the Sedition Act is."
Commenting Friday on Zunar's case, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters that the cartoonist had "asked for it," according to the Star Online.
Zunar "should know by now" to watch comments posted online that may disrupt the peace by stirring public anger, the website quoted the Royal Malaysia Police chief as saying.
"Zunar was re-arrested because he abused the Internet, which is an offense under Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998," Khalid said.
"He asked for it. You ask for it, you will get it. We will not ignore any action that is seditious and abusive of the Internet," he added.
Provocative online postings
According to Malaysian media, Zunar was re-arrested Friday under the Communications and Multimedia Act over an image posted on his fan club's Facebook page.
The image depicted Prime Minister Najib Razak's face superimposed on the body of Rafizi Rafmli, secretary-general of the opposition People's Justice Party (PKR). Rafizi's body is dressed in a purple prison jumpsuit.
It was Zunar's messages on Twitter criticizing the jailing of PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim on sodomy charges that led to his previous arrest in February for alleged sedition.
Before he appeared in front of Judge Rashid Hussain, Zunar showed up at the courthouse dressed in a mock prison jumpsuit with a matching pair of handcuffs.
"I don't think I did anything wrong," he told reporters.  "A tweet is just my expression, and that's what every Malaysian thinks of the judiciary and every system in Malaysia."
"The way they (authorities) do it, they are really trying to shut me off from criticizing the government, so I think it's clearly politically motivated," he added.


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian House of Representatives early on Tuesday passed an amendment to the nation's anti-terrorism laws, which permits authorities to hold suspected terrorists without trial for extendible two-year periods.
The passage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) followed reports Monday that Malaysian authorities had arrested 17 suspected militants who, according to the chief of police, were plotting bomb attacks in Kuala Lumpur as well as kidnappings of prominent figures.
The group of suspects was inspired by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement issued Tuesday. They were conspiring to rob banks and raid police station and army posts in order to get money and weapons for their plot, Khalid said.
"Seventeen people between the ages of 14 to 49 were arrested while they were holding a secret meeting to plan terror attacks [in the Kuala Lumpur area]," Agence France-Presse quoted Khalid as saying.
"The aim of this terror group was to form an IS-like Islamic state in Malaysia," he added.
The police gave no other details about Sunday's arrests by the Royal Malaysia Police's counterterrorist wing. On Monday, Khalid tweeted that two of the suspects had recently returned from Syria.
Heated debate
Lawmakers in the Dewan Rakyat, parliament's lower house, debated the POTA bill throughout Monday and overnight into Tuesday morning, when they voted to pass it.
Seventy-nine MPs from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition voted in favor and 60 MPs from the opposition voted against the bill, Malay Mail Online reported.
The government had pressed for its passage, arguing that it needed tougher anti-terrorist laws to fight a growing domestic threat from IS and home-grown supporters and recruits.
"This is a real threat and preventive measures must be carried out," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as telling parliament on Monday.
The bill's introduction, however, raised alarms among opposition leaders, lawyers and human rights advocates who said its passage would resurrect the Internal Security Act (ISA), which the government revoked in 2012.
The ISA had allowed the authorities to detain suspects for two years without trial. The state had used it to lock up opposition figures and other governmental critics.
During Monday's parliamentary debate, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat alliance tried to introduce its own proposed amendments to the bill, but no changes were made as the chamber voted in favor of it.
"Pakatan Rakyat is committed to fight terrorism, and we take the terrorism issue seriously. At the same time, we would like to protect democracy, or whatever is left of democracy, in Malaysia," Free Malaysia Today quoted Wong Chen, a leader from the alliance, as telling reporters on Monday.
"You cannot fight terrorism by suppressing or destroying democracy. That will never work," he added.
Re-opening Pandora's Box?
Reacting to the news about the bill's passage, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the United States-based advocacy group, called it "a giant step backwards for human rights in Malaysia."
The Malaysian government was "continuing its slide into rights-abusing rule," HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson said in a statement.
"By restoring indefinite detention without trial, Malaysia has re-opened Pandora's Box for politically motivated, abusive state actions that many had thought was closed when the abusive Internal Security Act was revoked in 2012," Robertson said.
"Passage of this legislation raises serious concerns that Malaysia will return to practices of the past when government agents frequently used fear of indefinite detention to intimidate and silence outspoken critics."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's parliament early Friday morning (local time) passed an amendment to the Sedition Act that authorizes the government to punish seditious speech more strictly.
Authorities can now jail violators for up to 20 years, compared with a maximum of three years stipulated by the act under its previous version. People accused of sedition can be denied bail, and a court can seize their passports and other international documents.
"If I could quote someone who said this yesterday, by POTA and amendments to the Sedition Act, the government is declaring war on its people and I want to know why they are doing that," Ambiga Sreenevasan, a former Bar Council president with the Movement to Abolish the Sedition Act, told Channel News Asia.
She was alluding to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which parliament passed Tuesday. That amendment to Malaysia's anti-terrorism laws allows authorities to detain suspects indefinitely without trial for renewable two-year periods.
Focus on religion
According to a summary of the proposed amendment to the Sedition Act, published by the state-run Bernama news agency, the change to the 67-year-old law shifts its focus from speech that criticizes the government to speech that offends religion.
Under the amendment, the "tendency to evoke feelings of malice, hostility and hatred on religious grounds is an offense," whereas acts that arouse hatred, contempt or dissatisfaction against the government are not," Bernama said.
The amendment allows the state to obtain a court order to censor publications and websites that incite hatred in the multi-racial and multi-religious nation.
"The Sedition Act is not just for Muslims; it is for the protection of all Malaysians. It is aimed at preventing any person who promotes feelings of hostility between persons or groups on the grounds of religion – whether the religion attacked is Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or any of the other faiths Malaysia is proud to be home to," Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a television interview that aired Thursday night (local time), The Star Online reported.
"We will not and cannot stand for the incitement of racial or inter-ethnic conflict. We have come too far to harm the progress that we have made. And that is why the government decided to keep the Sedition Act and amend it to make it a better and more suitable law," he added.
In recent months, Najib's government drew criticism from at home and abroad for clamping down on such acts. The police swept up scores of opposition politicians, activists, journalists and others, accusing them of seditious speech.
The amendment to the Sedition Act is a tweaked version of the one that the government proposed, when it introduced the bill in parliament on Tuesday.
When lawmakers from within the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition complained that the proposed amendment was too harsh, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi agreed to tweak the bill, BN members of parliament told The Star on Wednesday.
The government then added the clause about how acts that "arouse hatred, contempt or dissatisfaction against the government" would no longer be considered offenses.
Into the night
Thursday marked the last day of parliament's current session.
The Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) debated the proposed amendment throughout the day and into early Friday morning, when lawmakers passed it by voice vote. Their deliberations were broadcast live on state-run television.
The opposition bloc had wanted the government to repeal the Sedition Act outright, as Najib promised to do in 2012 before scuttling that move last November.
On Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein expressed concern over the erosion of freedom in Malaysia following the passage of POTA and looming revision of the Sedition Act.
"The United Nations Human Rights Office has long urged Malaysia to either repeal the 1948 Sedition Act or to bring it in line with international human rights standards," he said in a prepared statement.
"It is very disappointing that the Malaysian Government is now proposing to make a bad law worse."
Zeid went on to say: "Silencing dissent does not nurture social stability, but an open democratic space does. Curtailing the legitimate exercise of human rights in the name of fighting terrorism has been shown, time and again, to backfire and to only lead to festering discontent and a strong sense of injustice


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BENARNEWS- UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has lauded a move by Malaysia and Indonesia to form a joint educational strategy to combat religious extremism, amid a common threat posed by the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

The involvement of Islamic scholars and clerics from the two neighboring nations in devising the strategy is a positive step, she told BenarNews

At a meeting in Jakarta last week, inaugurated by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, leading clerics and religious scholars from Malaysia and Indonesia formed a joint secretariat to fight extremist ideology through promoting a moderate brand of Islam.

"In the face of rising intolerance that is a threat to all societies, I commend the initiative of Malaysia to collaborate with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, in leading a reflection on the teaching of Islam in their societies," Bokova said.

She welcomed the involvement of religious leaders in this effort "to agree on a common narrative."

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is prepared to help member-states fend off extremism by teaching young people to embrace tolerance and non-violence through schoolbooks and curricula, Bokova said.

"Nothing can justify violent extremism. Education is the most effective way to combat distorted views of religion and promote understanding, values of tolerance and respect for human dignity and diversity," she added.

A larger role

Muhyiddin, who is also Malaysia's Education minister, met with Bokova at UNESCO headquarters in Paris this week.

According to a report in the New Straits Times (NST), the deputy prime minister said later that the U.N. agency wanted Malaysia and Indonesia to play a larger role in fighting extremism and Islamophobia.

"UNESCO wants Malaysia and Indonesia to show the world the proper Islamic education and not the ones depicted by the Islamic State," the NST quoted him as saying. 

During his meeting with Bokova, she "proposed that Malaysia and Indonesia lead the way in showing the proper Islamic education," he added.

The minister went to Paris as part of Malaysia's campaign to lobby UNESCO to grant the country membership on its executive board, the state-run Bernama news agency reported Thursday.

The need to practice wasatiyyah

During his speech in Jakarta last week, Muhyiddin urged Indonesian and Malaysian Muslims to "stand firm on the principle of wasatiyyah – as required by the true teachings of Islam – to reject extreme religious practices."

Malaysia and Indonesia are joining forces to fight extremism as both countries say they are facing a growing domestic threat from IS.

Since last year, the two governments have worked to arrest suspected IS members and supporters at home, and to prevent the jihadist group from recruiting young Muslims for its cause via classrooms and social media.

According to Malaysian authorities, 95 Malaysians have been arrested as suspected IS members, 46 are at-large in Syria or Iraq, and 10 have been reported killed in combat there.

The number of Indonesians believed to have joined IS in the Middle East is much higher. As many as 540 citizens have ventured abroad for jihad. At least two suspected IS members have been killed in police raids back home, while more than 50 have been arrested in Indonesia.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Myanmar must do more to protect vulnerable refugees – particularly Myanmar's stateless Rohingya Muslims – from being victimized by human traffickers, says Fortify Rights, a U.S.-based human rights advocacy group.

A year-long investigation by the group documented how huge numbers of Rohingya Muslims, driven from Myanmar by deprivation and state-sponsored violence, fall into the hands of traffickers, then are arrested, deported, enslaved or incarcerated in neighboring and nearby countries.

"We believe Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia have failed to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking as set forth in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act," Matthew Smith, the organization's executive director, told a panel of U.S. lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday.

The group said it interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses and survivors of abuse at the hands of human traffickers, more than a dozen traffickers and members of various ethnic minorities in Myanmar, including the Rohingya.

Interviews with Rohingya men and women took place in Myanmar's Rakhine State – where the minority group is mainly concentrated – as well as in Thailand and predominantly Muslim Malaysia, which is a main destination for Rohingya refugees.

Rohingya Muslims who were "fleeing state-sponsored violence and attacks in Myanmar" lacked basic protections in neighboring Bangladesh and Thailand, and in Malaysia, Smith said.

"These governments have failed to vigorously investigate and prosecute acts of trafficking that took place wholly or partly within their territories."

According to Fortify Rights, more than 650,000 Rohingya are displaced in Myanmar and Bangladesh and are vulnerable to being trafficked.

Many have crossed the border into Bangladesh, but the Bangladeshi government "has deliberately denied Rohingya protection and aid, leading tens of thousands to take dangerous and risky boat journeys to Thailand or Malaysia," Fortify Rights said in a statement.

The group said it had documented cases of killings, rape and torture during sea crossings.

"Fortify Rights also documented the selling of Rohingya women and girls from traffickers' camps in Thailand into forced marriages in Thailand and Malaysia, committing them to a lifetime of domestic servitude. For many, this is a transition from enslavement to enslavement," Smith said, according to a transcript of his testimony to U.S. congressional representatives.

Regional politicians call for action on Rohingya

A group of Southeast Asian lawmakers is also calling on nations of the region to address the systematic abuse of Rohingya Muslims.

The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) made its case at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, ahead of an upcoming summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand are part of ASEAN, but Bangladesh does not belong to the bloc.

"The growing risk of atrocity crimes in Myanmar represents a direct threat to ASEAN nations, both because of the security risks and economic strains it poses for all ASEAN members states, and because it undermines our shared commitment to protecting all people from persecution and violence," Malaysian lawmaker and APHR Chairman Charles Santiago said.

"We are standing on the precipice of a great tragedy," he added. "ASEAN as a grouping as well as individual national leaders have the responsibility, both morally and under international law, to act to prevent atrocity crimes and crimes against humanity from taking place."

Malaysia, which currently holds ASEAN's rotating chair, will host the 26th ASEAN Summit, set to take place in Kuala Lumpur and Langkawi on Sunday and Monday.

Time to reassess non-interference?

For years, members of the 10-nation bloc have declined to "interfere" in each other's domestic affairs. 

But in Kuala Lumpur this week, politicians and senior statesmen called on ASEAN leaders to consider abandoning the policy of non-interference.

Certain regional problems "are prolonged or intensified by the blanket application of non-interference," former Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar argued in a keynote speech Wednesday at the ASEAN People's Forum.

"On this platform of non-interference, we turn a blind eye to the massacre of ethnic minorities or abandon them as stateless peoples," Mohamed Azmin Ali, chief minister of the Malaysian state of Selangor, told the forum on Thursday, referring to the Rohingya, among other minorities.

"And on this principle of respecting the sovereignty of member states, we engage in a conspiracy of silence on the myriad forms of human rights violations committed against the weak, the marginalized and the dispossessed peoples in ASEAN."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's deputy home minister on Wednesday flatly denied an Israeli newspaper article alleging that Hamas has been training Palestinians on Malaysian soil to carry out anti-Israeli military operations, a local publication reported.

"This is ridiculous, they are creating reasons to oppose Malaysia," Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told The Malaysian Insider (TMI). "You know this is what they [Israel] always do, when they dislike a country...."

"In fact, we [have] never trained military or militants here," he added.

Wan Junaidi was commenting on a report published a day earlier by the Israeli paper Haaretz.

It cited court allegations by Shin Bet, one of Israel's security services, that Hamas was training "operatives in paragliding techniques in Malaysia."

Last year, Israeli officials came out with a similar statement, saying Hamas was conducting such training on Malaysian soil.

Tuesday's report in Haaretz mentioned intelligence obtained by Israeli officials through the interrogation of a Hamas operative, who had been captured during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip last July.

Later, Israel claimed that the prisoner "had trained in Malaysia to paraglide into Israeli territory to carry out murder and kidnappings," the newspaper reported. 

But Malaysia's government rejected those allegations.

What is different about the latest allegations is that Shin Bet offered more details in court papers to back up the earlier Israeli assertion, according to Haaretz.

Hamas, a Palestinian militant group and longtime foe of Israel, is on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, but Malaysia is on record as expressing sympathy for the group and the cause of Palestinian statehood.

The Malaysian government has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish State but sends economic, humanitarian and other aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs Gaza and the West Bank.

In response to the earlier Israeli allegations, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in August that Malaysia had never cooperated with Hamas or other pro-Palestinian groups "other than in diplomacy, trade and culture," according to TMI.

Hamas's presence in Malaysia

Shin Bet's detailed allegations were contained in an indictment filed last month in the Judea Military Court against Waseem Qawasmeh, a 24-year-old resident of Hebron who had studied at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in Kuala Lumpur, Haaretz reported.

Israeli authorities arrested Qawasmeh in February as he returned home from Malaysia via Jordan. He stands charged of being an active member of a group banned by Israel, and making contact with and receiving money from an enemy, according to the Israeli paper.

"According to the Shin Bet, Hamas men in Malaysia actively recruit for military training Palestinians who are studying there. Recruiters also put the students through ideological preparation that includes joining the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian charities that operate there," the article said.

"After their training, the operatives are sent to set up military networks in the West Bank, act as messengers between the territories and foreign countries, and carry out secret transfers of funds to meet Hamas' needs," it added.

Haaretz went on to report that Qawasmeh became associated with Hamas through its student association at IIUM.

He spent two years working for a Hamas charity and then was recruited to join the Muslim Brotherhood. Senior Hamas officials living in Malaysia attended Qawasmeh's induction into the brotherhood, the paper said.

Sharp denials

After Haaretz published its report, Hamas officials rejected it.

"The Shin Bet's accusations... are baseless; they are mere lies," the group said in a statement on Tuesday, according to World Bulletin.

"The Israeli accusations are aimed at preventing West Bank [Palestinian] students from traveling abroad to pursue their studies and providing a justification for their arrest upon their return," Hamas added.

In Malaysia, Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar also strongly denied the allegations contained in the newspaper's report. 

"Even if there are Palestinians who came to study in local universities, they came as Palestinian students to pursue regular studies at any university," he told SinarTV, a Malaysian channel, on Tuesday.

No individuals or groups provide any form of military training to Hamas or to Palestinians studying in Malaysia, he added.

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BENARNEWS- This month's arrests in Malaysia of 30 suspected Islamic State (IS) members – many of them with explosives allegedly in their possession – have raised concerns about the threat posed by the militant group to the nation and region, experts say.

"The threat posed by IS militants in Malaysia has reached a third level in which they are ready to stage attacks," Akhbar Satar, a former senior Malaysian crime fighter, told BenarNews.

Twelve of the 30 suspects were taken into custody on Saturday with bomb-making material while on their way to a mountain site in central Selangor state. According to Malaysian authorities, they were preparing to target government facilities in bomb attacks. 

Seventeen others were arrested earlier this month under suspicion of taking part in plotting attacks in Kuala Lumpur, sources with Malaysian police said. Another person was picked up soon after on suspicion of planning to leave the country to join IS.

These arrests and a string of other earlier raids have stoked fears that the terror threat facing Malaysia has reached an alarming level. The other raids included the detention of two Iraqis who, according to police, were planning to attack the Saudi and Qatari embassies in Kuala Lumpur.

Akhbar said the militants had already attained two tiers: recruiting members at all levels – from students and military personnel to civil servants and businessmen; and training them to stage attacks using explosives.

The critical third tier could involve attacks by the militants on key installations, said Akhbar, now director of local university HELP's Institute of Crime and Criminology and president of Transparency International Malaysia.

"We do not know how big the IS cells are and, based on the arrests so far, many of the militant suspects do not know each other. They met after being directed to pursue certain actions. This is something very dangerous," he said.

So far, 109 people have been arrested in Malaysia over their links to IS. Authorities have identified 105 Malaysians in Syria and Iraq, where IS has set up bases as part of its plan to establish a global caliphate. 

Six charged

On Thursday, six of the 17 suspects who were arrested April 5 were charged with being "party to a conspiracy to promote terror in Malaysia," Agence France-Presse reported, citing court documents.

The six included two Royal Malaysian Air Force personnel and an Indonesian, Ali Saifuddin, an alleged weapons expert and ex-member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a group linked with al-Qaeda, according to news reports.

The six charged Thursday also included Murad Halimmuddin Hassan, a 49-year-old Malaysian and former member of the Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) extremist group, the Star Online reported.

According to the Star, Murad is a veteran of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Sulawesi in Indonesia, and Syria. He is also suspected of being the mastermind of a group that tried to raid a police weapons' depot in Guar Gempedak, a town in Kedah state, The Star reported.

Comprehensive approach needed: expert

The capabilities of the groups that seek to emulate IS in Southeast Asia are still low but "that does not preclude the autonomous cells that are cropping up and seeking to learn," Ahmed Salah Hashim, an expert on military studies at Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University, told BenarNews.
"There is also the potential threat posed by lone wolves, although to date lone wolves are mainly a product of western individualistic societies."

He expressed doubt that the recent arrests meant Malaysians was facing "a beast of the nature of IS."

In his view, Malaysia needs to adopt a comprehensive approach to staving off the IS threat, encompassing diplomatic, intelligence, security and legal measures.

That approach could have three prongs, he said: continued disruption, surveillance and arrests of IS sympathizers at home, as well as measures to prevent people from going to Syria, even under the guise of charity work; preventative measures for "battlefield" returnees, including de-radicalization, therapy and surveillance; and creation of an IS task force to gather and analyze intelligence and work with the police's Special Branch wing.

"IS is not at the threat level in Malaysia as it is in Indonesia, and both are not at the threat level it is in the Middle East, of course," said Ahmed, an associate professor at the university's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.


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BENARNEWS- The dead found on the Thai-Malaysia border this week may have been killed by traffickers who did not receive ransom money, or they may have fallen mortally ill after forced labor, according to the director of a Malaysian NGO.

And despite governmental claims of no evidence of a Malaysian connection, citizens of Malaysia indeed are involved in human trafficking along the border, says Glorene Das, director of Tenaganita, a Kuala Lumpur-based group that advocates migrant rights.

"Human trafficking is a big business in southern Thailand; thousands cross between the borders into Malaysia and Thailand every day," she said in a statement.

"From the stories and testimonies of the migrant and refugee communities, in particular the Burmese, Rohingyas and Bangladeshi communities, Malaysians are very much involved in trafficking of persons at the border of Thai- Malaysia," the statement said.

On Monday, Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said his government had seen no evidence of a Malaysian connection to the deaths of 26 people whose bodies were recovered last week at a human trafficking camp in Padang Besar, a sub-district in Songkhla province, just 300 meters (984 feet) from the Malaysian border.

On Wednesday, Thai authorities exhumed the bodies of six people at a cemetery not far from the trafficking camp. Thai police suspect that the six were Rohingya Muslim refugees, members of a stateless minority in Myanmar. 

The bodies were badly decomposed, but they were identified as two males and four females, said Col. Marut Reungchinda, deputy superintendent of Police Bureau 9 in Songkhla.

"The remains will be transferred to the Prince of Songkhla Hospital for DNA tests, and then religious rites will be performed," Marut said.

Earlier this week a Burmese national and three local officials – a municipal councilman in Padang Besar and two assistant village headmen in the sub-district – were arrested in connection with the case of the 26 bodies. The suspects were charged under Thailand's human trafficking laws, and authorities said they were looking for four more suspects.

Buried and burned

According to Das, trafficking syndicates involve Burmese, Rohingya and Bangladeshis as well as Malaysians, working together with a "very sophisticated and structured" modus operandi.

Muslim Rohingyas and other Burmese refugees have told Tenaganita that after being held at detention camps and prisons in Thailand, many "are sent to the border to be sold to human traffickers and agents for sex and labor trafficking," Das said. 

"There are many cases of kidnapping too, where huge amounts of money as ransom are demanded by Malaysian human traffickers, agents and kidnappers from the families of migrants and refugees. When ransom money is not paid accordingly to the demands, they are then brutally killed and buried," she said.

