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Anyone who thought Malaysia's jailed former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, had been consigned to the history books only needed to hear the speech by the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, to his party's annual congress this morning to appreciate how significant a political player he is, even behind bars.
Although he did not mention by name the man once trumpeted as his anointed heir and tried to disguise his vitriol as a swipe at Indonesia, Mahathir could not have been clearer if he had spelt Anwar's name out on the large screen behind him.
The 75-year-old autocrat spent the first section of his 90-minute oration lambasting "reformasi", the reform movement established following Anwar's dismissal in September 1998, subsequent humiliation and extremely dubious conviction for corruption and sodomy.
"Why do we need reform in our democratic system of administration?" he asked.
"Why do we need street demonstrations which only serve to cause traders to lose, in particular small-business people whose daily survival depends on their daily income?"
Mahathir, who celebrates 20 years in office next month, seemed to have forgotten that these same traders are suffering enormously as a result of his own policies as Malaysia's growth rate is expected to slump from more than 8% last year to nearer 2% this year.
He described the masses who backed Anwar as "idiots" who have been duped. "While the little people gained nothing, those who made use of them gained a lot by faking sympathy towards their idol," he said. "Until when are they going to be idiots?"
And if anyone had forgotten what he did to Anwar and, earlier this year, to 10 reformasi activists, Mahathir warned, in English for emphasis: "Those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword."
The 10 Anwar supporters, who were responsible for mobilising thousands of people across the country in the last two years, were detained without charge in solitary confinement for up to 60 days in an unknown location earlier this year, with no access to lawyers and no family visits for the first month. Six have had their detention extend indefinitely, albeit in a regular detention centre.
Analysts believe the amount of time Mahathir spent attacking Anwar highlights how worried the ageing leader is. "He would not have spent 30 minutes attacking Anwar if he was not a force to be reckoned with," said Terence Gomez of the University of Malaya.
Anwar, who marked his 1,000th day of incarceration on Saturday, is confined to a wheelchair and wears neck and back braces after suffering a slipped disc in - depending on who you ask - either a beating by prison guards and police officers or an innocent fall while playing football.
Mahathir is offering Anwar surgery in Malaysia. But this will involve a general anaesthetic and, experts say, has a 20% chance of leaving him paralysed. Anwar wants to be treated using highly sophisticated endoscopic surgery under local anaesthetic in Germany that has a less than 5% chance of going wrong.
"He's really afraid of what might happen here," said Chandra Muzaffar, the deputy president of Keadilan, the party founded by Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, to formalise the struggle against Mahathir. "You can't say his fear is unjustified after what he has gone through."
On Tuesday, Malaysia's prisons chief formally rejected Anwar's demand to be allowed to go overseas for treatment. Not only was Anwar beaten up on several occasions he was almost poisoned. After falling very sick, a blood sample was smuggled out and found to contain dangerously high levels of arsenic.
Despite his physical ailments, he is "otherwise all right," according to Wan Azizah. "He's not going to give up fighting for what he knows to be right." Although they only meet once a fortnight, the two exchange messages every few days discussing how Keadilan should develop in both the short and long-term.
What the last three years have shown is that the wave of sympathy generated by Mahathir's treatment of Anwar was not a flash in the pan. It has developed into a permanent, and still growing, political movement.
"Anwar was one of the few ruling party leaders who had built up his own political base from different groups and sections in society," explained Sivarasa Rasiah, one of Anwar's lawyers. "That's where Mahathir miscalculated."
Anwar's continued pulling power as an icon of the reformasi movement is most clearly demonstrated by the four major opposition political parties agreeing that he would still be their first choice as prime minister if they were to unseat Mahathir. "There's no one else who has the same appeal as he does," said Lim Kit Siang, the chairman of the Democratic Action party.
So while Mahathir might demonise Anwar in a mural at his party headquarters by showing him sneakily dipping his hand into a box marked "IMF first aid kit" while he fights the evil forces of western capitalism by rejecting International Monetary Fund assistance, the boot might well end up being on the other foot.
"It might not happen at the next general election [due in 2004] but it would be a brave man who says Anwar Ibrahim will never be prime minister," Lim Kit said.
Malaysia's former police chief walked free on bail yesterday after receiving a two-month jail sentence for assaulting the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in a police cell.
Abdul Rahim Noor slapped, punched and karate-kicked the opposition politician, causing him to pass out on the floor. Anwar was handcuffed and blindfolded during the attack, which took place on the night he was arrested in 1998.
Rahim was granted bail while he appeals against the jail term. His lawyers said the sentence was too harsh but a human rights group, Suaram, called it "merely a light slap on his wrist".
"I don't think the public will be satisfied with the sentence imposed," said Anwar's lawyer, Karpal Singh. "This was an assault on a defenceless man who was blindfolded, handcuffed at the back and assaulted, not just anywhere but in the inner sanctum, the headquarters of the police force."
Mr Karpal has called on the attorney general to allow an appeal against the sentence on the grounds that it is "far too lenient".
Anwar is serving a six-year sentence for misuse of power. He is currently on trial for sodomy and faces up to 20 additional years in jail if he is convicted.
