Civil Liberties: Any Idea What They Are?

Civil liberties are something many of us don’t have the faintest idea on. I admit, even I was not any wiser regarding the topic. With all the marches and rallies tat have happened lately, I decided to learn more about this thing that we call “CIVIL LIBERTIES”. And as I have always stressed that education is the best weapon that we have against any form of opression or tyranny or whatever-you-wanna-call-it, I have tried to educate myself, and to a further extent, try to educate you as you are reading this.

Now, as noob would do, I looked it up first in Wikipedia. I quote:

“Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that completely protect the individual from government. Civil liberties set limits for government so that it can not abuse its power and interfere with the lives of its citizens. Common civil liberties include freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and additionally, the right to due process, to fair trial, to bear arms, and to privacy.”

This was clear enough for me to understand. Well, I wouldn’t be keen on the right to bear arms, but otherwise, all seems fairly sweet to the ears, no?

Freedom of asociation and assembly? What a laugh. We are allowed freedom of assembly, but we must obtain a police permit first. And if some higher power deems that your assembly will tarnish the “image” of the country, it’s bye-bye to the police permit and hello to chemical laced water. No wonder we have been having low rankings in the World Democracy rankings. Well, take a look here if you wannna see the ranking comparisons for countries for the years 2005 and 2006. Let me mention some countries which have a higher ranking than us (our ranking was 85), a developing nation: Bhutan (such a fucking tiny country), Burkina Faso (what the fuck?), Columbia (the drug country???), Kenya (safari, anyone?), Serbia (you want a war?). Hmmmmm… I guess we’re gonna slip more this year, due to much publicized stuff that’s been going around and the lack of proper damage control by ministers who speak with the Queen’s English. But wait! I’m sure that the big guns will shoot down this argument and compare ourselves with lower ranked countries. Where’s the sense of competition? No wonder our public universities are laxing.

I couldn’t be writing down all the stuff that I found. Perhaps by looking at this page, you may be able to pick whatever topic that you would wanna read about. It’s the European Country of Origin Information Network’s report card on Malaysia, or something like that. You can also read this page for another viewpoint.

Civil liberties are something that we need to be educated upon. Sadly, I couldn’t find proper links to sites that talk about civil liberties that is concerned with the Malaysian context. Perhaps you might be able to find something to educate me better and post them in the comments section. Perhaps a lawyer or someone studying law can help shed light on the civil liberties practiced or allowed in Malaysia. I would really hate to talk about something without knowing the head or tail of it. You comments please.