Many migrants and refugees are forced to work to pay off ransoms and debts, to the point where they fall ill and die, amid a lack of medical treatment.

"All their bodies are buried and burned in southern Thailand," she said.

Thailand: transit point 

According to Fortify Rights, a human rights organization based in Washington D.C., Thailand is a major hub in the lucrative trade of smuggling Rohingya into neighboring Malaysia.

"Rohingya arriving in Thailand are typically brought to traffickers' camps set up in remote jungles in mainland Thailand or on small islands. At any given time – even now during the 'low' season in human trafficking via Thailand – there are thousands of Rohingya in dozens of traffickers' camps...," Fortify Rights Executive Director Matthew Smith told U.S. lawmakers last month. 

He cited interviews by Fortify Rights with survivors, human traffickers and brokers.

Traffickers "hold Rohingya under duress, subjecting them to severe beatings, torture, deprivations, and squalid conditions," Smith said while testifying before a congressional panel on April 22. 

Traffickers also were known to extort money from Rohingya for their release or onward travel, he added. 

A long journey

The trip to Thailand for these Muslim people fleeing persecution in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar can take 12 days and involves arduous river, sea and overland travel, according to a human trafficker who spoke to BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

Brokers receive between 50,000 (U.S. $1,500) to 100,000 baht (U.S. $3,000) as commissions to arrange the trip to Thailand, which starts in Myanmar's Rakhine state, the trafficker said.

After they arrive by sea in Thailand's peninsular Ranong or Phang-Nga provinces, the Rohingya will travel south by truck – by the hundreds, in some cases – until they arrive in Padang Besar, he said.

Occasionally, the traffickers and their human cargo have had to take detours, in which he has witnessed migrants die from suffocation in overcrowded vehicles, he added.

"Sometimes we go out of the route without knowing where we are, but we have to go," the trafficker said. "The longer the way, the greater are the risks we have to take." 

He said he was helping the migrants, not trafficking them.

"We who do this think we are helping them to travel to the third countries because, at home, they are persecuted," the man said. "They were not lured into traveling but they are willing to do so [in order] to meet and live with relatives in more convenient places."

"It's not human trafficking but, I admit, it's illegal," he added.


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BENARNEWS- The United Nations on Wednesday led international calls to Southeast Asian countries not to push back boats transporting illegal migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, following warnings from governments in the region that they would prevent more vessels from landing.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was "extremely alarmed at reports suggesting that Indonesia and Malaysia may have pushed back boats carrying vulnerable people from Myanmar and Bangladesh."
"The first priority is to save lives," UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker Türk said in a statement issued by the Geneva-based agency.
"Instead of competing to avoid responsibility, it is key for states to share the responsibility to disembark these people immediately."
UNHCR a day earlier had appealed to Southeast Asian governments to keep their borders open and step up maritime rescue efforts amid ongoing reports that "thousands of people" were stranded on smugglers' boats between the Andaman Sea and Strait of Malacca.
More than 1,700 migrants believed to be Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshi citizens have made it to shore since Sunday in Indonesia and Malaysia, where authorities have detained them.
On Monday, the Indonesian navy reportedly intercepted a boat carrying 600 migrants and sent it toward Malaysia after supplying the passengers with food and water, according to reports.
And on Wednesday, a boat carrying 500 more migrants was spotted off the Malaysian coast near Penang, but it was unclear whether authorities were allowing the vessel to land.
The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) had said Tuesday that it would turn away other migrants' boats after 1,158 migrants landed on Langkawi island. 
A local NGO, Lawyers for Liberty, condemned the policy.
"These boats carrying overcrowded refugees and migrants are typically rickety, wooden trawlers and hardly seaworthy," said Eric Paulsen, the group's director.
"Turning or towing these boats away is as good as signing their death warrant as the occupants are normally starving, dehydrated, sickly and in dire need of immediate assistance," he added.
'A regional challenge'
According to the Reuters news agency, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia did not respond Wednesday to UNHCR's earlier call to rescue more migrants.
"Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have decided not to receive boat people, as far as I am aware," Reuters quoted Thai junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Werachon Sukhondhapatipak as saying.
He declined to respond to the U.N.'s call on Tuesday as did officials at the Malaysian home ministry, Reuters reported.
In Indonesia, a foreign ministry spokesman denied that the country was implementing a "push back" policy, as he responded to questions about the migrant boat that had been intercepted by the Indonesian navy two days earlier, according to the Associated Press.
"We have to help refugees who need assistance and direct them to where they want to go," AP quoted Arrmantha Nasir as saying. "It goes against our principle to chase away refugee boats that enter our territory."
Meanwhile, a U.S. embassy official in Bangkok called on Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia to deal with the growing humanitarian crisis from the maritime influx of migrants.
"This is a regional challenge that needs to be addressed regionally, through coordinated international effort and in accordance with international conventions and maritime law," Agence France-Presse quoted the American official as saying.
Malaysia arrests 38 suspects
In other developments, the chief of the Royal Malaysia Police announced that, between March and April, his force had taken down seven human trafficking rings and arrested 38 people suspected of involvement in people-smuggling.
The suspects included 16 Malaysians, 21 Burmese, and an Indonesian. Two police officers were among the 38.
"These syndicates operate in the northern areas of Malaysia and southern Thailand," Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.
"Their victims are predominantly [Burmese] and Bangladeshis," he added in a statement issued during a joint anti-criminal cooperation meeting with his Thai counterpart in Phuket, Thailand.
Thailand is a major transit point for the trafficking of Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority fleeing persecution in Myanmar, where they are not recognized as citizens.
The maritime migrant crisis has followed in the wake of a Thai governmental crackdown on human trafficking, after more than 30 graves of migrants and traffickers' camps were discovered in southern Songkhla province earlier this month.
But the chief minister of Rakhine, the Burmese state that is home to the Rohingya, denied in an interview that any Rohingya from his area were among the boat people who landed this week on distant shores.
"It is impossible that the boat people in Malaysia and Indonesia are from Myanmar. It was possible in the past, but now it is ... almost impossible," Maung Maung Ohn said.


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BENARNEWS- Southeast Asian nations on Thursday defended their resolve to keep boatloads of starving Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants off their shores, amid a storm of international and domestic criticism of the policy.

"The Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian navies should stop playing a three-way game of human ping pong, and instead work together to rescue all those on these ill-fated boats," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"The Burmese government has created this crisis with their continued persecution of the Rohingya," he said. "Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have made things much worse with cold-hearted policies to push back this new wave of 'boat people' that put thousands of lives at risk."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "is alarmed by reports that some countries may be refusing entry to boats carrying refugees and migrants," a statement from the U.N. said.

"The secretary-general urges governments to ensure that the obligation of rescue at sea is upheld ... He also urges governments to facilitate timely disembarkation and keep their borders and ports open in order to help the vulnerable people who are in need," it said.

'Is that fair?'

The Thai navy on Thursday said it had repaired and resupplied a boat of 300 Rohingya about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) off Satun province, but officials claimed its passengers wanted to stay aboard.

"None of them wanted to go to the Thai shore but wanted to travel to a third country," deputy government spokesman Maj. Gen. Sansern Kaewkamnerd said, the Associated Press reported.

Malaysia, meanwhile, turned away a boat carrying some 500 migrants off northern Penang state and another with 300 migrants aboard near Langkawi Island, according to reports.

"We are sending them the right signal, to send them to where they came from," Reuters quoted Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar as saying.

"Their country is not at war. If there is nothing wrong with the ship, they should sail back to their own country."

In Bangkok, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said Thailand had long allowed travel by migrants through its territory but could not allow them to remain on Thai soil.

"If we opened the door freely, anybody can come at will," he said.

Thailand already has about 100,000 refugees in nine camps along its border with Myanmar, he said.

"Stop talking about if third countries would repatriate them; nobody wants them. But everyone wants the middle country like us to take responsibility. Is that fair?"

'Islamic humanitarian measures are needed immediately'

Activists and religious leaders in affected countries expressed outrage over the turning away of migrant boats.

"This is not pushing back, this is pushing to death," said Nur Khan, director of Ain o Salish Kendra, a legal aid organization in Bangladesh. 

"This situation must be treated from a human point of view. In the sea, innocent living people are adrift, exploited and betrayed by traffickers. Pushing them to their deaths by not giving any shelter is inhumane," he told BenarNews. 

Amidi Abdul Manan, president of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, urged his government to act in concert with other Muslim countries to assist the migrants.

"Although they've been given food and drink on the boats, many of them are ill. They should be given treatment immediately, not just left there," he said.

"If the cost of accommodating the refugees in question, Malaysia as a member of the OIC should use that connection and discuss addressing the needs of these refugees with other Islamic countries, he said, referring to the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

"Islamic humanitarian measures are needed immediately," he urged.

In Indonesia – which rescued 600 migrants off Aceh earlier in the week but later turned another boat away – the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council also called for a humanitarian response.

"We should help them not only for the sake of religion but for the sake of humanity, and that is according to the Islamic teaching. We must help," Din Syamsuddin told BenarNews.

'One million people are waiting'

Malaysia resolved not to accept more vessels after 1,158 Burmese and Bangladeshi migrants reached its shores Monday. They are currently being transferred to a detention facility in Sik, an isolated area of Kedah state. 

"After several boats carrying illegal immigrants slipped through, we are prepared to prevent the entry of more vessels," Mohamed Thajudeen Abdul Wahab, secretary general of Malaysia's National Security Council, told the state-run Bernama news agency Thursday.

"We cannot compromise in the matter because there will be no end to the influx of illegal immigrants. It is said that almost one million people are waiting in Myanmar and Bangladesh to set sail for Malaysia," he said.

Despite its relatively robust economy Malaysia was too small a country to handle such an influx, a professor from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) said.

The government is currently spending RM 30 to RM50 (U.S. $8 to14) per immigrant per day, Azmi Hassan told Bernama.

"If we accept any more refugees after this, the situation will go beyond control and will jeopardize national security and prosperity," he said. "We are a small nation and not a major power."

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BENARNEWS- The foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will meet in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to talk about a growing crisis of thousands of people from Myanmar and Bangladesh trying to migrate south by boat. 

The tri-lateral talks precede a regional summit on the issue set to take place in Bangkok on May 29.

"Malaysia will continue to seek a solution on this issue through ... concerted and coordinated efforts among the countries of origin, transit and destination," the Malaysian foreign ministry said in a statement, according to the Reuters news agency.

On Sunday, Malaysia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Anifah Aman and his Bangladeshi counterpart met in the East Malaysia state of Sabah, where they discussed the problem and other bilateral issues.

"Both sides agreed to work together in finding an effective solution to combat the issue, and acknowledged the importance to continue to cooperate with countries in the region in finding a coordinated response to the crisis," Malaysia's state-run Bernama news agency said of Anifah's meeting with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood.

Alleged kingpin in custody

Since May 10 nearly 2,500 Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have made it to shore in Malaysia and Indonesia, amid a crackdown launched by Thailand against human trafficking rings.

On Monday, the Thai government announced the arrest of alleged human trafficking kingpin Pajjubun Ung-chotipun, a former member of the administrative council in southern Satun province.

Pajjubun turned himself in to authorities in Bangkok, but denied charges that he was involved in human trafficking. Pajjubun's wife Tassanee also has been arrested on the same charges, National Police Chief Gen. Somyos Poompanmouang told reporters.

Elsewhere, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said that the government planned to open a temporary shelter to house migrants.

"We conduct everything in accordance with international practice because Rohingya are also human beings," Prawit said.

'They are humans'

Thousands more Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants are said to be stranded at sea in rickety smugglers' boats. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have been pushing boats away from their shores after supplying their passengers with food, water, and fuel.

Malaysia – the main destination for many Rohingyas – on Sunday called on Myanmar to take part in regional efforts to stem the crisis.

Officials in Myanmar have openly denied that their country is the source of the Rohingya exodus toward other parts of Southeast Asia, and the Burmese government has cast doubt on whether it will send a delegation to Bangkok for the upcoming summit.

"If necessary, we will call for an emergency [ASEAN] meeting," Reuters quoted Anifah as saying during his meeting with the Bangladeshi foreign minister.

Malaysia holds the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose members also include Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar. 

"As ASEAN chairman, Malaysia will discuss the issue in depth, and hope Myanmar can sit together to find a solution before it is brought to the international level," he added.

On Monday, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi broke her party's silence on the issue. Spokesman Nyan Win told reporters in Yangon that Muslim people fleeing from oppression in Myanmar were entitled to human rights.

"If they are not accepted [as citizens], they cannot just be sent onto rivers. Can't be pushed out to sea," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying. "They are humans. I just see them as humans who are entitled to human rights."

'We should not be hypocrites'

On Sunday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Muslim world's largest inter-governmental body, said it was monitoring the situation in the Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea and Strait of Malacca.

OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani was in touch with countries in the region to discuss "possible ways to alleviate the suffering of the affected people stranded on the sea," the world body said in a statement.

"The secretary general further called for renewed efforts to tackle the root causes of such human tragedies in order to prevent the escalation of the situation," the OIC said.

In Jakarta, lawmaker Mahfudz Siddiq called on the Indonesian government to act immediately to address the issue.

"The government owes it to humanity. We often criticize other countries for not helping in humanitarian efforts," the member of the Indonesian House of Representatives told BenarNews. 

"But now we are doing exactly the same. We should not be hypocrites, and we should help those in need," he added.

In Malaysia, Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, the mufti of Perlis state, criticized fellow Malaysian Muslims for not doing enough to help the Muslim boat people.

"We are still searching for the remains of those who are almost certainly dead on a plane that crashed into the sea, while those who are still alive we leave to die out at sea. Where is our humanity?!" the Malay Mail Online quoted the mufti as saying in reference to the March 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

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BENARNEWS- In a major policy shift, Malaysia and Indonesia on Wednesday agreed to allow some 7,000 migrants stranded at sea to land on their shores, saying they would conditionally shelter them for up to a year.

The announcement came hours after fishermen in western Indonesia rescued 433 more migrants from a wooden boat that had been drifting in the Strait of Malacca for six days due to repeated push-backs by the Thai and Malaysian navies.

Later, the United States and Gambia offered to help resettle Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar. 

"The U.S. stands ready to help the countries of the region bear the burden and save lives today," Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, told a briefing in Washington.

The West African nation of Gambia announced it was willing to take in all the Rohingya refugees, according to Agence France-Presse. 

"The government of the Gambia notes with grave concern the inhumane condition of the Rohingya people of Myanmar -- especially those referred to as 'boatpeople' -- currently drifting in the seas off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia," its government said in a statement.

"As human beings, more so fellow Muslims, it is a sacred duty to help alleviate the untold hardships and sufferings fellow human beings are confronted with."

A day earlier, the Philippines had said it was prepared to help the Rohingya as well as Bangladeshi migrants stranded by smugglers at sea since Thailand launched a crackdown on people smuggling earlier this month.

Policy reversal

Malaysia and Indonesia announced the policy reversals following a meeting Wednesday in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

After some 2,300 migrants had reached their shores earlier this month, the two countries last week began to push away boatloads of migrants, sparking widespread criticism from at home and abroad.

"Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea," Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said after the meeting, reading from a joint statement.

"We also agreed to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community," he added. 

But Thailand – which also attended the summit – did not agree to take in any of the thousands of Bangladeshi and ethnic Rohingya Muslim migrants still adrift in regional waters.

In Bangkok, Thai officials denied that the navy would keep turning away boats packed with migrants, but the government also didn't say whether they would allow them to disembark.

"Thailand attached great importance to humanitarian assistance and [will] not push back migrants stranded in the Thai territorial water," the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Earlier in the week, the Thai government had said it would house 313 migrants detained in southern Thailand since May 1 in temporary shelters.

"In reference to the Rohingya problem, Thailand is a middle country and not their country of destination," Deputy Defense Minister and Army Chief Gen. Udomdesh Sitabutr told reporters Wednesday.

"If any country sympathizes with them, just take some of them."

Myanmar to attend summit

In another diplomatic breakthrough Wednesday, Myanmar said its representatives would attend a May 29 summit in Bangkok on human trafficking and the regional migrant crisis.

Last week, Myanmar had cast doubt on whether it would send a delegation and it also rejected international claims that its territory was the point of origin for the Rohingya migration.

"We all have to sit down and we all have to consider how to tackle this problem together," Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw said in Bangkok, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, early Wednesday, there was more drama on the high seas as fishermen from the western Indonesian province of Aceh rescued 433 more migrants from a boat the Strait of Malacca.

Muhammad Salim, 23, a Rohingya man, said that on May 14, after the boat entered Thai waters near Koh Lipe island in Satun province, it was resupplied and escorted back to sea.

It was later spotted by the Malaysian Navy, which also chased it off.

"They said, if you don't go within 10 minutes, we will shoot you," said Salim.

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BENARNEWS- Malaysia will deport 680 Bangladeshis who landed on its western shores last week as part of a maritime influx of illegal migrants, Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said Tuesday.

"Bangladeshi illegal immigrants will be sent back to their country," Wan told reporters in the lobby of parliament, saying the government would deport the Bangladeshis as soon as it processed their paperwork.

The Bangladeshis were among at least 1,000 illegal migrants who made it ashore on northwestern Langkawi island May 11, after being rescued from human-smuggling boats or swimming to safety. 

This group also included some 400 ethnic Rohingyas – members of a stateless Muslim minority from Myanmar. The Malaysian government plans to hand them over to the local office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Wan Junaidi said. 

It would be up to UNHCR to determine whether to issue these people refugee cards or "send the refugees to third countries," he added.

Across the Strait of Malacca, some 1,350 migrants have been rescued by fishermen from Indonesia's Aceh province, despite a policy enforced by the Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai governments since last week of preventing more boatloads from arriving.

The foreign ministers of the three countries will meet in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, and on May 29 Thailand will host a multi-national summit on it. 

In related news, officials in the Philippines on Tuesday said their government, as a signatory of the 1951 U.N. Convention of Refugees, was ready to help the boat people.

"As the only predominantly Catholic nation in Southeast Asia, it is our duty to provide succor to those in need," presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma told Agence France-Presse, without giving details.

Pressure mounts on governments

In Jakarta on Tuesday, Indonesian lawmaker Muhammad Nasir Djamil criticized his government's handling of the crisis.

"The Indonesian government is weak. This is preventing the country from responding immediately to this humanitarian crisis in the region," he told BenarNews.

"Parliament should make a political decision to pressure the Myanmar government to end sectarian conflict and to help their citizens currently stranded in Indonesia," he told BenarNews.

In Banda Aceh, the Acehnese capital, some 100 demonstrators staged a rally in support of the migrants, calling for international action to save those still adrift at sea.

"People of Aceh have already provided a good example," rally coordinator Darlis Aziz told BenarNews. "When every government refused to help, we saved them. This should be an embarrassment for them."

"Imagine if we or our relatives were in their position. Now is the time to prove that we have a sense of humanity. They are humans, not animals," Darlis added.

Teungku Faisal Ali, who heads the provincial branch of Nadhlatul Ulama, an influential Indonesian Muslim group, echoed that sentiment.

"As a majority Muslim country, Indonesia must immediately act," he told BenarNews. 

Indonesia and other ASEAN states need to press predominantly Buddhist Myanmar to recognize Rohingyas as citizens and give them equal rights, he said.

"I fear that if there is no immediate concrete action, conflict may occur in Indonesia because there may be some revenge taken against Buddhists," Faisal warned.

"If religious conflict breaks out, the government must take responsibility for letting the humanitarian crisis happen on the high seas," he said.

In Malaysia, there were similar calls for the government – which holds ASEAN's rotating chair – to press Myanmar to ease the suffering of the Rohingya.

"If Myanmar doesn't want to resolve this issue, we have to expel Myanmar from ASEAN," Zahidi Zainul Abidin, an MP representing Padang Besar, told parliament on Tuesday, the Malaysian Insider reported. 

"Human lives are more important than ASEAN's economy. Otherwise, it is shameful," Zahidi added.

His constituency lies on the border with southern Thailand, a notorious transit point for the trafficking of migrants into Malaysia. 

The Thai side of the border is where the discovery of the bodies of more than 30 migrants earlier this month triggered a Thai governmental crackdown on human trafficking and a blockade on smugglers' boats entering national waters.

Myanmar has denied that the migrants came from its territory and said it may not attend the May 29 summit in Bangkok.

International bodies make urgent call

Meanwhile, U.N. and International Organization for Migration (IOM) officials issued a joint call for Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to save migrants stranded at sea.

"We are deeply concerned at reports that boats full of vulnerable women, men and children are unable to land and are stranded at sea without access to urgently needed food, water, and medical assistance," said the statement signed by the heads of the IOM and the U.N. agencies for refugees and human rights, among others.

"We urge states in the region to protect the lives of all aboard by allowing the passengers on these overcrowded boats to disembark safely."


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BENARNEWS- In a major policy shift, Malaysia and Indonesia on Wednesday agreed to allow some 7,000 migrants stranded at sea to land on their shores, saying they would conditionally shelter them for up to a year.

The announcement came hours after fishermen in western Indonesia rescued 433 more migrants from a wooden boat that had been drifting in the Strait of Malacca for six days due to repeated push-backs by the Thai and Malaysian navies.

Later, the United States and Gambia offered to help resettle Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar. 

"The U.S. stands ready to help the countries of the region bear the burden and save lives today," Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, told a briefing in Washington.

The West African nation of Gambia announced it was willing to take in all the Rohingya refugees, according to Agence France-Presse. 

"The government of the Gambia notes with grave concern the inhumane condition of the Rohingya people of Myanmar -- especially those referred to as 'boatpeople' -- currently drifting in the seas off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia," its government said in a statement.

"As human beings, more so fellow Muslims, it is a sacred duty to help alleviate the untold hardships and sufferings fellow human beings are confronted with."

A day earlier, the Philippines had said it was prepared to help the Rohingya as well as Bangladeshi migrants stranded by smugglers at sea since Thailand launched a crackdown on people smuggling earlier this month.

Policy reversal

Malaysia and Indonesia announced the policy reversals following a meeting Wednesday in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

After some 2,300 migrants had reached their shores earlier this month, the two countries last week began to push away boatloads of migrants, sparking widespread criticism from at home and abroad.

"Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea," Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said after the meeting, reading from a joint statement.

"We also agreed to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community," he added. 

But Thailand – which also attended the summit – did not agree to take in any of the thousands of Bangladeshi and ethnic Rohingya Muslim migrants still adrift in regional waters.

In Bangkok, Thai officials denied that the navy would keep turning away boats packed with migrants, but the government also didn't say whether they would allow them to disembark.

"Thailand attached great importance to humanitarian assistance and [will] not push back migrants stranded in the Thai territorial water," the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Earlier in the week, the Thai government had said it would house 313 migrants detained in southern Thailand since May 1 in temporary shelters.