His wife, Wan Azizah, who was recently elected to parliament for the National Justice party, described the two-month term for Rahim as "minimal", pointing out that many Malaysians have been sent to jail for longer periods just for taking part in opposition demonstrations.
Comparisons between the treatment of Anwar and his attacker "leave Malaysians with a sense that something is very wrong in their system of justice", said opposition politician Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the Democratic Action party.
Unlike Rahim, Anwar was not allowed bail during his trial or while awaiting an appeal. Anwar was quickly brought to trial while it took a year for Rahim's case to be heard.
There is also concern that the prosecution agreed to reduce the charges against Rahim at the last minute without giving any reason. Rahim then changed his plea to guilty.
His lawyers said he always put the interests of the nation before his own and in this case he wanted to "save the government from further international embarrassment, especially in the western media".
(picked from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar/16/malaysia by Frances Harrison in Kuala Lumpur Thursday March 16 2000)
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* police officer sentenced for 1 month = civil people sentenced for 12 months
(think deeply before you talk)
Malaysian police have arrested the lawyer of jailed finance minister Anwar Ibrahim and three others on charges of sedition, in an apparent crackdown on the opposition.
Prominent politician and lawyer Karpal Singh, who is a leader of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) but lost his seat in parliament in November's snap elections, was taken to a local police station, according to a party official.
Police declined to elaborate on the charge against him.
Earlier on Wednesday, police arrested three other opposition figures under the Sedition Act.
Marina Yusoff of Parti Keadilan Nasional (National Justice Party) is accused of inciting racial hatred in remarks made before general elections in November, the opposition party said in a statement.
Her remarks related to race riots that erupted in 1969.
The editor of the newspaper run by the conservative Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), Zulkifli Sulong, said both he and the holder of the newspaper's publishing permit were arrested separately on charges of sedition over an August 1999 article on the judiciary.
Mr Sulong said he was arrested on charges of sedition in a police station in the capital and that he would plead not guilty when he appeared at Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on Thursday at 0100 GMT.
Opposition leaders denounced the arrests, which they said could mark the start of a campaign to stifle criticism of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's coalition and governing authorities.
"Apparently a policy decision has been taken for a crackdown," Lim Kit Siang, national chairman of the Democratic Action Party, told Reuters.
The arrests came two months after bitterly-contested general elections and on the day the prime minister left the country on a two-week holiday.
He left Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also home minister responsible for police, in charge.
Asia's longest-serving elected leader, Dr Mahathir has been in power since 1981 and won an unprecedented fifth mandate in November's polls when his Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition took three quarters of the seats in parliament.
Dr Mahathir's supporters credit him with modernising Malaysia. But his critics, foremost among them Mr Anwar, say his government has curbed civil liberties.
Mr Anwar's sacking in 1998 and subsequent arrest galvanised the disparate opposition, which in the recent polls made deep inroads into Dr Mahathir's United Malays National Organisation's base in the Moslem Malay electorate.
(picked from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/600142.stm Wednesday, 12 January, 2000, 12:44 GMT)
The election campaign of Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, hit new depths yesterday with the allegation that the wife of his chief political rival, the jailed Anwar Ibrahim, had sought a divorce, writes John Gittings in Kuala Lumpur. Dr Wan Azizah `asked for divorce twice over the years after she found out `the truth' about (Anwar),' the pro-government Sun tabloid reported on its front page.
The not-so-subtle insinuation is that Wan Azizah had learnt about her husband's alleged bisexual behaviour - a charge which he says has been fabricated by his political enemies.
The story also claims that she was beaten by Anwar when she asked for a divorce a second time. Wan Azizah has dismissed it as `totally unfounded'. Anwar is standing trial on sodomy charges which Dr Mahathir has several times declared to be proven. No action has been taken against the Prime Minister for his statements which, like yesterday's article, appear to be in contempt of court.
The source for the Sun's story is Khairuddin Abu Hassan, Anwar's cousin. The Sun also quotes an official in the Prime Minister's department, Abdul Hamid Othman, saying there had been a `family dispute between husband and wife'. The star witness in the Anwar affair is the sultry Ummi Hafilda Ali, whose appearances at Anwar's first trial made her a national celebrity.
On Friday, a thousand voters heard her give an impassioned account of how she followed her sister-in-law to an apartment block and then accused her of sleeping with Anwar. Both the sister-in-law and her husband - Anwar's former private secretary who is now an opposition candidate - have denied her claim.
The government's obsession with the jailed former Deputy Prime Minister has grown daily throughout the short campaign. `It's really a contest between Mahathir and Anwar', says one Malaysian journalist. `The problem simply will not go away.(picked from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/nov/28/malaysia Sunday November 28 1999 02:46 GMT)
It's emerged in Malaysia that the jailed former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, is being investigated for financial corruption, following allegations that he amassed a secret fund worth hundreds-of-millions of dollars.
The allegations were made in a statement yesterday by a former Assistant Governor of the Central Bank, who's himself charged with financial impropriety.
During his current trial for sodomy, Mr Anwar had accused his opponents in government, including several serving ministers, of corruption.
(picked from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/493107.stm Friday, October 29, 1999 Published at 10:02 GMT 11:02 UK)