"In reference to the Rohingya problem, Thailand is a middle country and not their country of destination," Deputy Defense Minister and Army Chief Gen. Udomdesh Sitabutr told reporters Wednesday.

"If any country sympathizes with them, just take some of them."

Myanmar to attend summit

In another diplomatic breakthrough Wednesday, Myanmar said its representatives would attend a May 29 summit in Bangkok on human trafficking and the regional migrant crisis.

Last week, Myanmar had cast doubt on whether it would send a delegation and it also rejected international claims that its territory was the point of origin for the Rohingya migration.

"We all have to sit down and we all have to consider how to tackle this problem together," Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw said in Bangkok, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, early Wednesday, there was more drama on the high seas as fishermen from the western Indonesian province of Aceh rescued 433 more migrants from a boat the Strait of Malacca.

Muhammad Salim, 23, a Rohingya man, said that on May 14, after the boat entered Thai waters near Koh Lipe island in Satun province, it was resupplied and escorted back to sea.

It was later spotted by the Malaysian Navy, which also chased it off.

"They said, if you don't go within 10 minutes, we will shoot you," said Salim.

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BENARNEWS- Malaysia put helicopters on standby Thursday to rescue migrants off its northwest coast, and Myanmar said it would work to prevent "irregular movements" of people from its territory to countries farther south.

"We are ready to cooperate with other governments to resolve the ongoing problems through constructive engagement and on humanitarian grounds," said Zaw Htay, director of the Myanmar's president's office, according to the Associated Press.

The decision did not imply that Myanmar was solely responsible for the crisis or would use the word Rohingya, a term not recognized by his government, AP quoted him as saying.

The statement came as the foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia travelled to Myanmar's administrative capital Thursday for separate meetings on the issue. A senior U.S. diplomat also talked separately with government officials in Naypyidaw.

Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken "shared the U.S. government's concerns about the migrant crisis" and urged Myanmar to work with regional partners on the issue, according to the American embassy in Yangon.

Myanmar agreed "to strengthen measures in order to prevent irregular movements of migrants from Myanmar territory," Indonesia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement after Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi met with Wunna Maung Lwin, her counterpart from Myanmar.

He agreed to send consular officials to visit migrants in Aceh, the province in northwestern Indonesia that has taken in some 1,345 Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi nationals since May 10.

Choppers on alert

On Thursday Malaysia moved to search for migrants feared stuck at sea since neighboring Thailand launched a crackdown on smuggling earlier this month, and to care for those who recently came ashore.

Four navy ships stocked with food, drink and clothing sailed to Langkawi, an island on the northwest coast where 1,158 migrants landed last week, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.

The navy also put helicopters in Langkawi and Perak "on stand-by for rescuing the refugees if there was a need for it," Bernama quoted Adm. Abdul Aziz Jaafar as saying.

Meanwhile, at the government's request, a non-governmental medical relief group known as Mercy Malaysia began work at the Belantik detention center in Kedah state, where the migrants were being held.

A day earlier, Malaysia and Indonesia announced they would stop blocking migrant boats from landing as well as take in up to 7,000 people on condition that the international community assisted with repatriating or resettling them in third countries within a year.

Daunting numbers

Yante Ismail, a spokesman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur, said his agency was ready to help.

"At this time, UNHCR has not received a formal response from the government asking it to participate in any operational way, but stands ready to do so if required," he told BenarNews.

The scale of the problem is daunting. Of 45,000 Rohingya refugees registered in Malaysia, only 2,000 have been resettled in third countries, according to the chairman of the Rohingya Society in Malaysia, Abdul Hamid Musa Ali.

"This does not include the 60,000 to 70,000 Rohingya immigrants in Malaysia who are still not registered with the U.N. agency for refugees until now," Bernama quoted him as saying.

"Since 2005, UNHCR has facilitated the resettlement of over 100,000 refugees from Malaysia to third countries," Yante said.

'Take them to your home'

Rohingya advocacy, meanwhile, took on global dimensions as politicians in Europe and the United States called on Myanmar to stem the flow of refugees.

In Washington, lawmakers demanded that Myanmar be taken to task for persecuting minorities, and in Brussels, European Union legislators urged Thailand to "end any complicity with the criminal gangs trafficking Rohingya people and other migrants," the Associated Press reported.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha appeared fed up with pressure from the international community, after it did not join Malaysia and Indonesia in opening its shores to migrant boats on Wednesday.

"Anyone who supports this idea (of accepting boatpeople), please contribute one baht a day or take them to your home when their case has been processed," the junta chief said during a speech in Bangkok, according to Agence France-Presse. 

"Or you migrate out to the sea and bring them to live here instead," he added.

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BENARNEWS-Malaysian authorities on Tuesday began excavating a cluster of graves in the jungle along the Thai border, where the bodies of human-trafficking victims are believed to be buried.

Officials said they pulled a second body from a shallow grave on Tuesday, a day after recovering another body that was found above-ground.

Over the weekend authorities identified as many as 139 graves after discovering 28 human-smuggling camps abandoned in a remote area near Wang Kelian, a village in northern Perlis state.

Police said they were unable to excavate more human remains and would resume excavations Wednesday morning. The process could take three weeks, because of the steep and rugged terrain, they said.

In Kuala Lumpur, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that some forest rangers had been detained on suspicion of being linked to the graves in the jungle and transnational human trafficking syndicates operating along the Thai-Malaysian border.

"We suspect some of them were involved ... but we are working with the forestry department in terms of enforcement, as they are supposed to carry out enforcement in the area," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted Zahid as telling reporters on Tuesday.

"I cannot reveal the details as yet. We are going to take legal action under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act against them," he added.

The grim discovery in the Malaysian jungle is the latest major twist in an illegal migration crisis that has gripped Southeast Asia since May 1, when graves holding the bodies of 26 migrants were found just across the border in Padang Besar, Thailand.
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The development also marked the first official discovery of human trafficking camps on Malaysian territory since the crisis began.

Thousands of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants have come ashore in the region this month, after Thailand began clamping down on human trafficking and preventing boatloads of illegal migrants from landing on its southwestern shores.

On Monday, Thai police said that no human trafficking camps were left in southern Thailand, after this month's discovery of seven camps in the border region near Malaysia.

"We're still looking for camps but we think there are no more camps on the Thai side," Reuters quoted Phuttichart Ekachan, deputy chief of provincial police for Region 9, as saying.

A two-hour hike

The body that was excavated Tuesday was wrapped in a Muslim shroud and found in the forest in an area known as Bukit Wang Burma, Perlis police official Mohammad Bahar Alias said.

"Police believe the 37 structures found at the site is a tomb, but today only one grave could be dug," he said.

It takes two hours to hike up to the site of the suspected human-trafficking camp, he added. The site also featured two large wooden pens wrapped with barbed wire.

"These structures were believed to be used as human cages," the Associated Press quoted Bahar as saying.

The camp may have held up to 300 people, AP reported.

Offshore developments

In related news on Tuesday, Thailand said it had started aerial reconnaissance flights in search of migrant boats stranded in the Andaman Sea, Agence France-Presse reported.

A day earlier, Thailand's military-controlled government announced that it had deployed a helicopter carrier in its waters that would serve as a floating hospital and processing center for migrants found at sea.

"If any boats (with migrants) are found, the navy will lead it to this large navy vessel for assistance," AFP quoted Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha as telling reporters.

He added that Thailand would then "facilitate" their passage to "temporary shelters in Malaysia and Indonesia."

"If anyone is injured or sick, they can be treated at hospitals in Thailand but will face illegal entry charges – it is up to them to decide," Prayuth said.
The United States launched military surveillance flights over the weekend to locate stranded migrants, and has offered to provide regional governments with information about possible migrant boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, the Associated Press reported.

News from the Bay of Bengal

In Myanmar on Tuesday, officials said that the government and neighboring Bangladesh had agreed to send home some 200 Bangladeshis that the Myanmar navy had rescued off a boat found in its territorial waters last week, according to Reuters.

There were 200 Bangladeshis out of 208 found aboard the vessel, and the rest were "Bengalis" from Myanmar's Rakhine state, a pejorative term that Myanmar officials use to describe ethnic Rohingyas, whose traditional home is in Rakhine.

In Dhaka, as she called on authorities to stop illegal emigration and human trafficking, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina lambasted compatriots for trying to emigrate illegally by sea in search of economic opportunities abroad.

Such people should be punished, the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) quoted Hasina as saying on Sunday.

"They are tainting the image of the country along with pushing their [lives] into danger," she said.

IOM appeal

In Geneva, the International Organization for Migration said that U.S. $26 million was needed to help up to 10,000 people affected by the migrant crisis in Southeast Asia.

The money is needed to provide them with shelter, food, water, and psychological support, among other necessities, the IOM said.

According to estimates compiled by the IOM through Monday, some 3,200 migrants have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia off 13 boats, and 4,000 migrants are still at sea.

"The number one priority is still to find and rescue those still at sea, whilst caring for those who have landed, many of whom are malnourished and traumatized," Jeff Labovitz, IOM's chief of mission in Thailand, said Tuesday in a statement.


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BENARNEWS-Rohingya Muslims are heading criminal syndicates that smuggle thousands of people into Malaysia by sea, Malaysian Deputy Police Inspector-General Noor Rashid Ibrahim told BenarNews on Thursday.

"There are syndicates that smuggle thousands of them by boat. The syndicates are masterminded by Rohingya themselves," he said in northern Perlis state.

That is where Malaysian authorities this week uncovered 28 human-smuggling camps and started excavating 139 graves of suspected migrants in the jungle along the Thai border.

Ibrahim revealed that some suspected members of one of these human-trafficking rings had been arrested and that the camps found at Bukit Wang Burma in Perlis were relatively new.

"If you look at the physical condition of the camps, the wood used to build the camp still looks new," he said.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar denied that Malaysians were masterminds of such illicit operations.

"They [Malaysians] might have knowledge of the trafficking activities and could be accomplices, but they are not the organizers," The Star, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted him as saying.

According to a report published Thursday by the state-run Bernama news agency, a Rohingya known as "Yassin" was the main man behind the camps found in the jungle.

Bernama also carried an exclusive interview with a 25-year-old Rohingya man who said that he had escaped from one of those camps after being imprisoned there last year.

The interview reportedly took place in Alor Setar, the capital of Kedah state just south of Perlis.

"There was only one thing on my mind – death. I wanted to die because dying would be easier than living," camp survivor Nurul Amin Nobi Hussein told Bernama.

He said he was confined to a cage that held between 200 to 300 people and that some 1,500 people were detained at his camp.

"I was locked up in a cage like the goats and chickens, and all the time, I was surrounded by death. Each day, five or six of us would die, either from illness or [they] were beaten up and shot," he said.

Boats spotted

In other developments, Malaysian naval ships Thursday spotted two boats believed to be transporting 40 illegal migrants off northwestern Langkawi island, but the vessels sailed away after being detected, according to news reports.

"Both boats turned away to Thai waters after being aware of the presence of a RMN [Royal Malaysian Navy] ship which was monitoring their movements," Bernama quoted Capt. Shahrum Shaim as saying.

If the vessels were in fact carrying illegal migrants, Thursday's sighting would be the first reported sighting of a human-smuggling boat in the Strait of Malacca since Indonesian fishermen rescued 433 Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim migrants from a wooden boat eight days ago, on May 20.

According to Agence-France Presse, the two boats each carried 20 people.

"The orders are to search for them and provide humanitarian assistance. We are also prepared to bring them to land," AFP quoted Roslee Mohamad Isa, acting commander of Malaysia's northern region navy, as saying.

"I have nine tons of food and clothing for the migrants who we believe are ethnic Rohingya," Roslee added. "We want to save lives."

'There's got to be credibility'

The sighting occurred on the eve of an international meeting on human trafficking and irregular migration that is scheduled to take place in Bangkok on Friday.

Representatives of at least 17 countries will gather to discuss ways to deal with human trafficking as well as stem a humanitarian crisis around illegal migrants.

More than 3,000 Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants have come ashore in Malaysia and Indonesia since May 10.

The Persian Gulf state of Qatar on Thursday pledged $50 million to help Indonesia shelter Muslim Rohingya migrants from Myanmar, AFP reported.

States sheltering the migrants should ensure that the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migrants have unhindered access to them, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told BenarNews.

"It's important that the access be unimpeded, be unconditional, so that these international agencies can do their job and sort out who these people are," he said.

Such an "unimpeachable assessment" by independent agencies would allow the international community to help repatriate or resettle migrants in third countries, according to Robertson.

"There's got to be credibility throughout," he added. "If there's going to be burden sharing by the international community, assessments of who these people are, and what their conditions are, and where they came from and why they came here, have to be done in an impartial way by a U.N. agency that everybody can trust."

Bangladesh to move thousands offshore

Meanwhile, the government in Bangladesh, one of the countries at the source of the maritime migration crisis, says it plans to move Rohingya refugees who are concentrated in Cox's Bazar district to an island off its coast, starting with an initial transfer of 34,000 people.

Over the years, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled religious conflict in Rakhine, a state in western Myanmar that lies across the border from Cox's Bazar.

The Rohingya will be relocated to Hatia Island because Cox's Bazar – a popular tourist destination in southeastern Bangladesh – is overcrowded with these refugees, Noakhali District Commissioner Bodor Munir Ferdous told BenarNews.

"The government asked us to find land for them, [and] we proposed a 500-acre plot on Hatia Island," he said. "We are discussing the matter on how to shift them from Cox' Bazar to Hatia Island."

UNHCR, which has been assisting Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh since 1991, said the move should be voluntary, AFP reported.

A forced relocation would be "very complex and controversial," UNHCR spokeswoman Onchita Shadman told the news agency.


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BENARNEWS-Malaysia has finished removing remains of suspected migrants from human smuggling camps along its northern border, days after a damning report suggested that most Malaysian border personnel were involved in cross-border smuggling. 

Forensics teams exhumed a total of 106 bodies and remains of suspected illegal migrants from two locations in the jungle along the Thai border in northern Perlis state, Malaysian police said Monday.

A total of 71 bodies and remains were recovered from a camp in Bukit Genting Perah, in the Mata Ayer Forest in Lubuk Sireh, a steep and rugged part of jungle that can only be accessed via Thai territory.

Another 35 sets of human remains were excavated at Bukit Wang Burma near Wang Kelian. 

Excavations ended Monday after teams dug up seven bodies and carried them down from Bukit Genting Perah. 

"With the latest discovery, operations to exhume the remains carried out by the police comprising forensic experts, the criminal investigation department and the General Operations Force came to an end today," the Royal Malaysia Police's head office in Kuala Lumpur said Monday in a statement.

In Perlis, state Police Chief and Special Assistant Commissioner Shafie Ismail confirmed to BenarNews that a total of 106 bodies and sets of remains had been recovered from both sites.

"I was informed that there was heavy rain at about 3:20 p.m. [on Sunday] and it made taking the remains out difficult because the paths along the hills were slippery," he said.

The two sites lie across the border from Songkhla, one of Thailand's southernmost provinces and a transit point for the trafficking of illegal migrants into Malaysia.

Last month's discovery of the bodies of 32 migrants at abandoned traffickers' camps in Padang Besar, a sub-district of Songkhla, prompted a crackdown by Thailand's junta against human trafficking syndicates.

Thailand began to turn away boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya Muslim and Bangladeshi migrants who were trying to come ashore, forcing them to land elsewhere. As a result, at least 3,000 migrants landed in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Malaysian connection?

Shortly after the first graves were discovered in Thailand, Malaysia's Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said there was no evidence that Malaysians were involved in such criminal activities.

But police sources in Malaysia say otherwise.

Some 80 percent of Malaysia's law enforcement and national security personnel posted along the borders have helped traffickers smuggle people across the border, according to an exclusive story published last week in the New Straits Times, a Malaysian newspaper.

The newspaper cited a report compiled by the police department's Special Branch.

"Sources within the Special Branch told the New Straits Times that these personnel were not only on the take, but many were on the payroll of syndicates dealing with drugs, weapons and even human smuggling," the article said.

The Special Branch's report was based on a 10-year covert intelligence operation mounted by the unit at Malaysia's border checkpoints and at law enforcement agencies nationwide, the News Straits Times reported.

"The Special Branch, which is tasked with providing intelligence for the country's enforcement agencies to act on, had, over the years, shared crucial information with these agencies. However, on many occasions, they were not followed through, for reasons known only to these agencies that were fed intel," the article continued.

After the newspaper printed the story, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not reject the possibility that law enforcement working on the Thai border were corrupt and helping out traffickers.

"We are investigating how true the report is because it came from the [Royal Malaysia Police] special unit. For now we are verifying who is going to confirm the news," Zahid told reporters in Kuala Lumpur last week.

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BENARNEWS- The plight of the Rohingya has angered many Muslims in southern Asia, but some extremist elements are taking it a step farther, seizing on the suffering of this stateless people to rally for jihad.

Significant Rohingya expatriate and refugee communities in Malaysia and Bangladesh appear to be ignoring such calls, however.

"I address Burma's youth: take up the sword and kill in the path of God. No doubt, God is with us," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for a hardline faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said in an audio message disseminated on Monday, according to Agence France-Presse.

"Our training centers, our resources, training, people, everything is available to provide comfort 
to you," he added.

The Islamic State (IS) also took note in recent weeks as hundreds of Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar desperately tried to reach Southeast Asian shores, after being abandoned by human smugglers and pushed away by regional navies.

IS has sent out messages via social media laying out a welcome mat for the Rohingya in the caliphate it has declared in parts of Syria and Iraq, according to Jasminder Singh, an analyst at the Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies in Singapore.

"There have been recent postings on social media such as Twitter and Facebook encouraging the Rohingyas to look towards IS, and the postings say that if no one accepts the Rohingyas and that Rohingyas are being persecuted, then living in the Islamic State is the ideal," Singh told BenarNews via email.

"Rohingyas were previously associated with al-Qaeda. If we see them part of IS today or later, then this should not come as a surprise," he added.

On IS's radar

The Islamic State, in fact, has been paying attention to the plight of the Rohingya since well before images of hundreds of people fleeing religious discrimination and communal violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state dominated recent headlines. 

In a speech last July 1 in which he declared the establishment of a caliphate, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi alluded to the Rohingya as among "oppressed" Muslim populations worldwide that IS was looking to lift up. 

"So raise your ambitions, O soldiers of the Islamic State! For your brothers all over the world are waiting for your rescue, and are anticipating your brigades," he said according to a transcript of his speech posted online by IS's media wing. 

"It is enough for you to just look at the scenes that have reached you from Central Africa, and from Burma before that. What is hidden from us is far worse," he continued.

"So by Allah, we will take revenge! By Allah, we will take revenge! Even if it takes a while, we will take revenge, and every amount of harm against the ummah will be responded to with multitudes more against the perpetrator."

Commenting on al-Baghdadi's speech, Singh said, "This gives a sense that the events in Myanmar are certainly on the radar of IS."

Exploiting public anger

Across South and Southeast Asia, Muslim anger at Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya has boiled over in the streets.

From Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Dhaka and Karachi, pro-Rohingya demonstrations have taken place, in which protestors have burned the Myanmar flag or effigies of Buddhist leaders from that country.

Muslim extremists and radical groups from as far away as the Horn of Africa have taken advantage of the situation, fueling the outrage by spreading propaganda about it. 

In Somalia, al-Shabaab, a group linked to al-Qaeda, has condemned Myanmar's policies toward the Rohingya.

"At the hands of the savage Buddhists, thousands of Muslims, including women and children, have fled their homes and are desperately trying to reach the shores of safety, their only crime being their adherence to Islam," al-Shabaab said in a statement, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on May 20. 

"Welcome them, open your homes and give shelter to the fleeing Muslims," al-Shabaab added.

"Mobilize men, money and resources to defend the honor of the persecuted Muslims and repel the savage attacks of the polytheists."

And, according to a report published Tuesday in the Dhaka Tribune, Bangladeshi Islamist groups have been trying to instigate violence by posting fake pictures and false information about the persecution of the Rohingya.

"Reports say Jamaat-e-Islami and some local militant outfits including Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangaldesh (JMB), Harkat-il-Jihad al-Islami (Huji) and Ansarullah Bangla Team have been recruiting Rohingyas," the newspaper reported.

These groups are linked to the militant Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), IS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Dhaka Tribune alleged.

The paper's report could not be independently verified or confirmed.

Falling on deaf ears

There is no hard evidence that Rohingya are responding to the Islamist call to arms. In Bangladesh and Malaysia, Rohingya community leaders rejected such claims. 

"We are living a floating life. We don't have any connection with any foreign or local organization," Mohammadullah, the general secretary at a refugee camp in southeastern Teknaf, Bangladesh, where 19,000 Rohingyas are registered, told BenarNews by phone. 

"There are some vested interest groups who have [made allegations] about our connection but could never prove that. There are people who are playing games, taking advantage of our situation," he added. "We are simply trying to somehow survive."

Mohamad Nor Abu Bakar, chairman of the Kedah Rohingya Society in Malaysia, said people from his community were poor and "did not want to interfere with domestic politics and war."

"We just want a better life and to live in a Muslim country," he told BenarNews by phone. "Our people will never go to war."

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BENARNEWS- The most powerful member of the Malaysian opposition pulled out of the Pakatan Rakyat (People's Alliance) coalition on Tuesday, ending a seven-year alliance and fracturing the political landscape of Malaysia.

The Democratic Action Party's (DAP) withdrawal came in response to a decision made by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) at its general assembly earlier this month to cut links with the DAP, party Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng said Tuesday.

The failure of PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang to consult coalition allies in its push to implement a sharia penal code known as hudud in northern Kelantan state was another factor.

PAS thereby violated a protocol it had agreed to when the parties, along with the People's Justice Party (PKR), formed a coalition in April 2008 that rested on the principles of consensus and mutual trust, Guan Eng said in a statement.

"This breach of promise by Hadi was followed by the momentous decision on 6th June 2015, when the PAS Muktamar, the general assembly and the highest authority of the party, accepted without debate a motion to sever ties with the DAP," said Guan Eng, chief minister of Penang state. 

"The DAP Central Executive Committee accepts the PAS Muktamar's motion ...," he added. 

"As Pakatan Rakyat was formed by the three parties based on consensus and bound by the Common Policy Framework, the PAS Muktamar's motion effectively killed off Pakatan Rakyat. Pakatan Rakyat therefore ceases to exist."

'Still with Pakatan'

Reacting to DAP's announcement, Nik Mohamad Abduh Nik Abdul Aziz, who heads PAS' youth wing, said the Pakatan Rakyat still was technically intact because partner PKR had yet to issue its own decision on the state of the alliance.

"We are still with Pakatan. DAP's decision will not dissolve the coalition. It was DAP's decision and we are not leaving PR," he told reporters in the lobby of parliament on Tuesday, according to The Malaysian Insider.

Later, officials from PAS and PKR held an emergency meeting that lasted into Wednesday morning (local time). Afterwards, PAS officials did not comment publically but PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail issued a statement.

"The problem that exists in the Pakatan Rakyat requires immediate attention of the leaders and should be addressed with the utmost tact," her statement said.

Shaking up politics

Tuesday's announcement by the DAP leaves Malaysia's opposition fragmented at the national level.

The opposition bloc had succeeded in winning the popular vote in the 2013 general election, but the ruling bloc and Prime Minister Najib Razak were able to hold on to power through gerrymandering. 

DAP's withdrawal also has implications at the state level. The balance of political power has been fractured in Selangor and Penang, where the Pakatan Rakyat controlled the state legislatures.

At the federal level, the DAP, whose membership is largely drawn from Malaysia's ethnic Chinese minority, holds 37 seats in parliament, compared with 28 and 21seats held by PKP and PAS, respectively.

In recent weeks and months, the DAP had feuded with PAS over the hudud issue.

PAS has been pushing for hudud to be implemented in Kelantan, which it controls, for Muslims only. Under hudud, violators would face a set of harsh corporal punishments under sharia law, including amputations, stoning and crucifixion.

Critics, however, have warned that enforcing these sharia punishments at the state level could ultimately divide the nation along religious and ethnic lines.

Both DAP and the multi-racial PKR had also fought with PAS over the Islamic party's reluctance to let PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail stand for recent by-elections. 

"The decision that [Pakatan Rakyat] has ceased to exist is not an act of defeatism but one to recognize the present reality buoyed by hope and confidence in the future," The Malaysian Inisider quoted DAP parliamentarian Lim Kit Siang, Guan Eng's father, as saying Tuesday.

There was now an opportunity for a "realignment of political forces" in the Malaysia ahead of the next general election, due to take place in 2017 at the earliest, Lim said.

"Malaysians must now move on as there is no time to lose on polemics, so as to rekindle the hopes of Malaysians who want change and assure them that such a possibility is still alive and relevant in the 14th general election," he said. 

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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian who fought in the Middle East for the Islamic State (IS) extremist group and his son were sentenced Tuesday to 18 years and 12 years in prison, respectively, for plotting attacks on home soil, according to media reports.

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur sentenced 49-year-old Murad Halimmuddin Hassan and his 25-year-old son, Abu Daud Murad Halimmuddin, to terms retroactive to April 5, the date of their arrests in Kedah state, the Sun Daily reported. 

Murad allegedly undertook a months-long IS combat tour in Syria last year, according to multiple media reports.

Judge Kamardin Hashim handed Murad two 18-year sentences on separate charges – for taking part in a criminal conspiracy to promote terrorism in the country, and for supporting terrorist activities. But the judge ruled that the defendant would serve concurrent sentences rather than a total of 36 years in prison, state-run Bernama reported.

After having earlier pled not guilty, the father and son on Tuesday changed their pleas to guilty on terrorism-related charges, according to Bernama. 

"The court was told that Murad had returned from Syria last year," prosecutor Shukor Abu Bakar told AFP, noting that Murad was the spiritual leader of a group called "Fisabilillah."

The father and son "had admitted in court that they planned to kidnap politicians, raid army camps for weapons and overthrow the government," Shukor said.

Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia both are dealing with threats posed by IS recruiting people from those countries for its jihadist cause.

Malaysian and Indonesian authorities have warned that jihadists returning from tours in the Middle East with IS could bring back the group's extremist ideology and foment terrorism at home.

In Murad's case, he had served a stint with IS in Syria from August to December 2014, and was previously involved in conflicts in Afghanistan and Sulawesi in Indonesia, according to The Malaysian Insider.

As many as 66 Malaysians were believed to be in Iraq and Syria but police have arrested 108 people with links to IS, Bernama quoted Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as saying earlier this month.

Four others plead not guilty

Murad and his son were among 17 people who were arrested on April 5 on suspicion of planning bombings in Kuala Lumpur and abductions of prominent figures. 

On Tuesday, four of the other suspects appeared in court alongside Murad and his son but pleaded not guilty to the charges.

"They planned to launch jihad (an armed struggle) and change the current political system which they claim is un-Islamic," the prosecutor said, according to AFP.

The Sun Daily identified the other four defendants charged with promoting terrorist acts as Nor Azmi Jalani, 28, Mohd Yusri Mohamed Yusof, 29, Hadharami Hashim, 38, and Indonesian Ali Saifuddin.

AFP reported that the four would reappear in court on Aug. 28.

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BENARNEWS- A Malaysian financial scandal deepened Friday after a U.S. newspaper claimed it had obtained documents showing hundreds of millions of dollars transferred to Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank account from a troubled state fund.
Citing bank transfer forms and flow charts prepared by government investigators, The Wall Street Journal said nearly $700 million moved through government agencies, banks and companies linked to the 1 Malaysia Development Bhd. (1MDB) investment fund before being wired into Najib's accounts.
The original source of the money is unclear and the government investigation doesn't detail what happened to the money that went into Najib's personal accounts, the paper said.
Najib in a statement described the claims in the report as "false allegations," and "part of a concerted campaign of political sabotage to topple a democratically elected Prime Minister."
He said he had never misused public funds and vowed to use the law against those continuing to mount attacks against him over the financial scandal without any basis.
"Let me be very clear: I have never taken funds for personal gain as alleged by my political opponents – whether from 1MDB, SRC International or other entities, as these companies have confirmed."
Calls to step down
Opposition lawmakers and critics seized on the WSJ report to call for the prime minister to step down or to go on leave until the allegations are resolved, Agence France-Presse reported.
Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the leader of the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat or People's Justice Party, and the wife of jailed former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, demanded that Najib declare his assets publicly.
The 61-year-old Najib accused former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad of stoking the latest corruption allegations.
Mahathir, once Najib's patron, has previously called on the prime minister to step down over the 1MDB scandal.
He has been under growing political pressure over the fiasco and has urged critics to await findings from four official investigations into 1MDB's activities.
Najib has also been facing criticism over his management of the economy and a scandal arising from the high-profile killing of a Mongolian model nine years ago.
'Gutter tactics'
The prime minister said on his Facebook page that the allegations made so far over the 1MDB scandal are based on leaked documents and unnamed investigators.
"Not once has the source of these documents ever been shown, neither have the documents themselves been provided for verification by lawful authorities."
"Those who continue to mount these attacks should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions," he said. "These gutter tactics – in some cases criminal tactics – to overthrow the government will fail. Where appropriate, they will be met with the full force of the law."
Investigators believe part of the money traced to Najib's accounts came from an entity known as SRC International Sdn. Bhd., an energy company that originally was controlled by 1MDB but was transferred to the Finance Ministry in 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Najib is also Malaysia's finance minister.
The paper reported that investigators had traced the money wired into Najib's bank accounts ahead of general elections two years ago.
This is the first time Najib, who chairs the fund's advisory board, has been directly linked to accusations of corruption surrounding the 1MDB.
The Wall Street Journal stuck to its report on Friday.
"We are very careful and we believe the investigation and the documents we have are solid and come from reliable investigation and not a political investigation," Ken Brown, the paper's Hong Kong bureau chief, told U.S. financial news television channel CNBC.
"It's a significant story and we take it very seriously. Anytime you see a leader of a country has been – at least, the evidence shows money has flowed into his personal account, tied to government deals – it's hugely dramatic," he said.
1MDB is reeling from 42 billion ringgit (U.S. $11.1 billion) in debt and is being investigated by Malaysia's central bank, auditor general, police and a parliamentary committee for alleged impropriety.
Najib looked relaxed at a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner with other leaders and local officials in Malaysia's southern city of Johor Bahru on Friday evening, Reuters reported.


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BENARNEWS- A report linking Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to a financial scandal has created political and market uncertainty, as the authorities refuse to respond directly to charges that hundreds of millions of dollars were wired into his personal bank accounts, reports say.
The U.S.-based Wall Street Journal last week reported that investigations into the affairs of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), an indebted state fund, had shown that nearly U.S. $700 million (2.66 billion ringgit) was deposited into Najib's accounts.
The prime minister moved swiftly to deny the claims, calling it "political sabotage." But Bank Negara, Malaysia's central bank, and a domestic private bank where allegedly Najib has his accounts have yet to clear the air over the report.
Malaysia's main opposition parties, meanwhile, have demanded an emergency sitting of parliament to discuss the charges, and Najib's deputy has even called for a probe.
"We want the truth," Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said, according to the Sunday Star newspaper.
"This is a very serious allegation that can jeopardize his credibility and integrity as prime minister and leader of the government," said Muhyiddin, the second-most-powerful member of the United
Malays National Organization (UMNO), the pillar of the ruling National Front coalition.
Amid the uncertainty Malaysia's currency, the ringgit, plunged to a 16-year low on Monday. One American dollar fetched 3.808 ringgit, compared with 3.777 before the weekend, the ringgit's weakest level in more than 16 years.
Malaysian stocks were also down 1.3 percent amid a flurry of bearish reports on the financial scandal and the saga around Greek debt negotiations.
Ooi Chin Hock, a dealer with M&A Securities, told Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur that the cloud over the prime minister and his failure to respond specifically to the allegations were driving uncertainty.
"Weak oil and commodities prices, along with an unexpected slowdown in exports of Southeast Asia's third largest economy, is also putting strain on the ringgit," he told AFP.
"Investors' confidence has been shattered. Unless we settle the political issue involving Najib and 1MDB, the ringgit could slide lower."
A crisis of huge magnitude: Opposition leader
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report alleged that Najib had received up to U.S. $700 million in various personal accounts held at AmBank – Malaysia's fifth-biggest bank by assets – between March 2013 and February 2015.
"There has been no clear statement from Bank Negara Malaysia or even AmBank ... and this brings about confusion among the public," UMNO lawmaker Reezal Merican said in a statement, according to the Straits Times in Singapore.
It said that Bank Negara, a well-regarded regulator in international banking circles, would normally be alerted to large transfers in domestic accounts, especially ones such as the alleged deposit via a Singapore-based Swiss bank of U.S. $620 million (2.36 billion ringgit) in March 2013.
At the weekend, Malaysian Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail said he had received documents from a task force investigating 1MDB, which were "connected to allegations" that money was transferred into the prime minister's account, Reuters news agency reported.
He said the task force had raided offices of three companies linked to the state investor, but he gave no more details about the nature or contents of the documents and did not specify what further action he had advised the task force to take.
"With the attorney-general's confirmation, the WSJ allegation against Najib has assumed an even more serious character and import, sparking a political and government crisis of the first magnitude never seen in Malaysia's 58-year history," Lim Kit Siang, the opposition Democratic Action Party's (DAP) parliamentary leader, said in a statement.
'I did not betray the people'
1MDB has said it had never provided any funds to Najib, who has persistently denied any wrong doing.
Both Najib and 1MDB have also said that previous leaked documents had "reportedly" been tampered with, and that the documents cited by the WSJ had not been verified.
On Monday, Najib advised Malaysians to remain calm.
"I did not betray the people. I will find ways to uphold the truth, be calm, and the truth will prevail," he was quoted saying after opening a school in Terengganu state.
Najib has denied taking any money for personal gains, saying that he would consult with his lawyers to decide his next course of action on the "malicious accusations" against him.


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BENARNEWS- Human rights advocates are outraged by reports that the United States will raise Malaysia's ranking in its upcoming report on human trafficking, and they are suggesting that the American government is putting its trade interests above the suffering of trafficked people.

"If this upgrade goes through, Malaysia did little substantively to deserve it other than join the negotiations for the TPP trade deal with the U.S.," Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson told BenarNews on Thursday, referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration has been negotiating.

"This is all about U.S. politics and trying to prevent Congress from knocking Malaysia out of the deal, and this constitutes a blatant perversion of the integrity of the TIP report process," he said.

"If one looks at Malaysia's anti-trafficking record over the past year, victims are still being treated shoddily, migrants are still vulnerable and regularly mistreated, Rohingya graves are still being found, and arrests and prosecutions are still sporadic - so where's the improvements?" Robertson added.

Citing U.S. officials, the Reuters news agency on Wednesday reported that the State Department was to upgrade Malaysia from the bottommost Tier 3 category to the Tier 2 Watch List in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), which is due out soon.

The TIP evaluates how each country performs in a given year in combating people smuggling trafficking on its territory, covering the period from April 1 to March 31 of the following year.

The upgrade would allow the U.S. to trade under the deal with Malaysia, a signatory to the TPP, according to Reuters. In June, Congress passed a related bill that prevented countries on the Tier 3 list to be part of such multilateral trade agreements. 

Last month, the director of the U.S.-based Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) told BenarNews that the trade legislation push could impact TIP report rankings.

"This year, Congress is debating whether to impose anti-trafficking considerations for countries seeking trade benefits with the United States," Melysa Sperber said in an interview.

"We are concerned that this policy shift may pressure the State Department to upgrade Malaysia to Tier 2 in order to preserve U.S. trading relations with this important partner."

'Still being finalized'

On Thursday, State Department officials declined to confirm reports about the imminent upgrade for Malaysia.

"The Trafficking in Persons report is still being finalized. It would be premature to speculate on any particular outcome," State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement sent to BenarNews.

"Whatever conclusions are reached with respect to individual countries will be both based on a pragmatic analysis of the best information possible and reinforce our strong interest in human rights around the world."

'Modern slavery'

In Malaysia, Glorene Das, director of Tenaganita, a Kuala Lumpur-based group that advocates rights for migrant workers, reacted angrily to news of the country's possible upgrade.

"If this is for real, damn you, U.S. Government! How are you any different than the corrupted government of Malaysia?" Das said Thursday in a statement posted on Tenaganita's Facebook page.

"It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity," she said, adding that human trafficking "must be called by its true name – modern slavery."

"If we are upgraded," Das went on to say, "then it is very clear that trade is more important to [the] U.S. than the issue of human slavery!" 

As many as two million undocumented migrants work in Malaysia and many are widely believed to be trafficked into the country via southern Thailand.  This past May and June – on both sides of the Thai-Malaysia border – the bodies of scores of trafficking victims were uncovered at abandoned people-smuggling camps in the jungle. 

Charles Santiago, a Malaysian lawmaker and member of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), echoed the criticism voiced by human rights groups. 

"It is totally disappointing to move Malaysia up to Tier 2 [Watch List] to enable participation in the TransPacific Partnership trade deal [TPPA]. We can then conclude that U.S. President Barack Obama is not serious about the TIP report," Santiago told BenarNews by phone.

"Malaysia did not deserve to be moved up from the lowest rank of the report. In less than 12 months, the U.S. is singing a different tune," said Santiago, chairman of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights. 

"And I am left wondering as to why. Pushing Malaysia to Tier 2 is violation of human rights," he added.
Attempts to reach Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for reaction to the reports were not successful. His staff said he was on vacation and out of the country.


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BENARNEWS- The Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) department says it has fixed its Twitter account and Facebook page after hackers infiltrated the social media sites on Monday and posted a slew of hostile messages, including many promoting the Islamic State extremist group.

A group identifying itself by the Twitter hashtag #AnonGhost claimed responsibility for the hacking incidents, which occurred simultaneously on Monday afternoon (local time) and lasted at least two hours.

"VIVA ISLAMIC STATE !" was one of the messages posted on the RMP's Twitter account (see image).

The hackers also took over the police Facebook page, replacing the cover image with a banner headline that read "KHILAFAH" – Arabic for "Islamic State" – according to news reports. 

In the middle of the banner, a silhouetted figure could be seen waving the black IS flag. To the left, Arabic words were written in the pupil of a person's eye.

The hacking incident occurred as Malaysian authorities are contending with what they say is a growing threat posed by IS efforts to recruit young fighters from Southeast East for its jihadist cause.

Last month, the police arrested 19 suspects who were allegedly linked to IS and planning to mount separate terrorist attacks on Malaysian soil. As of June 13, 66 Malaysians had traveled to the Middle East to join IS, according to Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. 

Back to normal

The hackers who struck on Monday also posted threatening messages directed at Malaysia's Prime Minister. 

"Najib Razak.... We are coming to you...," said a tweet.

At around 6 p.m. Monday, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar announced that his department's social media sites had been restored to normal and the unwanted messages removed. 

"Alhamdulilah [Thanks to God]. Facebook and Twitter Police have recovered. Congratulations to RMP's social media teams," Khalid tweeted on his own Twitter account.

Earlier, Asmawati Ahmad, assistant head of corporate communications at the IGP secretariat, confirmed that AnonGhost was behind the hack. According to the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore, AnonGhost is a pro-Palestinian group.

"Any information released through both platforms until now is not the official posting of the police," Asmawati said in a statement issued late Monday.

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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police have released nearly all 26 people who were detained after a bloody brawl in the capital Kuala Lumpur, which raised inter-ethnic tensions in multiracial Malaysia.
At least five people were injured when a riot broke out on Sunday night at the Plaza Low Yat shopping mall, after a 22-year-old ethnic Malay man was handed over to the police for allegedly stealing a mobile phone from a store. Plaza Low Yat is mostly run by ethnic Chinese, and specializes in electronics and IT products.
Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said the man, who was later released, had returned to the mobile phone store and assaulted its workers.
Later, some 200 angry Malays turned up at the mall where scuffles broke out. At least five people, including journalists, were injured, raising concerns in social media of larger riots breaking out in the predominantly Muslim Malay country.
References were also made to the bloody May 13, 1969 incident when about 200 people were said to have been killed in clashes in and around Kuala Lumpur, after opposition parties supported by the ethnic Chinese community made inroads in a general election.
Both the government and the opposition condemned the Low Yat incident. Prime Minister Najib Razak said it stemmed from a simple crime and was not based on a racial problem, as alleged by some groups.
"It is a criminal act but in the end it becomes a racial incident," he said earlier this week. "Such things should not have happened in our country."
Najib asked the police to act effectively to prevent such incidents from recurring.
Allegations of sedition
Police arrested 26 people over the brawl but have released 25 on bail, pending possible charges to be filed in court.
Among them, three people, a politician from Najib's United Malays National Organization (UMNO), and a blogger and an activist, were held under the Sedition Act.
Blogger Wan Mohd Azri Wan Deris, or Papagomo, still is in custody and is expected to be released by the weekend, police spokeswoman Asmawati Ahmad said.
The latest to be freed was Shaik Hussein Mydin, chairman of an UMNO division in the northern state of Penang.
According to reports, Shaik Hussein had criticized police chief Khalid in an online messaging group. Khalid had said he was arrested for attempting to incite racial hatred and not because he had criticized him.
"I was freed from police custody at 4:30 p.m. today (Thursday) and I'm on my way to Penang from Kuala Lumpur," Shaik Hussein told BenarNews by telephone.
Call for inquiry
Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang demanded that the government set up a royal commission of inquiry into the incident at the shopping center. The probe should look into whether the police acted pre-emptively to prevent the petty crime of a mobile phone theft from turning into a race riot and the role of social media in stirring tensions, he said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
Lim also wanted the investigation to study whether the incident was a result of incitement of hatred through what he called irresponsible politics of race and religion, and whether it was proof of a failure in the government's nation-building policies.
"We must take the Low Yat Mob Incident seriously, with the emphasis on finding its causes, especially the macro ones, to prevent a recurrence of any racial riot in Kuala Lumpur or any part of Malaysia as we must prevent any recurrence of a petty crime transforming into a race riot in our multi-racial nation as it will have far-reaching and adverse impact on our investment and socio-economic climate for the future," the Democratic Action Party leader added.


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian government has blocked access to a British website that was among the first news organizations to break the story about an alleged transfer of nearly U.S. $700 million from a troubled state fund into bank accounts owned by Prime Minister Najib Razak.
On Sunday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) announced it was moving to block access to the website within the country, saying the action followed public complaints that the Sarawak Report was publishing "unsubstantiated" reports. The website is under investigation and such reports are "detrimental to national security," the commission said.
As of Monday, internet users in Malaysia could not access the London-based website that has published exposés on alleged corruption in Malaysian politics and industry since 2010.
A complaint lodged with police had accused the website of falsifying information about the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund, according to Bernama, the government-run news agency. The indebted fund is at the center of corruption allegations surrounding Najib.
"The Sarawak Report portal will remain blocked under Section 211 and Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 until the special task force ends its investigations," Bernama quoted MCMC as saying in its statement issued on Sunday.
The commission also warned the public to be cautious when sharing information published by the Sarawak Report, "especially when the authenticity of the information is unverified."
"Such content could disrupt peace and order, and in the bigger picture could destabilize the nation and the economy," the statement added, according to Bernama.
Website: 'Blatant attempt' at censorship
Before Malaysia blocked internet access to the Sarawak Report, on Sunday the website posted a separate statement on Facebook in which it vowed to carry on with its work, saying it would bring out more information to substantiate its claims about the 1MBD story.
"This is a blatant attempt to censor our exposures of major corruption through the development fund 1MDB, including the information that nearly U.S. $700 million of 1MDB[-]related money was paid into the Prime Minister of Malaysia's personal AmBank account in KL [Kuala Lumpur] just before the last election," the Sarawak Report said.
"This information has already long been disseminated and backed up by other major global news organizations, so we can only assume that the MCMC is fearful that we are about to bring out further revelations," it continued.
On July 2, the Sarawak Report published an article, in which it alleged a link between the prime minister and a 1MBD money trail. Almost simultaneously, the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal published a report claiming it had obtained documents showing that nearly U.S. $700 million in 1MBD money had been deposited into Najib's personal bank accounts.
The prime minister has denied the allegations, calling them false and part of a conspiracy to bring down his government.
"Let me be very clear: I have never taken funds for personal gain as alleged by my political opponents – whether from 1MDB, SRC International or other entities, as these companies have confirmed," Najib said in a statement responding to the WSJ report.
Stalking allegations
Founded by British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, the Sarawak Report has reported extensively on deforestation in Malaysia, alleged corruption in its timber industry, and investments in foreign properties by the family of former Sarawak state Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, among other stories.
"This latest blow to media freedom only brings further discredit upon the present administration, who have proven unable to counter the evidence we have presented in any other way," the Sarawak Report said on Facebook.
On Monday, the Sarawak Report posted a statement on its website suggesting that elements associated with the Malaysian government were even harassing and stalking Rewcastle Brown on British soil.
The website said it had filed a report with the Metropolitan Police in London that detailed alleged acts of harassment and stalking there by people "believed to be in the employ of UMNO" – a reference to Malaysia's ruling party, the United Malays National Organization.
"The acts of illegal harassment include teams of stalkers, who have followed around after the Editor of Sarawak Report in past days, plainly waiting outside her house and then pursuing her during the day," the statement said.
"These persons have included a bald, muscle-bound middle-aged white man and a man of Chinese Malaysian appearance, who took photographs of her in broad daylight in Hyde park and other individuals who have followed her car."
The statement also alleged other types of harassment, including computer hacking, the tapping of phone conversations and disruption of the Radio Free Sarawak, the website's sister program


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia's Home Ministry has suspended publication of the country's leading financial daily over its extensive reporting of a corruption scandal engulfing Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Starting Monday, The Edge Media Group's two key publications, The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Weekly, will be suspended for three months for their reporting of the scandal in the debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund, the ministry said.
The Edge's reports were "prejudicial or likely to be prejudicial to public order, security or likely to alarm public opinion or likely to be prejudicial to public and national interest," the Edge said in a statement, citing a letter from the ministry.
The move came as the government stepped up its crackdown on the media and other groups as more details of the scandal emerged in recent weeks.
This week, the government blocked the U.K.-based website Sarawak Report, which together with the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal had reported that some U.S. $700 million was funneled into Najib's personal bank accounts through entities linked to 1MDB.
The blocking of the website, run by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's sister-in-law, came despite governmental assurances to foreign investors that Malaysia's internet would not be censored.
Najib and 1MDB officials have denied any wrongdoing. The Prime Minister said claims linking him to the corruption scandal were part of a political sabotage. 1MDB, a pet project of Najib, has chalked up U.S. $11 billion in debt.
"We don't see how exposing the scam to cheat the people of Malaysia of billions of ringgit can be construed as being detrimental to public and national interest," The Edge Media Group publisher Ho Kay Tat said.
"This is nothing more than a move to shut us down in order to shut us up."
Ho was summoned by police earlier this week and questioned about his paper's publication of an extensive report detailing  how money had flowed out of 1MDB into PetroSaudi International, a Middle East-based oil exploration company, and that U.S. $1.83 billion was allegedly stolen by company officers and others.
He said The Edge would challenge the ministry's decision in court.
'Extreme measure'
The Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ), a Malaysian media watchdog, condemned the suspension of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily, calling it "an extremely heavy-handed measure and a breach of freedom of expression and media freedom in particular."
"To justify such a serious and extreme measure, it is wholly insufficient for the Home Ministry to merely make sweeping, general claims about prejudice to public order, security or alarm. It must specify exactly how The Edge's reporting on 1MDB would jeopardize public order or security," it said.
The government action "only leads to more questions on the management of 1MDB," the CIJ added.
Opposition leader's op-ed
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has so far detained three people to assist in the probe into 1MDB, but they have not been identified or charged.
Bank Negara, Malaysia's central bank, is also seeking two former 1MDB directors, Casey Tang and Jasmine Loo, to assist in the probe.
In addition, two opposition legislators have been issued travel bans over the investigations into the scandal.
Meanwhile, in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim warned that Najib had "doubled down on political repression," despite his promises of reform and pledges to allow the voices of dissent to be heard.
Jailed in February on sodomy charges that he says were politically motivated, Anwar warned that Malaysia was among middle-income nations that could devolve into a failed state, citing "decades of economic mismanagement, opaque governance and overspending."


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BENARNEWS- The U.S. State Department on Monday promoted Malaysia from the bottommost rank in its 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, despite objections from human rights advocates who argued that Malaysia didn't earn an upgrade.
"The Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so," said the report, which the State Department released Monday morning (Washington D.C. time).
Malaysian Ambassador to the United States Awang Adek Hussin welcomed the news, saying it was "a good omen" for his country.
"The Malaysian government has taken serious steps in addressing human trafficking, including amending the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (ATIPSOM) Act of 2007, arresting those believed to be involved in human smuggling syndicates, and also giving freedom to the victims of human trafficking syndicates," he told BenarNews.
Last year, the State Department relegated both Malaysia and neighboring Thailand to Tier 3, the lowest ranking that can trigger sanctions against a given country. This year's report keeps Thailand on Tier 3.
Thailand is infamous as a transit point for the smuggling into Malaysia of Rohingya Muslim migrants from Myanmar, who often embark from Bangladesh on illicit and perilous sea journeys.
The annual TIP report ranks 188 countries, including the United States, on how they deal with human trafficking, and assigns them one of four rankings: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 3. Indonesia, Bangladesh and India all stayed at Tier 2.
In a statement, Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the upgrade was "recognition [of] Malaysia's on-going efforts and commitments in combating this heinous crime."
Purely factual: State Department
In Washington, Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewall denied that Malaysia's promotion was tied in any way to its participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which requires signatories to meet minimum human rights standards.
"Our concern is really about the TIP report facts," Sewall told reporters.
Malaysia's TIP report card was based on how the country had performed in prosecuting traffickers, protecting victims and preventing people smuggling, according to Sewall.
The report did not take into account graves of illegal migrants found at abandoned people-smuggling camps along the Thai-Malaysia border in May, because TIP's annual reporting period ends in April.
"The tragic smuggling situation that came to light at the end of the reporting period is certainly a core concern that we have as a matter of U.S. foreign policy, in addition to being a concern for any future reporting that's done," Sewall said.
According to the report, the government increased investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking cases, but those resulted in only three convictions. That represented "a disproportionate number of convictions compared to the large scale of the human trafficking problem in Malaysia," the report said.
'We have corrected everything': Thai PM
The TIP report was more critical of Thailand.
"The Government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so," the report said.
It noted that the corruption and complicity of some Thai officials in people-smuggling rackets continued to impede and undermine anti-trafficking efforts.
On Friday, Thailand moved to indict 72 people allegedly connected to a trafficking scandal that broke after graves of suspected illegal migrants were uncovered in the jungles of southern Songkhla province, near the Malaysian border, in early May. The 72 suspects include a Thai army general and more than a dozen other government officials.
Before the State Department released its report, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha told reporters at Government House in Bangkok that Thailand's recent crackdown on human trafficking could be reflected in next year's TIP report.
"Until now, we have corrected everything and made it better," Prayuth said. "But it's up to them whether they trust our efforts."
Mixed reviews
Human rights groups praised the State Department for keeping Thailand at the bottom of its TIP ratings. But they slammed the U.S. government's foreign policy arm for promoting Malaysia, saying this was done to clear the way for the Southeast Asian nation vis-à-vis the TPP trade deal.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) was among 25 groups that sent a joint letter on Monday to Secretary of State John Kerry that commended TIP's rating of Thailand.
"The State Department's decision will keep pressure for substantive changes by Bangkok," the letter said.
But, separately, HRW ripped the decision to upgrade Malaysia in the TIP rankings.
"Malaysia's record on stopping trafficking in persons is far from sufficient to justify this upgrade from Washington .... The report's Malaysia discussion is full of what can only be called the State Department fudge factor, a triumph of diplomatic writing trumpeting process rather than real impact," HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson said in a statement.
"This upgrade is more about the TPP and U.S. trade politics than anything Malaysia did to combat human trafficking over the past year, but sadly this action also does significant damage to the credibility of a report that is a critical part of global efforts  to combat slavery," he added.
In Malaysia, opposition MP Charles Santiago did not hold back in expressing disdain for the promotion.
He called it laughable, saying it was obviously "motivated by business and trade interests" and would allow Malaysia to sign onto the TPP.
"One can only conclude that the TIP 2015 report was designed to promote U.S. trade and geo-political interests," said the lawmaker, who chairs the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).
"And in my view the report best serves as toilet paper as from now on no government will take the TIP report seriously."


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Tuesday fired his deputy who had criticized him over corruption allegations tied to an indebted state fund, along with an attorney general who was leading an investigation into the matter.
After reshuffling his cabinet and jettisoning Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail, Najib announced the move live on national television.
In the shakeup, Najib dismissed five ministers and added seven new ones to his team. The new ministers will take office on Wednesday.
The move makes Muhyiddin the second deputy sacked in Malaysian political history, after Anwar Ibrahim – the jailed leader of Malaysia's opposition bloc – was dismissed by then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in September 1998.
''The decision to replace Muhyiddin was very difficult, but I had to do to get the cabinet to work as a solid and unified team," the prime minister said.
''I welcome dissent and criticism as part of the process of decision-making. However, as a member of the cabinet, differences of opinion and viewpoint should not be conducted in an open forum that can affect public opinion against the government and the state," he added. "It is also contrary to the concept of collective responsibility of the cabinet."
Silencing critics
Muhyiddin's dismissal came two days after he criticized Najib at a Kuala Lumpur meeting of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party – the backbone of the ruling coalition. In a speech, he called on the prime minister to answer allegations of corruption against him that stemmed from the cash-strapped 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.
"This is outrageous," opposition MP Charles Santiago told BenarNews in an email. "Prime Minister Najib Razak has gone for the kill to save his skin as the cabinet reshuffle boils down to one thing – the debt-ridden 1MDB."
"He has acted swiftly to silence his critics, including former deputy premier Muhyiddin Yassin, who said that UMNO was losing out with the people because Najib refused to tell the truth, while the internet was filled with details implicating him in the financial heist," Santiago added.
The allegations have mired Najib in the worst crisis to threaten his hold on power since he came to office in April 2009. They surfaced in early July when the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal and the Britain-based Sarawak Report published reports alleging that nearly U.S. $700 million in 1MDB money had been funneled into Najib's private bank accounts.
The prime minister has denied doing anything wrong or personally gaining from the 1MDB fund, which is $U.S. 11 billion in debt.
UMNO supreme council to meet
Najib and Muhyiddin still hold the top two positions in UMNO, which has been in power since 1957. Sources close the party say its supreme council will meet Friday to determine whether the former deputy prime minister should stay on as UMNO's deputy chairman.
On Monday, state-run Bernama quoted supreme council member Irmohizam Ibrahim as saying it would meet at week's end to have a "heart to heart" discussion about the 1MDB affair.
Muhyiddin, who was also minister of education, was replaced as deputy prime minister by Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is retaining his portfolio for home affairs.
Last week, Zahid's ministry ordered the three-month suspension of a pair of financial publications – The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Weekly – which had been reporting on the 1MDB corruption scandal.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Muhyiddin said he had accepted Najib's decision with an open heart because hiring and firing members of the cabinet was the prime minister's prerogative.
"As the deputy prime minister, I have been directly involved in the creation of government policies and carry out the duties entrusted to me with great trust. During my service, I will always support all government policies and support the leadership of the prime minister," Muhyiddin said.
"Except on the 1MDB issue, I have my own principles and stand in defense of people's rights, the good name of the party and state interests. If I was dropped from the cabinet because of my stance on this issue, I am alleviated," he added.
AG dismissed
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary of the Government Ali Hamsa announced that Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail was being terminated for "health reasons" and replaced by former Federal Court Judge Mohamed Apandi Ali – effective this past Monday (July 27).
Abdul Gani had been heading an inter-agency task force probing the corruption allegations involving Najib and 1MDB.
According to the Associated Press, Abdul Gani confirmed earlier in July that "he had received documents from investigators that linked Najib and 1MDB."
The now former attorney general would continue to serve as a judicial and legal service officer until his mandatory retirement on Oct. 6, the chief secretary said.
"Abdul Gani Patail has contributed tremendously to the country as the attorney general. On behalf of the government, I wish to record my deepest appreciation and thanks for the service he has rendered and hope he will always be blessed with good health," Ali Hamsa said.
Other changes
Among the faces joining Najib's cabinet is UMNO MP Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who said he would resign as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to take on a new role as deputy home minister.
The committee has been investigating the 1MDB affair, and all PAC proceedings scheduled for August would be postponed until the Dewan Rakyat, the House of Representatives, holds its next session, starting Oct. 19, Nur Jazlan said.
Three other PAC members from the UMNO party also will be joining the new cabinet as deputy ministers: Reezal Merican Naina Merican, Wilfred Madius Tangau and Mas Ermieyati Samsudin.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia expressed disappointment Wednesday after Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of downing a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane last year in eastern Ukraine that left all 298 passengers dead.
Malaysia's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said after the 15-member council voted on the resolution that an independent international court could be set up to try the perpetrators who brought down flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.
"We are thinking of forming a multi-state international court or using the national court," Liow told BenarNews in an interview.
The Netherlands and Australia, which together with Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine drafted the resolution, have offered proposals to prosecute the suspects, and "we will look into them and discuss" beginning this week, he said.
Russia, one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members with veto powers, cast the lone "no" vote while 11 council members voted for the resolution. The three others, China, Venezuela and Angola, abstained.
"We are disappointed because the families of the victims will now have to wait longer and uncertain how justice will be done," Liow said.
The Netherlands, whose citizens accounted for nearly 200 of the ill-fated passengers, along with Malaysia and most Western countries had pushed for the tribunal, saying it would have the authority to investigate impartially and extradite suspects from whichever country was harboring them.
The hunt for justice
The United States and many international experts believe the Malaysian plane was destroyed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile fired by Russian soldiers or Russia-backed separatist rebels fighting in the area.
Russia has dismissed the theory, with state media saying the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile or a warplane.
Malaysia and the four other countries behind the U.N. Security Council resolution said they would forge ahead to bring justice to the victims. The five nations are also members of an investigative team that had been gathering evidence and talking to witnesses in eastern Ukraine despite fighting in the area where the aircraft was shot down.
"We won't let a veto weaken our resolve," Liow said, adding that they were considering various options.
"What has happened today is regrettable but it cannot bring to an end our endeavor to prevent impunity," he said. "There are various options for prosecuting those responsible at both international and national levels. So now we will start focusing on those options carefully and tirelessly."
"The perpetrators, wherever they come from, must be held to account," he said. "They must not be able to escape punishment. While we cannot take away the grief of those who lost their loved ones, we will do everything in our power to bring the perpetrators to justice," Liow said. "We will not rest until all the facts are known and justice is served."
The Netherlands is carrying two investigations into the plane's shooting – one is led by the Dutch Safety Board seeking to determine the cause of the crash, and the other by the Dutch prosecutor's office, charged with finding suspects behind the aircraft's downing.
The safety board's results are due in October.
Liow told BenarNews that the culprits could be prosecuted soon thereafter.
"Once this report is out, we will not waste any time to prosecute those responsible."
A year ago, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that demanded that those responsible "be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability."
Russia had offered its own draft that demanded justice for those responsible for the crash without calling for a tribunal, the Associated Press reported.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council after the vote that such a tribunal risked not being impartial and being subject to media "propaganda," and he called past tribunals for the Rwanda genocide and the violence in the former Yugoslavia "expensive," according to AP.
Plane debris
Meanwhile, Liow said Malaysia has sent a team to verify whether plane debris washed up on an Indian Ocean island could be part of another Malaysian plane that disappeared in March last year carrying 239 passengers and crew from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing.
Most of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were Chinese.
The discovery of the plane debris on the French island of La Reunion has given rise to expectations that it could be part of the missing aircraft.
"Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can further confirm whether it belongs to MH370," Liow said.
"So we have dispatched a team to investigate on this issue and we hope that we can identify it as soon as possible," he added after the U.N. Security Council debate.
The two-meter (six-foot) long piece of wreckage, which seemed to be part of a wing, was found by people cleaning up a beach, Agence France-Presse reported.
No part of the jet has ever been found. Malaysian authorities in January declared that all on board were presumed dead.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian authorities are seeking the arrest of a Britain-based editor whose website was among the first to report an alleged transfer of nearly U.S. $700 million from a troubled state fund into bank accounts owned by Prime Minister Najib Razak.
"We have successfully obtained a warrant of arrest from the Kuala Lumpur court against Clare Rewcastle Brown, founder and editor of the Sarawak Report, for offenses under Section 124(B) and 124(I) of the Penal Code," Mohmad Bin Salleh, director of the Royal Malaysia Police's Crime Investigation Department (CID), said in a statement.
The two clauses pertain to "activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy" and "dissemination of false reports" and carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
Malaysia will ask Interpol and its Southeast Asian equivalent, ASEANAPOL, to place her name on international lists of wanted criminals, Mohmad said.
'Detrimental to democracy'
The Sarawak Report, an investigative website launched in 2010, has published numerous articles on the troubled 1MDB fund, corruption, and environmental degradation in Sarawak, in East Malaysia.
Rewcastle Brown called the arrest warrant the "latest move by the Malaysian authorities" to have her extradited to Malaysia.
"My action has been to publish information, which some in power do not like. Yet, the 'crime' they are accusing me of is of 'an activity detrimental to democracy,'" she added.
"It is they who are being detrimental to democracy by suppressing free speech and arresting people for questioning people in authority."
The warrant came a day after the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission announced that the funds in question were not from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund.
"Results of an investigation reveal that RM 2.6 billion allegedly placed in an account belonging to Prime Minister Najib Razak are donor contributions, and not from the 1MDB," it said in a statement.
Asked if she believed this assertion, Rewcastle Brown said, "I don't come to any conclusions about things without testing the evidence."
"So, like everyone else I would like to know who passed such a world-beating donation personally to Najib, why they did and how the money was spent?" she told BenarNews in an email.
Sacked
On July 2, the Sarawak Report and the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal published reports alleging that nearly U.S. $700 million originating from the deeply indebted 1MDB fund had been deposited into Najib's private bank accounts.
The prime minister called the reports "part of a concerted campaign of political sabotage to topple a democratically elected Prime Minister" and said he had "never taken funds for personal gain."
His government has since blocked Malaysians from accessing the Sarawak Report via internet servers inside the country – although it can still be viewed from abroad.
Last Thursday, the Sarawak Report published an article alleging that former Malaysian Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail was on the verge of filing corruption charges against the prime minister when he was sacked.
Both Abdul Gani – who was leading an investigation into the 1MDB scandal – and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin – who had publically criticized Najib over the 1MDB-related allegations – lost their jobs as part of a major cabinet reshuffle on July 28.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed Thursday that airplane debris found last week on a French island in the western Indian Ocean came from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished nearly 17 months ago.
"Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Najib said at a news conference convened at 2 a.m. (local time), at which he took no questions.
"We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
The prime minister was referring to lab tests done during the day in Toulouse, France, which confirmed that a flaperon – a moving part on the rear edge of the wing – came from the same Boeing 777 that disappeared with 239 people onboard while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
Since then, 26 nations have taken part in aerial and maritime searches stretching from the South China Sea to the southern Indian Ocean, off Australia, where it is believed to have crashed. Reunion island is located thousands of miles away, off Madagascar.
"I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened," Najib added.
"MH370's disappearance marked us as a nation. We mourn with you, as a nation."
He said nothing at all about whether the French lab tests had revealed any clues into what might have caused the plane to crash.
French caution
In Paris, a French official was more cautious in linking the wing piece and MH370. He addressed the media after Najib appeared at the early-morning news conference that was broadcast to the nation.
"There exists a very high probability that the flaperon indeed belongs to flight MH370," Deputy Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Investigators had been able to verify that the wing part came from a Boeing 777 because of its "technical characteristics," the Frenchman said.
In addition, "technical documentation" provided by Malaysia Airlines representatives allowed investigators to "establish a link between the item examined by the experts and the flaperon from the MH370 Boeing 777 in terms of their common technical characteristics," Mackowiak said.
'Not the end'
The Malaysian government's confirmation that the debris came from MH370 is the first tangible piece of evidence to come out of the 17-month search for the plane, the longest ever conducted for a missing airliner.
Last week's discovery of the flaperon on a Reunion beach happened to come on the same day that Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an international tribunal to prosecute the people who shot down another Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, in eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
"This is indeed a major breakthrough for us in resolving the disappearance of MH370. We expect and hope that there would be more objects to be found which would be able to help resolve this mystery," Malaysia Airlines said in a statement.
The MH370 confirmation marks a "huge step" in the investigation, Jakarta-based aviation consultant Gerry Soejatman told AFP.
"People want all the answers, but look, let's be real. We must be glad that we found something at all. Now we know roughly where it might have crashed," he said.
"It's not the end," Jacquita Gonzales, whose husband was a flight attendant on MH370, told Reuters. "Although they found something, you know, it's not the end."
"They still need to find the whole plane and our spouses as well," she added. "We still want them back."


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BENARNEWS- Prime Minister Najib Razak's political woes deepened dramatically this week with the filing of an opposition lawsuit, and a cyber-threat by a hacktivist group – both aiming to pressure him over millions of dollars deposited in his private bank account.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) last week said the funds – almost $700 million (2.6 billion ringgit), deposited in two tranches in March 2013 – came from unidentified donors in the Middle East.
In its suit filed Wednesday, the opposition People's Justice Party (PKR) said the money may have been used in violation of electoral laws in the May 2013 general election.
"This suit is a follow up of the expose printed in the Wall Street Journal regarding 2.6 billion allegedly deposited in Najib's private account for use in the 13th General Election and recognized as 'donations,'" PKR Vice-President Nurul Izzah Anwar told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
"If the 'donations' in question were used in entirety for the general election, it violated election rules, and exposes bribery and corruption tactics," she added.
"It is obvious that the RM 2.6 billion used is more than 26 times the allowed amount outlined by Malaysian laws."
The Malaysian Election Commission (SPR) and Tengku Adnan Mansor, secretary general of Najib's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, are also named in the suit, as is the troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.
The commission "has been complicit in a conspiracy to centralize power in the hands of UMNO and Barisan Nasional," Nurul said.
In its July 2nd report, the Wall Street Journal alleged that the deposits came from the 1MDB fund, which is billions of dollars in debt.
On Wednesday, SPR Chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told BenarNews via text messages that the commission would figure out how to respond to the suit after its legal counselors had read it.
The UMNO chairman said the party's main office had not yet been notified about the suit.
"UMNO will leave it to lawyers to determine further action upon receiving the summons later," Tengku Adnan Mansor told BenarNews.
'We are anonymous'
The second threat that emerged against Najib this week came in a video produced by a group calling itself Anonymous Malaysia.
In a nearly 8-minute video posted to its Facebook account late Monday, the group said it would launch "internet warfare" against the Malaysian government to force Najib to resign and submit to corruption investigations.
The prime minister has rejected the accusations relating to 1MDB, saying he had "never taken funds for personal gain."
Anonymous Malaysia said it planned to carry out the cyber-attack against governmental agencies to coincide with the "Bersih 4.0" rally planned for Aug. 29-30 by a civil society movement that advocates transparent and fair elections.
If the prime minister did not step down, the group threatened to target another 150 sites within 48 hours of the first two rounds of attacks.
Rally organizers said Wednesday they had nothing to do with the hacktivist group.
The group "does not agree [with] nor tolerate vicious attacks, either physical or virtual, towards a democratically elected government, however flawed the electoral system might have been," said a statement posted on the Bersih website.
"We therefore ask that this group of computer enthusiasts to immediately cease and desist from misusing the Bersih 4 campaign, and advise them to not carry out their threat, which will only jeopardize the peaceful assembly that will take place at the end of the month," it added.
Last month, hackers infiltrated the police department's social media accounts, peppering them with messages and images that promoted the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
On Wednesday, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Wilfred Tangau Madius said his ministry would safeguard government sites from the threat made by Anonymous Malaysia.
''As the ministry responsible for making sure the world is safe from cyber threats, the ministry through CyberSecurity Malaysia and MIMOS Berhad has taken precautions in dealing with this cyber threat, '' he said in a statement.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police on Thursday said they had arrested 10 people, including military personnel and women, suspected of a range of activities promoting the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and on home soil.
"This group was planning to purchase firearms for the purpose of launching an attack in Malaysia, helping IS members returning from Syria, recruiting people interested in joining IS and hiding information related to IS activity in Malaysia," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement late Thursday (local time).
"All are suspected of involvement in promoting the ideology of the IS terror group, raising funds and organizing the departure of Malaysians to join IS in Syria," he said.
Since February 2013, Malaysia has arrested 111 individuals suspected of links to the extremist group, which has proclaimed a caliphate for itself in parts of Iraq and Syria.
The ten latest detainees include six members of security forces, two civil servants, a kindergarten teacher and a former designer, the statement said.
The suspects, aged between 24 and 42 years old, were being held at the Malaysian Police Counter Terrorism Division Special Branch headquarters at Bukit Aman, in Kuala Lumpur.
They were detained in simultaneous operations carried out Wednesday in the Malaysian capital and five states: Perlis, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Malacca, Khalid said.
The suspects were detained under Act 574 of the Malaysian Penal Code and will be investigated under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act 2012, his statement said.
On July 9, police arrested two local men suspected of links with IS and of plotting attacks in the the Kuala Lumpur area. Twelve others were arrested in April in Selangor, also suspected of planning attacks on the capital.
"To date, our investigation has found a total of 66 individuals from Malaysia were reported to be in Syria and Iraq. The total may be bigger," Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in June.
The group has been accused of committing atrocities against local people in the territories it has overtaken. On Tuesday, IS militants beheaded the 82-year-old retired chief archaeologist of the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria, according to multiple reports. IS supporters shared photos online purporting to show Khaled al-Assaad's headless body hung on a median strip, according to AFP.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysia, as broker of potential new peace negotiations between Thailand and various southern Thai rebel groups, is looking to Tuesday's scheduled pre-talks meeting in Kuala Lumpur as another opportunity for both sides to break the ice, the Malaysian facilitator told BenarNews.

"There is no specific agenda for the meeting, as for a start we need to build the relationship among the parties concerned since most of them are new members of the delegations," Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim said in a phone interview Monday.

"We hope that this meeting will pave the way for both sides to have mutual understanding on matters that would lead towards taking the negotiations to the next level."

Tuesday's meeting is going ahead despite more insurgency-related bloodletting reported in recent days and weeks in Thailand's Deep South region.

On Monday, suspected insurgents shot dead a fruit vendor in Yala province and left his body by the roadside, police said.

The killing followed a Saturday night shooting elsewhere in the province that left three men injured. On Sunday, a village chief and a security official were shot and injured in neighboring Pattani province.
Yala and Pattani are part of Thailand's predominantly Muslim southern border region, which has been in the throes of a separatist insurgency that has claimed more than 6,000 lives and injured 10,000 since 2004.
Many rebel leaders and sympathizers of their cause are known to live across the border in Malaysia.

Peace broker cautiously upbeat

Zamzamin is to mediate a meeting between a Thai delegation headed by Gen. Aksara Kerdpol and MARA Patani, an umbrella group that collectively represents at least four Muslim rebel groups from the Deep South.

The meeting will be the third closed-door meeting since June aimed at reviving formal peace talks between the Thai government and southern rebels.

"This meeting is an effort to get all the parties involved to move forward, as we are at the early state of the negotiations," Zamzamin told BenarNews.

"However, Malaysia is confident that the dialogue will be fruitful, given the fact that all quarters are willing to resume the peace talks amidst incidents that are still taking place in southern Thailand," he said.

Zamzamin also served as the Malaysian government's facilitator for the last round of peace talks, which stalled in December 2013, when a civilian-led government represented Thailand at the negotiation table. Should he succeed in helping persuade the two sides to return to the table, the new peace talks would be the first under Thailand's military-controlled government, which seized power in May 2014.

Last year, the Thai junta expressed a willingness to explore the prospect of fresh peace talks. During a visit to Putrajaya in December 2014, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-Cha personally conveyed such a message to his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, according to news reports.

After the two leaders met, Najib was quoted as saying that Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok had agreed to start efforts aimed at reviving the stalled talks, and these would rest on three basic principles: a period free of violence in the Deep South; that all Thai rebel groups would be represented at new talks; and that all of the insurgents' various demands would be united through a single front at the table, past reports said.

"Based on the third principle, all the [separatist] demands shall be merged and streamlined under one common demand. This will be used as the foundation to begin the talks with the Thai government," Najib said.

All need to be involved: Ex-PULO leader

MARA Patani, which was formed this past May will, in theory, function as a united front in any talks with the Thai government. The umbrella group consists of Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), Gerakan Mujahideen Islami Patani (GMIP), Barisan Islam Perberbasan Patani (BIPP), and three factions of the Patani Liberation Organization (PULO).

But a former senior PULO leader, Haji Ismail Ternang, opined that one of the main reasons for the failure of the peace process in the past was the lack of commitment to ending the conflict in the Deep South.

"The peace process needs to involve all parties, no matter small or big groups and they must sit at the discussion table," Ismail, who was released from a prison in Yala on July 17 after a royal pardon, told Bernama, Malaysia's state-run news agency.


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BENARNEWS- The Malaysian government on Friday blocked websites of a civil society movement that has organized massive protests this weekend calling for the ouster of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Razak also spoke publicly for the first time to criticize the Bersih demonstration, scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Saturday in three cities in Malaysia and 60 other cities worldwide.
All three Malaysian cities – Kuala Lumpur, and Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo – have banned or discouraged the rally. Malaysian leaders say the protest conflicts with Malaysia's National Day, Aug. 31.
"There may be differences of opinion and belief among us, but the National Day should not be made a stage for political disputes," Razak said Friday in a blog post. "If they want to gather, they should pick a time and place that does not cause provocation."
Bersih was founded in 2007 by a broad alliance of civil society groups to demand transparency in the Malaysian electoral system. But it has been openly calling for an end to Najib's term in office in the wake of a scandal involving millions of dollars deposited in his personal bank accounts.
"Step Down, Najib!" said a statement issued by the group in mid-August announcing details of the 34-hour demonstration, dubbed Bersih 4.0 because it is the fourth mass action staged by the group. "Bersih" means "clean" in Malay.
"The people must rise up. Rise up not to overthrow the government with violence or force. Rise up to reject corrupt leadership and a political system that produces corrupt leadership," the statement said.
Blocked
As of 6 p.m. Friday (local time), people within Malaysia could no longer access four Bersih websites, including bersih.org and globalbersih.org . "Thus far, I was told four sites have been blocked," Communications and Multimedia Minister Saleh Said Keruak told Bernama.
On Thursday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission had threatened to block "any websites or news portal found to be promoting, disseminating information and encouraging the public to participate in the illegal rally as such action could be detrimental to the country."
But Saleh said Friday that no news portal had been found to be promoting the event, "so there was no violation of law, and there is no reason for news portal operators to be worried."
Bersih has always called for peaceful protest, but past Bersih rallies have typically been marred by stone-throwing and car burnings. Bersih leaders have disavowed the violence, claiming it was instigated by police and government plants.
Officials with the Malaysian army have said they would "interfere" in this weekend's rally if it became violent and the government declared a state of emergency.
Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said he would "not reject the offer by the army if the country needs it," Radio Television Malaysia reported.
Video threat
In a chilling turn of events, an 87-second video published on YouTube late Thursday threatened violence at the Bersih rally on a par with the Aug. 17 bombing of a beloved Hindu shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 and injured 125.
Titled "We Will Blast Malaysia," the video visually links Bersih activists, who traditionally wear yellow, with the yellow-clad main suspect in the Bangkok bombing, seen on security video leaving a backpack at the shrine moments before the explosion.
Flashing the words "We all Yellow," the video threatens to "shows Najib what we can do" and concludes with the words "Wait Our Blast at Bersih 4.0."
It purports to be the product of "Anonymous Malaysia," a hacktivist group that had earlier threatened to launch "internet warfare" against the Malaysian government to force Najib to resign and submit to corruption investigations – in parallel with the Bersih 4.0 rally.
Bersih repudiated the threat at the time and spoke out strongly against the latest threat.
Investigators have never linked Bersih activists to the Bangkok bombing, and it was not immediately possible to verify that the same group uploaded both videos.
"Anonymous Malaysia needs to be aware that the Bersih 4.0 demonstration is a peaceful demonstration, it does not allow violence, in fact we have asked authorities to detain anyone who is carrying out violence or throws rocks while the demonstration is under way," Bersih leader Maria Chin Abdullah said.
"I appeal to Anonymous Malaysia not to carry out this threat ... the people of Malaysia are peace-loving, this demonstration will take place safely," she told BenarNews.
IGP Abu Bakar said Malaysian authorities were taking the video threat seriously.
"We are investigating this matter. I don't need to say if we already know for sure or not [who disseminated it]. What is certain, we see this as a serious threat. We don't take such a threat lightly," Bernama quoted him as saying.


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BENARNEWS- In one of the biggest anti-government protests, about 200,000 people gathered in the heart of the Malaysian capital Saturday to call for Prime Minister Najib Razak's resignation over allegations of corruption and demand political and other reforms, despite police warnings of action against the "illegal" gathering.

Among those who joined the mammoth crowd, albeit briefly, was former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, one of Najib's harshest critics who has repeatedly called for his ouster over a multi-million dollar payments made to bank accounts under Najib's name.

"Continue, continue," Mahathir (pictured below) was quoted saying as he and his wife joined the rally organized by the Bersih reform movement in front of the City Hall building in downtown Kuala Lumpur. 

"Just look around," he quipped when asked why he had decided to join the gathering, coming just ahead of the 58th anniversary of the nation's independence on Monday.
According to organizers, as many as 200,000 took part in the rally, but police said that only about 25,000 attended it.
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Government officials have admitted that Najib received nearly U.S. $700 million in mysterious deposits into his personal bank accounts starting in 2013. 

But Najib has denied wrongdoing since the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal reported that investigators probing the management of debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) had discovered the unexplained transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

1MDB is ridden with U.S. $11 billion in debt, and Najib, who had sacked officials probing the scandal, chairs its advisory board.
Officials close to Najib say the money transfers were legitimate "political donations" from unidentified Middle Eastern sources but have given no further details.

The accounts have been closed, and it is unclear where the money went.
Sea of yellow
Streets in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday were filled with people dressed in yellow, the colors of Bersih, which called the two-day rally to also demand institutional reforms that would make the government more transparent and accountable. Previous Bersih rallies in 2011 and 2012 were dispersed by authorities with tear gas and water cannon.

Rallies are also being held simultaneously cities in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu on Borneo island and by Malaysian reform backers in foreign capitals.

Earlier in the day, Najib denounced the rally as disrespectful ahead of National Day.

"Are they that shallow and poor in their patriotism and love for their motherland?" state-run Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.

Kuala Lumpur City police chief Tajuddin Mohd. Isa said in a statement that the mass gathering was "peaceful" and there had been no untoward incidents or arrests.

Bersih leader Maria Chin Abdullah called for a vote of no confidence against Najib in Parliament.

"We have a message to all parliamentary members and political parties and everyone in Parliament — we want a vote of no-confidence against Najib," she said in a short speech at Dataran Merdaka (Independence Square).
The crowd responded with cheers and shouts of "Agree."
'Huge frustrations'
Meanwhile, Transparency International Chairman Jose Ugaz said in statement issued Saturday that Najib's government had "failed to tackle the corruption scandals it faces, and people in positions of responsibility are acting with impunity."

Najib, 62, took power in 2009 and had vowed to end corruption, authoritarianism, as well as reform controversial race-based preferences for ethnic Malays, the multi-racial country's majority group.

Amnesty International asked Najib's government not to suppress the protests.

"There are huge frustrations with a number of endemic rights issues in Malaysia at the moment –the crackdown on freedom of expression by the government must end," Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's deputy campaigns director, said in a statement.


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BENARNEWS- Marking the 58th anniversary of Malaysian nationhood, Prime Minister Najib Razak dismissed calls for his resignation and criticized organizers of massive protest rallies in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend.
"We reject any form of street demonstration that can jeopardize public order and only inconvenience the people, because it does not at all reflect maturity, much less the proper channel to express views in a democratic country," the beleaguered prime minister said in his National Day speech at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center on Sunday night.
On Monday, Najib presided over National Day celebrations in downtown Kuala Lumpur, where as many as 300,000 people, according to organizers, had rallied against his government on Saturday and Sunday.
They were demanding political reforms and that Najib step down over corruption allegations and a scandal surrounding the troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund. Najib has been under mounting pressure to resign over allegations that U.S. $700 million in mysterious deposits wound up in his private bank accounts.
"As we are aware, what had occurred in the last two days is very improper. It reflects a shallow mind and a poor spirit of nationalism," Najib said of the rally.
"Once the sail has been spread, when the anchor has been weighed, it is forbidden for the skipper and the crew to make a U-turn," Najib told the nation on the eve of the celebration, according to a transcript published by the state-run Bernama news service.
He assured his countrymen that his government was doing all it could to safeguard the country's economy, amid deep worries about the ringgit's plummeting value against the American dollar.
"It is clearly proven that Malaysia is not a failed country, as alleged by some, it is not going bankrupt," Najib said. "In fact, we are actually still in a stable condition, with strong fundamentals, and will continue to remain sustainable and competitive."
Najib's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party has been in power since 1957.
'A mesmerizing spectacle'
Large crowds of spectators waved Malaysian flags as a procession of soldiers, police and civil servants paraded Monday down the streets of the nation's capital.
"Malaysians from all walks of life descended in droves to Dataran Merdeka [Independence Square] here today to proudly display their patriotic spirit and solidarity in celebrating National Day 2015," was how Bernama described the day's festivities.
"The sea of Malaysians had the opportunity to witness almost 13,000 participants from the public and private sector, security forces, school students and a group of mountain guides take part in a mesmerizing parade."
During the two preceding days, a sea of yellow-clad protestors filled the downtown area, taking part in a 34-hour rally organized by Bersih, a grassroots movement calling for clean government in Malaysia.
Bersih activists also gathered in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, on Borneo island, and in foreign capitals, in their most peaceful mass action to date. Rallies in 2011 and 2012 were marred by stone-throwing and car burning, and dispersed with tear gas and water cannon.
"They put the crowd estimate at over 300,000 ... We succeeded in staging a large, safe assembly," Bersih chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah said.
No let up
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's 90-year-old former prime minister, who has become a fierce critic of his successor, appeared twice at the Bersih rally in Kuala Lumpur.
On Sunday, "Dr. M" addressed the huge crowd.
"The only way to return rule of law is to remove this prime minister, and to remove him, the people must show people's power," the Malay Mail quoted Mahathir as saying.
"We should move a motion of no confidence in Parliament," he added.
On Monday, Najib's critics kept the pressure on Najib.
Noor Farida Ariffin, spokeswoman for a group of prominent Malaysian intellectuals known as the G25, criticized the prime minister for his response to the Bersih movement.
"If I were him, I would listen to the people and do something to accept and initiate change demanded by the people," she told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- In an interview with BenarNews, Malaysian jihadist Muhammad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi expressed no regrets about abandoning his life back home to take up arms for the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.
"I must say that I do harbor the hope of returning to Malaysia, but it is not my priority as my focus now is to stay here and fight, to achieve my dream of defending the IS," the 25-year-old told BenarNews from the war zone. The interview was conducted via Facebook.
Wanndy is alleged to be one of two Malaysians in an IS video crew that filmed the beheading of a Syrian man. The video was posted on Facebook on Feb. 22, according to The Star, the Malaysian newspaper that broke the story in early March.
A still image taken from the video clip published with the story allegedly showed Wanndy crouching over the dead man's body and smiling.
Compatriot Mohd Faris Anuar allegedly operated the camera and a third man, believed to be an Indonesian, held up the Syrian's head and cried "Allahuakbar," The Star quoted Malaysian counter-terrorism officials as saying.
"The video version of this punishment is for those who betrayed Islam. It's a lesson for everyone," Wanndy reportedly said in the video, according to Harian Metro.
'Preparing for al-Mahdi's rule'
Wanndy, who hails from Durian Tunggal, a small town in coastal Malacca state, did not immediately reply to questions about his alleged role in the killing.
He said that he and his wife, Nor Mahmudah Ahmad, left Malaysia on Jan. 26, motivated by a chapter of the Quran that predicts redemption and victory for Muslims before the end of times, under a messianic figure called al-Mahdi.
The couple traveled by train from Butterworth, in Penang state, to Bangkok, then flew to Moscow and to Istanbul – a popular disembarkation point for jihadists travelling overland to Syria, Wanndy said.
He was communicating with BenarNews from an IS stronghold in Syria that was being bombarded from the air an average of four times daily by a U.S.-led international coalition, according to Wanndy.
"At this moment I am in Raqqah, Syria, and I will not turn away from my duty to fight for the establishment of the Islamic State's Caliph leadership in preparing for the al-Mahdi's rule," he told BenarNews.
"Mahdi," according to various sources, is an Arabic word that connotes a "divinely guided one" who will emerge to restore the purity of the Islamic faith and lead Muslims to victory against enemy forces before Judgment Day.
"The Islamic State (IS) is the movement which is making preparations for al-Mahdi rule towards the end of the world," Wanndy said.
'Thousands of excuses'
According to The Star, Wanndy and Faris were part of an IS unit made up of Malay-speaking jihadists from Malaysia and Indonesia. The 100-strong unit, named Majmu'ah al Arkhabiliy, was previously known as Katibah Nusantara, the Star reported, quoting Malaysian counter-terrorism special branch chief Ayob Khan Mydin.
Wanndy, who just celebrated the birth of a baby girl, criticized other Malaysians for being afraid to die for IS's cause.
"These Malaysians come up with thousands of excuses to avoid dying as a martyr. When they return to Malaysia, they are screaming their lungs out for jihad, but, ironically, they fled from the battle," he said.
In Syria, he has been fighting for IS alongside 80 fellow Malaysians, 11 of whom have died in combat, Wanndy added.
IS threat at home
Authorities in Malaysia and other countries vulnerable to IS recruitment have long feared that jihadists returning from combat tours in Iraq or Syria might plot attacks on home soil.
On Friday, the Royal Malaysia Police force issued a statement alerting the public to a threat made by IS through its online magazine, Dabiq. In it, the group called on its supporters to carry out terrorist attacks in several countries, including Malaysia.
"Police have been and will continue to take action to improve safety in all key asset areas of the country, including embassies and also places of public interest," the statement read.
Since 2014, some 121 people suspected of links to IS have been taken into custody in Malaysia.
On Wednesday, the Kuala Lumpur High Court sentenced two Malaysians to two years' imprisonment for supporting the Islamic State.
The court ordered that the sentences for architect Mohd. Syafrien Rasid and technician Mohamad Yusoffe Ishak, both 27, be retroactive to the date of their arrests at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Sept. 25, 2014, as they tried to depart for Syria, according to the state-run news agency Bernama.
Attorneys for the defendants said their clients made a mistake that they now regretted.
"My client requests that the court give him a second chance to improve himself and return to the right path," said Nor Rabiatul Bahari, the lawyer who represented Syafrien.
According to attorney Amir Khusyairi Mohamad Tanusi, who represented Yusoffe, his client had had no religious education and only knew about the meaning of jihad through social media and the internet.
"This has led him to misunderstand the real meaning of 'jihad,'" he said.
'Driven to despise the U.S.'
A shallow understanding of Islam has left other Malaysians vulnerable to IS recruitment, Islamic Development Department (Jakim) Director-General Othman Mustapha told BenarNews.
"Their lack of understanding on the religion has caused them to derail from the true teaching ... Muslims must seek the true Islamic teaching to quash the IS propaganda, particularly pertaining to the martyr issue," he said.
Malaysians swayed by such propaganda "are willing to join the movement as they are sympathetic with Muslims who are oppressed in Palestine, Iraq and Syria ...," Transparency International Malaysia President Akhbar Satar said.
"They were driven to despise the United States for invading Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, which claimed the life of civilians," added Akhbar, who is also director of the Crime and Criminology Institute at HELP, a local university.
Malaysians need to hold true to the Quran, the Sunnah and the fundamentals taught by Syafie, Hanafi, Maliki and Hambali, Sunni Islam's four prominent imams, Ayob, the head of the police's counter-terrorism division, told BenarNews.
Those imams "never labelled other groups as infidel, although they have differences in the interpretation of Islamic matters," Ayob said.
"The other teachings besides Sunni tend to accuse other Muslims who do not adhere to their interpretation of Islamic teachings as infidel, making it permissible to kill them," he added.


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BENARNEWS- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a money-laundering investigation in connection with Malaysia's debt-ridden state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), news reports said.
The Wall Street Journal, which reported the story Saturday, cited a "person familiar with the matter" and said the scope of the investigation was not known.
The FBI declined to say whether such an investigation was under way. "It is standard practice for the FBI not to confirm or deny the existence of investigations," Susan McKee, acting unit chief of the FBI's National Press Office, told BenarNews in an email.
In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. $700 million dollars from the 1MDB had been deposited into accounts allegedly belonging to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak before Malaysia's last general election, which took place in May 2013.
Najib and 1MDB officials denied any wrongdoing. The prime minister called the reports an attempt at political sabotage and said he had "never taken funds for personal gain."
Malaysia's Anti-Corruption Commission later said the funds were donations from the Middle East. It did not say who the donors were, what the money was used for, or why such a large sum had entered the country unreported.
'A form of sabotage'
On Friday, Malaysian authorities arrested a whistle-blower in the case, after preventing his departure for the United States, where he had planned to meet with FBI officials, Agence France-Presse quoted the man's lawyer as saying.
Khairuddin Abu Hassan, a former official in Najib's ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO), had already traveled to Switzerland, Britain, France and Hong Kong to draw attention to the 1MDB case, according to his attorney, Matthias Chang.
He has now been arrested and charged with plotting to "undermine parliamentary democracy," Chang said, according to AFP.
Khairuddin has already filed a police report on alleged misuse of funds linked to 1MDB, and investigators need time to look into it, Malaysian Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said in statement Sunday from Mecca, where he was undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.
"However, he still choose to use foreign legal channels to seek international attention and also impose pressure on Malaysia," Khalid said.
"This action is clearly aimed at discrediting the Malaysia legislation system and local law enforcement agencies and invites foreign interference into the country's democratic system," he added. "His actions are a form of sabotage which could destabilize the country's economy and sovereignty."
Khairuddin filed his 1MDB police report in December 2014.
International probes
Earlier this month, the Journal reported that more than U.S. $2 billion were missing in 1MDB money that was supposed to have been paid to a fund based in Abu Dhabi. Payments of U.S. $1.4 billion and another U.S. $993 million were now unaccounted for, the paper reported, citing officials in the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
1MDB rejected the reports as biased, poorly sourced and full of errors.
"We confirm that no executives or board members of 1MDB are the subject of any criminal proceedings by the Swiss attorney general's office. We further confirm that no 1MDB bank accounts have been frozen by either the Swiss or Singapore authorities," said a furious 1MDB statement issued Friday.
"We, however, reiterate our readiness and willingness to assist in the investigations conducted by any foreign government agency, subject to advice from the relevant Malaysian authorities and adherence to any relevant international protocols governing such matters."
'Public wants answers'
The 1MDB state fund is now part of international investigations unfolding in Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Britain and the UAE, according to reports.
Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad – Najib's predecessor and now constant critic – said Najib should be cautious about travelling abroad. The prime minister is due to travel to New York next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly along with other foreign leaders.
"He might be arrested if he left the country. So he has to remain here, like how he withdrew the passports of some people and barred them from going overseas," the Malaysian Insider quoted the 90-year-old former PM as saying Sunday in a video published on the Din Turtle blogsite.
On Monday, Malaysia's central bank chief said the ongoing scandal was strangling the country's economy, and needed to be resolved with transparency.
"Right now, we know that the public wants answers to these questions, and they deserve to get the answers," Bank Negara Malaysia Gov. Zeti Akhtar Aziz said in Kuala Lumpur during a discussion on the economy, the Malaysian Insider reported.
"All issues pertaining to 1MDB should be resolved. It is only then [that] we can see the ringgit rebound," Astro Awani quoted her as saying, referring to Malaysia's struggling currency.


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BENARNEWS- Foreign supporters of the Islamic State (IS) plan to enter Indonesia from Malaysia for military training before deploying to the Middle East for combat tours with the extremist group, a top Malaysian counter-terrorism official told BenarNews.
"As far as I know there are 20 to 30 IS supporters who want to go to Indonesia for training, or to use that country [as transit] for Syria or Iraq," Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, deputy chief of the Royal Malaysia Police's special branch for counter-terrorism, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Those jihadists have yet to leave Malaysian territory because they are on the radar of the security services, he added.
Ayob also revealed to BenarNews that three Malaysian jihadists had carried out suicide bombings in Syria or Iraq. A fourth citizen has tried to carry out suicide bombings without success.
"We found and believe that three or four Malaysians have become suicide bombers, and they took these actions because they wanted to die as martyrs," Ayob said.
According to figures provided by the special branch, more than 60 Malaysians, including 10 women, have traveled to Syria in support of IS. As of Tuesday, 11 of them had been killed in Syria or Iraq, including the three suicide bombers.
Altogether 121 Malaysians, including 23 women, have been arrested at home on suspicion of links to the group, Ayob said.
But he rejected as exaggerated a comment by the head of Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) that "in Malaysia, there are thousands, a lot of foreign terrorist fighters there who are about to be deployed – we don't know where to – under the [IS] network."
BNPT chief Saud Usman Nasution made the comments in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that warned of "the imminent deployment of foreign fighters from Malaysia."
An IS haven in Poso?
Published Monday, the ABC report quoted Saud as saying that IS was working with people smuggling networks to bring foreign fighters to Indonesia.
The fighters first land on the northwestern Indonesian island of Sumatra, and then travel to Poso Regency, on distant the island of Sulawesi, Saud told ABC.
He added that 52 Indonesians had been killed while fighting with IS in the Middle East, including four in suicide bombings.
A total of 514 Indonesians have traveled to Syria and Iraq to support IS's jihadist cause, according to BNPT figures.
On Sept. 14, Saud told a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta that suspected IS militants from outside the country had made it to Poso or were planning to go there, SINDONews reported.
Indonesia, which has been a source country for IS members, is now a destination country for them, he testified, according to the news outlet.
"This can't be underestimated, because it is a real and clear threat," SINDONews quoted Saud as saying.
Hunting down MIT
Poso lies in the restive province of Central Sulawesi. Its mountains are the suspected base for Indonesia's most wanted militant, Santoso. He heads the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), which has reportedly aligned itself with the Islamic State.
Earlier this month, three farmers were beheaded in separate killings in Moutong Parigi, another regency in Central Sulawesi. Police suspect that a band of MIT fighters carried out those killings.
"Our intel sources say that the group has about 30 people. It's not that big but almost all of them have dangerous weapons, such as firearms and bombs. In addition, the group has memorized its terrain, making it hard for us to find them," Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Hari Suprapto told BenarNews earlier in September.
In Jakarta, BNPT spokesman Irfan Idris said that foreigners had joined this mobile unit, but their exact number was unknown.
"At the moment there is one other foreigner with the group. The foreigner is a Uyghur named Faruk alias Magalasi. His name is on our most wanted-list," said Hari of the Central Sulawesi police force.
The case of four Uyghurs
In July, a court in North Jakarta convicted four other Uyghur men on charges of trying to join the MIT and of entering the country illegally, and sentenced each of them to six years in prison.
The four were arrested in September 2014 in Central Sulawesi as they traveled to meet with Santoso, according to Indonesian authorities. The four claimed to be tourists.
They had landed in Indonesia after departing from an unnamed seaport in Malaysia, defendant Abdul Basit testified on the stand in June. Lawyers identified the landing place as Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province in Sumatra.
"We have no other intention but vacation," Abdul told the court.
It is still unclear whether the four Uyghurs are Turkish citizens, as they claim, or from China's northwestern Xinjian province, where Turkic-speaking Uyghurs are a repressed Muslim minority.
Chinese officials, meanwhile, claim that about 300 Uyghurs from Xinjiang have joined IS.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian opposition parties on Tuesday announced the formation of a new alliance to challenge Prime Minister Najib Razak in polls due by early 2018.
Leaders of the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition also declared Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition's jailed ex-leader, as their prime ministerial pick for the next general election. Anwar, 68, is in prison on a sodomy charge.
The three-party coalition – Anwar's People's Justice Party (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the newly formed National Trust Party (PAN) – hopes to unseat Najib's United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which leads the ruling Barisan Nasional bloc. UMNO has ruled since 1957 in Malaysia, where politics can be racially charged and parties coalesce along racial lines.
"This is for the people," opposition leader and MP Wan Azizah Wan Ismail – Anwar's wife – told journalists in Subang Jaya, Selangor state, according to local news reports.
"The people have high hopes of seeing the opposition working together."
The new coalition replaces the Pakatan Rakyat (People's Pact) alliance, which fell apart in June. Both the PKR and the predominantly ethnic Chinese DAP were part of that seven-year-old coalition with the faith-based Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).
In the 2013 general election, the opposition coalition came close to unseating Najib by winning the popular vote, but it did not win enough parliamentary seats needed to oust him.
But inter-party tensions over PAS's efforts to implement hudud – a sharia penal code – in northern Kelantan state, where the party controls the state legislature, caused the coalition to come apart. Members of PAS who broke away have now formed the National Trust Party.
On Monday, PAS officials reiterated that their party would not be part of the new alliance.
"We cannot be with Pakatan Rakyat 2.0 due to the presence of DAP and [PAN] which we regard as having betrayed and run away from us," PAS Vice-President Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.
The three partners in the new coalition agreed to ally with one another during a roundtable meeting in Subang Jaya on Tuesday, which was attended by 18 top leaders of opposition parties as well as some members of UMNO and PAS.
"Pakatan Harapan hopes to serve as a strong political alliance that will defend the people and accept all others political parties in facing [off against] UMNO and Barisan Nasional," Wan Azizah said.
"We are also announcing that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be our choice for prime minister if we win the next general election," Wan Azizah added, according to Malay Mail Online.


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BENARNEWS- Authorities in Malaysia on Wednesday announced the arrests of eight suspects, including four foreigners whom they identified as Uyghurs, in connection with last month's deadly bombing of a Hindu shrine in Bangkok.

The arrests took place within the past week at various locations in Kuala Lumpur and northeastern Kelantan state, which borders Thailand, Deputy Inspector General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Four of the suspects are Uyghurs and the other four are Malaysians suspected of helping smuggle the four foreigners into Malaysia from Thailand after the attack, Noor Rashid said. 

"Police suspect that those four foreigners may have been involved in bombings in Bangkok, based on information submitted by Thailand police," he told reporters.

"But it does not mean that they were involved in the incident. However, they will be detained for investigation, '' he added.

"So far, there is no evidence and no plea was recorded from them," Noor Rashid noted.

"The four Uyghurs were believed to be waiting to be smuggled out from the country by the four local residents, who are members of a human trafficking syndicate in Malaysia, '' he said.

Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority within China, who mostly live in the restive western Xinjiang region. Uyghurs also are spread across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and many Uyghurs also live in Turkey.

The arrests bring to 11 the number of people taken into custody on Malaysian soil as part of an international probe into Thailand's deadliest terrorist bombing, which killed 20 people – including five Malaysians – and injured another 120 at the Erawan Shrine on Aug. 17. 

On Sept. 17, Malaysian officials announced the arrests of two Malaysians and a Pakistani national in connection with the investigation, taking them into custody under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act of 2012 (SOSMA).

So far, Thai authorities have arrested two suspects.

Not our man

Last month's attack took place during the evening rush hour near the Rajaprasong intersection in central Bangkok. Moments before the bomb went off, a man in a yellow shirt was filmed on a security camera leaving a backpack at the shrine, which is popular with tourists.

Thai police believe this man is the bomber. They have identified another man as the alleged mastermind of the attack, naming him as Chinese passport holder Abu Dustar Abdulrahman, also known as "Izan." Thai authorities earlier said that both men had fled the country and were at-large.

But in Bangkok on Wednesday, Thai National Police spokesman, Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri, said that the suspected bomber was not among those suspects whose arrests had been announced in Kuala Lumpur, according to the Associated Press.

"This is not our wanted person," AP quoted Prawut as saying.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysian police Friday announced the arrests of three men, including an Indonesian and a Syrian, in connection with a reported terrorist plot targeting a tourist hotspot in Kuala Lumpur as well as national and foreign interests inside Malaysia.
A unit of the Royal Malaysia Police's counter-terrorism special branch carried out the arrests Thursday night, Deputy Inspector General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim said in a statement.
The operation "resulted from information obtained from suspects already detained, who revealed that plans were being formed to attack assets of importance to the country, western interests and public areas," he said.
"The investigation is ongoing to confirm whether the trio is involved in planning to mount attacks in Malaysia," Noor Rashid added.
The three were being investigated for possible terrorism-related offenses and were booked under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act of 2012 (SOSMA), according to his statement.
"Police are exercising continued vigilance in light of these developments to ensure the safety and interests of the nation are preserved. Security has been heightened at strategic places and public areas."
The suspects ranged in age from 30 to 51 years old, and one was a frequent visitor to Yemen who had arrived in Malaysia a few days ago, the statement noted.
Police did not release their names, but the state-run Bernama news agency quoted Noor Rashid as saying that the three included a Malaysian, Syrian and Indonesian.
Embassy alerts
The arrests followed warnings issued on Thursday by the American and Australian embassies alerting their citizens to avoid Jalan Alor, a food street in central K.L. that is popular with foreign tourists and Malaysians.
The advisory from the U.S. Embassy said it had received credible information about a threat, and urged Americans to stay away from Jalan Alor and a shopping district that surrounds it.
According to the New Straits Times, the suspects were picked up near Jalan Alor around 6 p.m. Thursday.
"Bukit Aman [the counter-terrorism special branch] has contacted the embassies of the United States and Australia on the security level at that particular location relating to the possibility of terrorist attacks taking place," Noor Rashid told Bernama on Friday.
"I have directed my personnel to be on duty at that particular location to monitor any suspicious activities," he said.
The arrests come amid warnings by Malaysian authorities of a national security threat from efforts by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group to radicalize and recruit local youths.
Officials have also warned about a threat posed by Malaysian jihadists mounting terrorist plots after returning home from combat tours in Iraq or Syria, where IS operates.
According to figures provided by Bukit Aman, more than 60 Malaysians, including 10 women, have traveled to Syria in support of IS.
Altogether 121 Malaysians, including 23 women, have been arrested at home on suspicion of links to the group, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the special branch's deputy chief, told BenarNews earlier this month.


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BENARNEWS- International cooperation is crucial to countering the "scourge" of the Islamic State extremist group, Malaysia, one of three new members of an anti-IS global coalition, told a meeting of world leaders in New York on Tuesday.
"My region, Southeast Asia, has not been spared this threat," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said during the Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, at the United Nations. ISIL is another acronym for the Islamic State group.
"Because we have fortunately not suffered a major terrorist outrage in Malaysia, some appear to believe that we are not afflicted by this scourge. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Malaysia has arrested more than 100 people suspected of links to IS, and the country is now looking to marshal international support to establish a "regional, digital counter-messaging center," because Southeast Asia lacks such an overarching program, Najib said.
"This could not be more important, for the lies that IS employs are insidious," Najib told leaders of more than 100 countries.
"IS has harnessed a highly effective approach to communication and messaging. The so-called online terrorists have been deployed to devastating effect, inspiring too many impressionable, the vulnerable and excluded, to join their ranks," he added.
Youth voices
Abdul Qayyum Jumadi, a 24-year-old Malaysian, said young people had a valuable role to play in helping affected countries counter IS's ideology.
"Youth can spread awareness about the message of Islam ... The youth don't want to think about IS, but actually youths have the biggest reach to influence people to have a counter narrative about what IS is doing," Abdul, a law graduate who works as a writer in Kuala Lumpur, told BenarNews.
"Youth can speak to youth, they can't be the total actors but are an important factor in pursuing a counter narrative. IS is on the social media every day, trying to put out the message, and the youth need to do the same because they are the ones on social media a lot," he added.
Abdul was among two Malaysians and two Indonesians who attended a Global Youth Summit Against Violent Extremism on Monday on the sidelines of the 70th U.N. General Assembly meeting.
The event, featuring young leaders and activists from across the globe, was co-hosted by the Counter Extremism Project, an international policy organization, and Search for Common Ground, a U.S. non-governmental organization focused on conflict resolution.
American tech giants Facebook and Microsoft also put on presentations at the youth summit.
The youthful gathering culminated in a four-page "Youth Action Agenda to Prevent Violence and Promote Peace," which was handed over to the leaders taking part in Tuesday's summit at the U.N.
"A sense of disengagement and marginalization, despite the inter-connected world we live in, leaves young people vulnerable to recruitment wherever they are," the agenda read.
The threat posed by IS, it said, represented "the defining challenge of our generation."
"More than ever before, the response to violent extremism needs meaningful youth participation at all levels .... Our generation, like the generations before us, challenges the status quo and demands new ideas and systems," the Youth Action Agenda went on to say.
Obama: 'A long-term campaign'
U.S. President Barack Obama, who chaired the meeting of world leaders, welcomed Malaysia, along with Nigeria and Tunisia, as the newest members of the global anti-IS coalition.
But, the president cautioned, it could take a long time to defeat the jihadist group.
"There are going to be successes and there are going to be setbacks. This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign not only against this particular network but against its ideology," Obama said in his opening remarks, which like Najib's speech, were broadcast on the UN Web TV channel.
Part of this non-conventional warfare requires an active role by civil society, because force alone isn't enough to counter the jihadist threat, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said at the meeting.
"Engagement with civil society is critical in supporting the effort of the government to strengthening the voice of the moderates," he told the summit.
"Promotion of tolerance and moderation is critical, particularly for our younger generation, in order to prevent them from becoming radicalized."


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BENARNEWS- China has again demonstrated its rising political clout in Southeast Asia – this time thumbing its nose at diplomats in Malaysia wanting to summon Beijing's ambassador in Kuala Lumpur over his alleged interference in domestic politics, according to diplomatic sources.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman had directed his officers to summon Huang Huikang, the Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia, to seek an explanation over his recent statements about race and violent demonstrations in the Southeast Asian country.
But Huang ignored the foreign ministry directive after private discussions with some Malaysian officials, in a move highlighting Beijing's rising economic and political influence in the region.
Huang made the eyebrow-raising statement last week when he visited a predominantly Chinese district of Kuala Lumpur, stating that Beijing opposed any form of discrimination against races and would not tolerate violent demonstrations in the Southeast Asian country, wracked by racially charged events recently.
The visit came amid reports that ethnic Malay supporters of embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak planned to march through the area to protest alleged abuses by ethnic Chinese traders.
The planned protest at the Petaling Street Chinese enclave was aimed at countering a mammoth rally calling on Najib, leader of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, to quit over a corruption scandal.
Basic diplomacy
While some believe Huang's statement may have prodded the organizers to scrap the protest, they questioned the Chinese approach of disregarding basic diplomacy.
When Malaysian foreign ministry officials contacted the Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur to summon Huang, his aides told them he was very busy, demanding instead that the officers go to the Chinese diplomatic mission to see Huang – a bid to reverse a longstanding tradition in international diplomacy, the sources said.
Instead of complying with the summons, Huang instead went to lobby Ong Ka Ting, the Special Envoy for China, and several Malaysian ministers, who decided to let Huang off the hook, the sources said.
Malaysian dailies reported that Huang met Domestic Trade Minister Zainuddin Hamzah in the administrative capital Putrajaya for more than two hours on Monday and Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz for dinner a day earlier.
The local Sin Chew Chinese daily published a photo showing Nazri sitting opposite Huang at a rectangular dinner table, along with five other unidentified people.
Nazri later "admitted he made a mistake" and said he had not intended to interfere in the foreign ministry's affairs, The Star daily reported Tuesday.
It was not clear whether the ministers had consulted Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly, about their action to roll back Foreign Minister Anifah's decision.
"This is a big blow to Malaysia and national sovereignty," said a diplomatic source. "The Chinese influence appears to have reached the top echelons of power."
Fuming
Foreign Minister Anifah, also in New York with Najib, was fuming over the move to rescind his decision.
"I am disappointed that some cabinet ministers had decided to take certain actions and make press statements without consulting me first. I wish to reiterate that I did not cancel my instruction to call in the Ambassador of China to Wisma Putra to seek clarification," he said, referring to Malaysia's foreign ministry.
"Unfortunately, their interference has caused a negative perception in the eyes of the public," Anifah said.
"As a sovereign state, we should convey our stand clearly to China," he said, stressing that his decision followed discussions with Najib.
Despite his statement, it was unclear whether the foreign ministry would indeed officially summon Huang.
'Friendly neighbors'
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Huang's visit to Petaling Street during the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was a "normal" activity, stressing that Beijing "adheres to principles of peaceful coexistence" and "does not interfere in other countries' domestic politics or intervene in other countries' internal affairs."
"China and Malaysia are friendly neighbors, we hope that Malaysia can maintain national unity and stability and ethnic harmony," he said at a daily news briefing in Beijing, according to news agencies.
Malaysia-China relations have improved rapidly in recent years with bilateral trade burgeoning last year to US$101.98 billion, according to the Malaysian national news agency Bernama. Investments have also risen.
But close bilateral business ties should not stop Kuala Lumpur from standing up to China, some Malaysian leaders say.
"We need not be [so] afraid to express our feelings for fear of jeopardizing economic relations and other interests that we cannot reprimand them when they go against diplomacy norms," Khairy Jamaluddin, the youth wing head of UMNO, was quoted saying.
He said Huang had no right to meddle in Malaysia's "internal" affairs.
China is seen to have increased its encroachment into Malaysian waters in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing's increasingly assertive moves to press its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea have raised concerns among its other neighbors and the United States, as well.
China has been accused in the past of using its mighty financial influence over Cambodia, its key regional ally, to prevent any statement being adopted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the South China Sea that may be damaging to Beijing.
"We hope Malaysia does not succumb to similar pressure," said one diplomat who has been closely following the latest diplomatic spat.


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BENARNEWS- International cooperation is crucial to countering the "scourge" of the Islamic State extremist group, Malaysia, one of three new members of an anti-IS global coalition, told a meeting of world leaders in New York on Tuesday.
"My region, Southeast Asia, has not been spared this threat," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said during the Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, at the United Nations. ISIL is another acronym for the Islamic State group.
"Because we have fortunately not suffered a major terrorist outrage in Malaysia, some appear to believe that we are not afflicted by this scourge. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Malaysia has arrested more than 100 people suspected of links to IS, and the country is now looking to marshal international support to establish a "regional, digital counter-messaging center," because Southeast Asia lacks such an overarching program, Najib said.
"This could not be more important, for the lies that IS employs are insidious," Najib told leaders of more than 100 countries.
"IS has harnessed a highly effective approach to communication and messaging. The so-called online terrorists have been deployed to devastating effect, inspiring too many impressionable, the vulnerable and excluded, to join their ranks," he added.
Youth voices
Abdul Qayyum Jumadi, a 24-year-old Malaysian, said young people had a valuable role to play in helping affected countries counter IS's ideology.
"Youth can spread awareness about the message of Islam ... The youth don't want to think about IS, but actually youths have the biggest reach to influence people to have a counter narrative about what IS is doing," Abdul, a law graduate who works as a writer in Kuala Lumpur, told BenarNews.
"Youth can speak to youth, they can't be the total actors but are an important factor in pursuing a counter narrative. IS is on the social media every day, trying to put out the message, and the youth need to do the same because they are the ones on social media a lot," he added.
Abdul was among two Malaysians and two Indonesians who attended a Global Youth Summit Against Violent Extremism on Monday on the sidelines of the 70th U.N. General Assembly meeting.
The event, featuring young leaders and activists from across the globe, was co-hosted by the Counter Extremism Project, an international policy organization, and Search for Common Ground, a U.S. non-governmental organization focused on conflict resolution.
American tech giants Facebook and Microsoft also put on presentations at the youth summit.
The youthful gathering culminated in a four-page "Youth Action Agenda to Prevent Violence and Promote Peace," which was handed over to the leaders taking part in Tuesday's summit at the U.N.
"A sense of disengagement and marginalization, despite the inter-connected world we live in, leaves young people vulnerable to recruitment wherever they are," the agenda read.
The threat posed by IS, it said, represented "the defining challenge of our generation."
"More than ever before, the response to violent extremism needs meaningful youth participation at all levels .... Our generation, like the generations before us, challenges the status quo and demands new ideas and systems," the Youth Action Agenda went on to say.
Obama: 'A long-term campaign'
U.S. President Barack Obama, who chaired the meeting of world leaders, welcomed Malaysia, along with Nigeria and Tunisia, as the newest members of the global anti-IS coalition.
But, the president cautioned, it could take a long time to defeat the jihadist group.
"There are going to be successes and there are going to be setbacks. This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign not only against this particular network but against its ideology," Obama said in his opening remarks, which like Najib's speech, were broadcast on the UN Web TV channel.
Part of this non-conventional warfare requires an active role by civil society, because force alone isn't enough to counter the jihadist threat, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said at the meeting.
"Engagement with civil society is critical in supporting the effort of the government to strengthening the voice of the moderates," he told the summit.
"Promotion of tolerance and moderation is critical, particularly for our younger generation, in order to prevent them from becoming radicalized."


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BENARNEWS- China has again demonstrated its rising political clout in Southeast Asia – this time thumbing its nose at diplomats in Malaysia wanting to summon Beijing's ambassador in Kuala Lumpur over his alleged interference in domestic politics, according to diplomatic sources.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman had directed his officers to summon Huang Huikang, the Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia, to seek an explanation over his recent statements about race and violent demonstrations in the Southeast Asian country.
But Huang ignored the foreign ministry directive after private discussions with some Malaysian officials, in a move highlighting Beijing's rising economic and political influence in the region.
Huang made the eyebrow-raising statement last week when he visited a predominantly Chinese district of Kuala Lumpur, stating that Beijing opposed any form of discrimination against races and would not tolerate violent demonstrations in the Southeast Asian country, wracked by racially charged events recently.
The visit came amid reports that ethnic Malay supporters of embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak planned to march through the area to protest alleged abuses by ethnic Chinese traders.
The planned protest at the Petaling Street Chinese enclave was aimed at countering a mammoth rally calling on Najib, leader of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, to quit over a corruption scandal.
Basic diplomacy
While some believe Huang's statement may have prodded the organizers to scrap the protest, they questioned the Chinese approach of disregarding basic diplomacy.
When Malaysian foreign ministry officials contacted the Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur to summon Huang, his aides told them he was very busy, demanding instead that the officers go to the Chinese diplomatic mission to see Huang – a bid to reverse a longstanding tradition in international diplomacy, the sources said.
Instead of complying with the summons, Huang instead went to lobby Ong Ka Ting, the Special Envoy for China, and several Malaysian ministers, who decided to let Huang off the hook, the sources said.
Malaysian dailies reported that Huang met Domestic Trade Minister Zainuddin Hamzah in the administrative capital Putrajaya for more than two hours on Monday and Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz for dinner a day earlier.
The local Sin Chew Chinese daily published a photo showing Nazri sitting opposite Huang at a rectangular dinner table, along with five other unidentified people.
Nazri later "admitted he made a mistake" and said he had not intended to interfere in the foreign ministry's affairs, The Star daily reported Tuesday.
It was not clear whether the ministers had consulted Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly, about their action to roll back Foreign Minister Anifah's decision.
"This is a big blow to Malaysia and national sovereignty," said a diplomatic source. "The Chinese influence appears to have reached the top echelons of power."
Fuming
Foreign Minister Anifah, also in New York with Najib, was fuming over the move to rescind his decision.
"I am disappointed that some cabinet ministers had decided to take certain actions and make press statements without consulting me first. I wish to reiterate that I did not cancel my instruction to call in the Ambassador of China to Wisma Putra to seek clarification," he said, referring to Malaysia's foreign ministry.
"Unfortunately, their interference has caused a negative perception in the eyes of the public," Anifah said.
"As a sovereign state, we should convey our stand clearly to China," he said, stressing that his decision followed discussions with Najib.
Despite his statement, it was unclear whether the foreign ministry would indeed officially summon Huang.
'Friendly neighbors'
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Huang's visit to Petaling Street during the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was a "normal" activity, stressing that Beijing "adheres to principles of peaceful coexistence" and "does not interfere in other countries' domestic politics or intervene in other countries' internal affairs."
"China and Malaysia are friendly neighbors, we hope that Malaysia can maintain national unity and stability and ethnic harmony," he said at a daily news briefing in Beijing, according to news agencies.
Malaysia-China relations have improved rapidly in recent years with bilateral trade burgeoning last year to US$101.98 billion, according to the Malaysian national news agency Bernama. Investments have also risen.
But close bilateral business ties should not stop Kuala Lumpur from standing up to China, some Malaysian leaders say.
"We need not be [so] afraid to express our feelings for fear of jeopardizing economic relations and other interests that we cannot reprimand them when they go against diplomacy norms," Khairy Jamaluddin, the youth wing head of UMNO, was quoted saying.
He said Huang had no right to meddle in Malaysia's "internal" affairs.
China is seen to have increased its encroachment into Malaysian waters in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing's increasingly assertive moves to press its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea have raised concerns among its other neighbors and the United States, as well.
China has been accused in the past of using its mighty financial influence over Cambodia, its key regional ally, to prevent any statement being adopted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the South China Sea that may be damaging to Beijing.
"We hope Malaysia does not succumb to similar pressure," said one diplomat who has been closely following the latest diplomatic spat.


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BENARNEWS- Malaysians recruited by the Islamic State (IS) have become suicide bombers and snipers in Iraq and Syria, a report quoted a government counter-terrorism official as saying Thursday, amid sightings of the militant group's black flag in parts of Malaysia.
The government was informed of the deaths recently of three Malaysians in Iraq who were on a suspected special operations mission undertaken by IS, Royal Malaysia Police counter-terrorism branch chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told a leading Malaysian newspaper.
"Our intelligence shows that they are relying more on Malaysians now to carry out strike missions against several key structures in Iraq," he told The Star in an interview.
The latest deaths bring the number of Malaysians killed in Iraq and Syria while fighting under the Islamic State banner to 14, he said.
At present, Ayob said, police had identified 69 Malaysians with IS in Syria. But he believed the actual number could be about 100, including children.
Late last month, Ayob revealed to BenarNews that three Malaysian jihadists had carried out suicide bombings in Syria or Iraq. A fourth citizen had tried to carry out suicide bombings without success.
The three most recent to die in Iraq were a suicide bomber and two snipers, The Star report said.
Flag sightings
Predominantly Muslim Malaysia practices a moderate brand of Islam. But there are concerns among experts over growing hardline Islamic sentiment in the multi-racial country, which, they fear, could become a breeding ground for radical militants.
Ayob's remarks contradicted a statement made two months ago by a senior government official overseeing security matters, who suggested that a majority of Malaysian militants who had gone abroad to join IS never saw combat and were doing menial jobs, such as cleaning toilets.
Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, the deputy home minister, said IS had little use for the Malaysians as soldiers because they did not possess any military training and, therefore, no knowledge in handling weapons.
"Without any fighting skills or combat experience, these Malaysians never really participated in the fight," the Malaysian media quoted him as saying in July. "They only do odd jobs based on what their commanders asked them to do.
"So they became toilet cleaners or kitchen helpers."
Ayob also told The Star that Islamic State flags were reportedly spotted in several Malaysian states, including Perak, Terengganu, Kedah and Selangor, about two weeks ago.
But the sightings were no cause for concern as there was no imminent security threat to the country, he said.
"We rely on our intelligence ¬gathering and cooperation with other anti-terrorism agencies to prevent any attack in the country," he said.
He advised the public to ignore what he called rumors of an impending attack on Malaysian soil.
"We have been monitoring the situation, especially regarding the recruitment of Malaysians by the terror group," he said. "Our priority is the safety and security of all," he said.
Malay unit
Ayob said the Malaysian militants sent by Islamic State to participate in strikes inside Iraq were from Khatibah Nusantara, IS's Malay Archipelago combat unit based in Syria.
"The Khatibah Nusantara consists of Malaysian and Indonesian Islamic State fighters. They band together as their language and interests are similar," he said.
Last month, the Malaysian police said they were on alert for a potential terrorist attack. This followed a tip off stemming from the arrests of several alleged members of the Islamic State, news reports had said.
The U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur and Smart Traveler, the Australian government's travel advisory site, had advised Americans and Australians to avoid a key district in Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding areas.
The threat of an attack was reportedly in retaliation for the Malaysian government's crackdown against Islamic State militants.
Last month, police arrested 10 suspected Islamic State militants in multiple raids across the country, among them six members of the country's security forces, a former interior designer and a kindergarten teacher.


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BENARNEWS- The Islamic State (IS) extremist group is trying to co-opt Islam and pervert its basic tenets while trying to sow terror far beyond territory it controls in the Middle East, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
"There are people who want to bring terror to our streets," Najib, who is facing corruption allegations at home, said in a speech to the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
He called for a global assault on IS's "warped ideology."
"We will not stand for it, neither will they succeed," he said Thursday, according to a transcript of his speech later published by the state-run Bernama news agency. "For Malaysia has been, and will always be, a land where many faiths and ethnicities freely prosper and thrive."
Najib's strongly-worded speech on the world stage came amid pressure at home to resign over corruption allegations swirling around 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state development fund.
He has also faced criticism that supporters from his ethnic Malay-dominated United National Malays Organization (UMNO), the linchpin in the ruling coalition, have allegedly stoked tensions in multi-racial Malaysia in a bid to divert attention from the scandal.
The PM has been fending off allegations that at least U.S. $700 million in money from the fund wound up in his personal bank accounts.
'No greater slur on Islam'
Najib did not touch on the corruption allegations in his 22-minute speech before the U.N., which largely focused on the global threat posed by IS.
"We must strive harder to combat this threat together," he told the general assembly. "Militaries and intelligence services need to share information, and countries need to collaborate more, daring to pre-emptively arrest as necessary."
The IS represents a threat to nation-states well beyond the boundaries of its self-proclaimed caliphate, the prime minister warned.
"Expert at using social media to recruit followers in faraway countries, they lure them with false promises, persuading many young people that their barbaric actions will bring them closer to God," he said.
"It is sickening, and there could be no greater slur on Islam – a religion of peace, moderation and justice. But these extremists cannot be defeated by traditional military means alone."
Officials in Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia say they have been grappling with the threat of IS targeting local youths as potential recruits via social media.
On this point, the prime minster delivered a blunt assessment.
"We must acknowledge that we are not winning the propaganda war against the so-called Islamic State. Their twisted narrative is not being adequately countered to prevent many misguided people from joining or supporting from afar," he said.
To stave off the threat, "it is more important than ever that we spread awareness of authentic Islam, most especially when conflicts persist and people lose hope," he said, adding, "For it is there that extremism finds fertile soil."

Malaysian efforts
Toward that end, the Malaysian government has been working aggressively to stop IS members from plotting attacks on home soil or transiting through the country en route to the Middle East, Najib continued.
He noted that authorities in his country had arrested more than 100 people suspected of having ties to IS.
"Our tireless, ever-vigilant security forces have intercepted many would-be IS recruits transiting through Kuala Lumpur," Najib said. "It is because of our efforts that they have not fallen into the darkness that blights Syria and Iraq."
"But some have," he added. "We have identified 39 Malaysians who have travelled to join IS."
On Thursday, The Star newspaper in Malaysia quoted a senior official with the national police's counter-terrorism branch as saying that three Malaysian jihadists had recently been killed in action in the war zone, bringing to 14 the number of Malaysians killed while fighting for IS.
Malaysia joins coalition
Najib's speech to the U.N. came two days after U.S. President Barack Obama, during a Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL (another acronym for IS) at the United Nations in New York, welcomed Malaysia as one of the new members of a global coalition countering the IS threat.
Established last year, the U.S.-led coalition consists of more than 60 countries "committed to degrading and destroying" IS, according the White House. Two dozen members of the coalition are involved in a military campaign, and have launched more than 7,200 air strikes on suspected IS positions inside Iraq and Syria, according to a fact sheet released by the White House on Tuesday.
Other coalition members are providing other types of support, but it was unclear exactly how Malaysia would contribute to the global anti-IS effort.
That support could come in the form of Malaysian leadership – with international backing – in establishing a "digital counter-messaging center" based in Southeast Asia, whose mission would be to counter the IS narrative in cyberspace, as Najib indicated during a speech to fellow leaders at Tuesday's summit.   


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's Southeast Asian neighbors are reeling from worsening air pollution emanating from illegal agricultural fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
In the past few days, a blanket of smog has forced schools closings across peninsular Malaysia, hospitalized dozens of people in southern Thailand, and led to the cancellation of international sporting events in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
On Monday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on the Indonesian government to take action against palm oil companies and other agricultural firms that start such fires to clear land.
"They are operating there. We want Indonesia to take action. Summonsing is one thing. But proving they conducted such acts is another," the state-run Bernama news agency quoted the prime minister as saying from Milan, Italy.
Scientists at the U.S. space agency NASA are warning that this year's forest fires and resulting haze – an annual occurrence – could be "among the most severe events on record" because unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific – the El Niño phenomenon – are lengthening the dry season and reducing rainfall.
"If the forecasts for a longer dry season hold, this suggests 2015 will rank among the most severe events on record," said Robert Field, a Columbia University scientist based at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
"Conditions in Singapore and southeastern Sumatra are tracking close to 1997, with some stations having visibility less than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) on average for a week. In Kalimantan, there have been reports of visibility less than 50 meters (165 feet)," he said.
'Irresponsible and greedy'
Due to the dirty air, 7,000 schools were ordered closed Monday and Tuesday across much of Malaysia, the Associated Press reported. A set of religious school exams scheduled for Monday and Tuesday were postponed, affecting more than 700,000 students, Bernama reported.
Average Malaysians are fuming about the situation.
"For the past decade or more, Malaysians have been robbed of our right to fresh clean air ... due to the actions or inactions of our neighboring country, which do not fall short of being irresponsible and greedy," Jummana Saifuddin, a resident of Subang Jaya in Selangor state, wrote in a letter to the New Straits Times last month.
"Irresponsible, because it very well knows the hazard caused to others living in this region, and greedy, because there is an alternative to burning old crops and trees/plants for land clearance, but such options are not taken because of profit, their own profit," she added.
The bad air forced the cancellation on Sunday of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon in Malaysia's capital, as well as the scrubbing of the final 15 races of the Swimming World Cup in Singapore on Saturday, according to news reports.
Singaporean consumer and environmental advocacy groups called Monday for a boycott of "irresponsible" companies that were contributing to regional air pollution, Agence France-Presse reported.
The blanket of dirty air, propelled by monsoon winds, has even traveled as far away as Cebu island in the central Philippines, meteorological officials there said.
"We suspect that this haze is from Sumatra. It is unusually thick," Philippine weather forecaster Romeo Aguirre told Agence France-Press on Saturday.
Hard to breathe
North of Malaysia, the haze reached hazardous levels in southern Thailand on Monday. Haze and poor visibility were reported in five provinces: Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla, Satun and Yala.
The air pollution was making it difficult for people to breathe, Pattani Gov. Weerapong Kaewsuwan said.
"We are concerned about people's health," he said.
Betong district in Yala was badly affected.
"The smoke from forest fires in Sumatra, Indonesia is still spreading and has covered Betong for a while, has particularly affected children and elders and patients with respiratory diseases. The patients admitted at Betong hospital, Yala province have risen to 160 people," said Wongwit Akarawarothai, a district health official.
'All this takes time'
In Indonesia, the government has dispatched more than 20,000 troops and other personnel to contain the agricultural fires, AFP reported.
The news agency quoted the office of Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo as saying that his government was "very serious in tackling the forest fires," but that the El Niño phenomenon was complicating matters.
Companies found responsible for starting agricultural fires could have their business licenses pulled, according to presidential spokesman Ari Dwipayana, but "all this takes time," AFP quoted him as saying.


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BENARNEWS- The United States confirmed Thursday that it would establish a regional center in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur to fight the Islamic State (IS) group's extremist propaganda online.
The confirmation was given by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during talks with Deputy Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in Washington, Zahid told reporters, underscoring closer cooperation between the two nations in counterterrorism efforts.
Zahid and Kerry signed a document at the U.S. State Department aimed at enabling Malaysians to travel to the United States without having to first secure a visa.
Under the document, known as the Homeland Security Presidential Directive No 6 (HSPD-6), one of the statutory requirements for the Visa Waiver Program, the two countries would cooperate more closely in combating the threat posed by "foreign terrorist fighters, including ISIL," Zahid said. The IS is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Zahid said Kerry "confirmed today that Malaysia is going to [host] the center" to counter messaging from IS."
"They [U.S.] will help in three aspects – training, equipment and the operational approach," he said. "The center will be located in Kuala Lumpur."
"We have a joint working committee to [discuss] details," said Zahid, who was earlier briefed by the CIA on the IS threat, among other regional issues.
He believed the regional center would be similar to the one already established by the United States in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Southeast Asian Partners
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told a summit on countering IS recently that Malaysia was considering setting up a "regional, digital counter-messaging center" as Southeast Asia lacked such a facility.
Two weeks ago, Malaysia became one of the newest members of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, joining Singapore as the only Association of Southeast Asian Nation(ASEAN) states in the grouping so far.
The UAE's Sawab Center based in Abu Dhabi is aimed at helping both the U.S. and the Middle East country to counter IS's propaganda in social media in a bid to stem the extremist group's recruitment of new fighters.
The Coalition is working to erode IS's appeal "by strengthening capabilities to counter the group's messages of hate," the White House said recently.  The UAE-based Sawab Center is "increasing online debate to undermine" IS's "claims to legitimacy and strategic success."
Zahid said social media was a key medium used by IS in attracting fighters, particularly in Syria and Iraq.
"I wish to confirm that empirical studies show that social media accounts for 87 percent of those who are influenced and attracted by terrorist groups," he said.
Database
Under the HSPD-6 document, he said, the United States would share information with Malaysia about some 86,000 suspected terrorists included in a Washington-based database.
Malaysia would also provide information about suspected terrorists held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) introduced in April this year and which enables authorities to detain terror suspects without trial for a period of two years, Zahid said.
"Previously, we use Interpol as the channel of information but now we will get directly from the United States... in order for us to take immediate action to prevent as well as to curb problem pertaining to terrorism activities."
Zahid also said the United States would be among countries invited to attend an international conference next January focused on forging a regional response to combating terrorism.
The conference on deradicalization in the ASEAN region on Jan. 25-26 would include the 10 ASEAN states as well as the organization's eight dialogue partners – the United States, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand and Russia.
It is part of a bid to develop a "template" and "standards" for programs to combat terrorism that are accepted internationally, Zahid said.
He said Malaysia was in the "forefront" of efforts to help the international community in the fight against terrorism.
Officials in Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia say they have been grappling with the threat of IS targeting local youths as potential recruits via social media.
Premier Najib said recently that the Malaysian government has been working aggressively to stop IS members from plotting attacks on home soil or transiting through the country en route to the Middle East.
He noted that authorities in his country had arrested more than 100 people suspected of having ties to IS.
Malaysian media reported recently that three Malaysian jihadists had been killed in action in the war zone in Syria and Iraq, bringing to 14 the number of Malaysians killed while fighting for IS.


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BENARNEWS- A Russian-made missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in July 2014, Dutch investigators said in a final report Tuesday, prompting Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to call for immediate action in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
This is the first time that investigators have publically confirmed that a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile was used to bring down the airliner, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
"We now know that the plane was hit by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine," Najib said in a statement issued after the release of the Dutch report.
"While this has long been speculated about, the fact that these chain of events have now been proven conclusively by the Dutch Safety Board mean that we must move forward towards ensuring that those responsible are held accountable for this murderous act," he added.
The 279-page report from the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) did not blame a single party for the crash of the Boeing 777 near the Ukrainian village of Hrabove.
A warhead from the missile exploded near the front of the jumbo jet, killing three members of the plane's crew instantly and penetrating the fuselage, causing the airliner to break up in mid-air, DSB officials said.
Fifteen months have passed since Flight MH17 was shot down, "but our commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice remains as strong as it was on that fateful day," Najib said.
Forty-three Malaysians and 13 Indonesians were among those killed in the downing of MH17 as it overflew eastern Ukraine, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. Most of the passengers were Dutch citizens, according to Malaysia Airlines (MAS).
'Serious doubts'
Suspicion on who fired the missile has largely fallen on Russian-backed Ukrainian rebels or Russian troops operating in the war zone, but Russia has rejected that theory, saying the rocket was launched by Ukrainian government forces.
In July 2015, Malaysia and four other countries – the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine – drafted a United Nations resolution calling for an international tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators. But Russia used its veto to scuttle the move in a U.N. Security Council vote.
The five countries behind the resolution have now banded into a Joint Investigation Team and are conducting a criminal probe into the crash, which is separate from the investigation carried out by the Dutch Safety Board, the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation said Tuesday.
The Russian government, meanwhile, questioned the integrity of the Dutch findings.
"There remain serious doubts whether the genuine goal of an investigation conducted in the Netherlands is the establishment of true reasons behind the catastrophe and not a justification of accusations that have been put forward in advance," Agence France-Presse quoted Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
"Russia experts never got access to all the materials of the investigation," she said, adding they would study the report closely.
'Not conclusive'
In Penang, the home state of two crewmembers aboard the doomed plane, relatives demanded justice for their loved ones.
"I have read the report on the internet but it is not conclusive on who was responsible for the incident. Some people must be held responsible. Any country must be held responsible," Jijar Singh Sandhu, father of Steward Sanjid Singh Sandhu, told reporters at his home in Bukit Mertajam on Tuesday evening.

"At the moment we still do not know for sure who the culprits are. We need to know who they are so that we can sue them," he added. "If they say it's the Russians, we can sue the Russians. If the Ukrainians are responsible, we can engage a lawyer to sue Ukraine."

All 15 members of the crew were Malaysians.
George Town resident Sharom Bee Md. Ibrahim lost her daughter, Stewardess Nur Shazana Binti Mohamed Salleh, in the crash.
"We want concrete answers on who was responsible for the missile attack," she told reporters at her home, her voice quivering.
"Was it a pure accident since there were dozens of other airliners passing by the airspace during the fateful day, or was the MAS aircraft targeted instead?"
160 flights
The report also raises questions about the safety of airliners flying above conflict zones, even at cruising altitudes high above ground. On the day of the crash, as many as 160 commercial flights were routed through the airspace above eastern Ukraine.
"The aviation parties involved did not adequately recognize the risks of the armed conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine to overflying civil aviation," the DSB report said.
"It is clear that Ukraine already had sufficient reason to close the airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution before 17 July 2014."
Najib also touched on this point.
"Of the 160 flights that were on MH17's general route that day, not one was advised by the relevant authorities against any specific threat," he said.
Malaysia Airlines, which had lost another airliner, Flight MH370, under mysterious circumstances just four months before the crash of MH17, also issued a statement.
"MAS has worked very closely with the Dutch authorities and given full cooperation to the investigative team. We welcome the publication of the report and hope that it will give clarity to the affected families of the tragic incident," the airline said.
"MAS would like to assure all [next of kin] that we shall continue to co-operate with the authorities on all matters pertaining to the loss of flight MH17 and our support to the families will remain until all issues are completed," MAS added.


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