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Free Malaysia Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Anti-Corruption Advisory Board needs more bite, say activists
C4's CEO, Pushpan Murugiah, said the MACC Act should be reviewed to give the ACAB greater authority. PETALING JAYA : Activists have called for the government to beef up the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board's oversight powers on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission by giving it greater powers. Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism CEO Pushpan Murugiah said the MACC Act 2009 only provides the ACAB with advisory roles rather than functional oversight powers. Pushpan said the board's lack of bite in this regard was particularly apparent during the scandal concerning MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki's apparent shareholdings. 'Even in instances where the board demands changes within the MACC, the decision to implement its recommendations is purely at the discretion of the MACC and its chief commissioner, leaving little room for the board to direct any real change. 'Despite six board members openly calling for independent and transparent investigations over the shareholding scandal, the advisory board itself was unable to conduct any investigations of its own,' he told FMT. Pushpan also expressed concern that an MACC chief commissioner could attempt to influence the ACAB's decisions as an ex-officio member of the board under the MACC Act. He said this could hinder the board's independence. He called for the MACC Act to be reviewed so that greater powers could be granted to the board, turning it into a transparent oversight mechanism to the graft-busters. C4 chairman Edmund Terence Gomez said the shareholding episode raised many questions as to the ACAB's authority to hold the MACC to account. Gomez said the board had limited powers to question the MACC chief, while the scandal also exposed issues with the structure of the board. He called for greater transparency for appointments to the board, with a set criteria outlined under the law. 'In the end, the MACC chief did not have to account for the allegations made against him,' he said. Gomez had resigned as a member of MACC's consultation and corruption prevention panel in December 2021 in protest against the board's refusal to discuss the case involving Azam. He was appointed to the post in 2020. In January 2022, the ACAB cleared Azam of any wrongdoing over his purchase of corporate shares after the MACC chief explained that his share account was used by his brother to purchase shares in which he had no pecuniary interest. Six panel members later distanced themselves from a statement made by the then ACAB chief, Abu Zahar Ujang, saying it was his personal view and that they were not satisfied with Azam's explanation. Last week, MACC announced the appointment of six individuals to the ACAB for a three-year term, including former Transparency International Malaysia president Akhbar Satar.
Sydney Morning Herald
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Inside the splinter group that stormed an Israeli restaurant, as police make more arrests
It would be a night of disturbance for Melbourne's Jewish community. In a separate incident nearby, at almost the same time, a NSW man allegedly attempted to firebomb a synagogue while children and families were inside. Later, in the early hours of Saturday morning in Greensborough, three cars were set alight and a building spray-painted with anti-IDF graffiti at a weapons company with Israeli defence links. No one was physically injured in any of the incidents, and police say they are yet to find a formal link between the three or determine if the firebombing was an act of terror. Both WACA and the broader pro-Palestine movement have disavowed the synagogue arson as a horrifying attack. They say they stand against Israel's war in Gaza, not the Jewish community, and are frustrated by 'the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism'. But two local Palestinian protesters who did not wish to be identified said the WACA activists at Miznon were 'dickheads' too. 'They think they are righteous and have the right to impact innocent bystanders,' said one. 'It ruins public opinion – they do it in Palestine's name, and not one Palestinian was there.' 'There are a few of these groups, and WACA people are one. They come in and take things too far. We have to step in and de-escalate,' said another source, though they also noted that the chant of 'Death to the IDF' again rang out through Melbourne during Sunday's weekly pro-Palestine march. WACA is often shadowy about its activity and membership online, reminding associates not to post evidence of actions and increasingly taking steps to avoid police surveillance through encrypted messaging and carefully planned meet-ups. The group has been on the fringes of a wider campaign to expose Israeli defence ties to local companies and institutions for more than a decade. But, with the outbreak of war in Gaza and a new influx of student activists, their membership and tactics have shifted. The group say it now stands against the police too. Some who stormed the Miznon restaurant wore masks, others shirts emblazoned with 'ACAB', short for 'all cops are bastards'. Last year, WACA members were among many anti-war protesters who clashed with police outside the Land Forces weapons expo in Melbourne. (Some of those cases are still before the courts.) Months earlier, WACA scaled 60-metre cranes, formed barricades and paddled out on canoes to partially shut down the Port of Melbourne more than once as they tried to block an Israeli shipping company from docking. A police source said they had spiked truck tyres and set debris on fire during the blockade. WACA was also the first to post footage of masked vandals spray-painting and lopping the head off the King George V statue in the city during King Charles' birthday holiday last year. For this year's holiday, the same group posted new footage of the statue's head drifting off into the sea 'back to England' in a Deliveroo bag. Among those charged over the Miznon incident so far is 50-year-old Antwany Arnold, who is accused of hurling a chair at a diner at Miznon and was already out on bail for an incident at an earlier protest – which, a court heard, put him in breach of a condition not to travel into the city when he joined the action. WACA spokeswoman Gaye Demanuele, another long-time protester, said she couldn't confirm details of the arrests that would 'make people vulnerable to police' or speak in detail about the group's operations, given recent crackdowns on protest groups in Australia and overseas. Jemima Demanuele, who was photographed sticking up her middle finger at people in the restaurant during the incident, has already been stood down from her job at St Vincent's Hospital as it investigates her conduct. WACA was the 'front facing' mouthpiece of a fluid collective of activists and 'collaborators', Gaye Demanuele said, and had posted a statement 'on behalf of community members' who staged the Miznon action. 'While politicians in so-called Australia clutch their pearls over one meal that was interrupted, we ask people to refocus their attention on Israel's genocidal reign of terror over the Palestinians,' WACA's statement read. Demanuele was also one of the protesters at Miznon, and has been criticised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for justifying the trashing of the restaurant while appearing in an ABC broadcast this week. 'There is no justification for that,' Albanese said on Thursday. 'The idea that somehow the cause of justice for Palestinians is advanced by behaviour like that is not only delusional, it is destructive.' Asked about criticism of WACA by the broader pro-Palestine movement, Demanuele said: 'People are afraid of being associated with a more radical element because they see how the state represses protest … Because their income is threatened, their reputation is threatened, now [Premier] Jacinta Allan and Anthony Albanese are talking about terrorism.' 'They've formed a taskforce to deal with us,' Demanuele added, referring to Allan's flagged crackdown on protest and the new antisemitism taskforce set up following the synagogue arson and Miznon incident. Federally, too, the government is considering stripping funding from institutions that fail to combat what is deemed hatred against Jewish people, as well as screening visa applicants for antisemitic views. The earlier rally on Friday, railing against recent deaths in custody and alleged police violence at protests, was organised by WACA and other pro-Palestinian groups. But the rally split over WACA's plans to march to Miznon – most refused to join them. Pro-Palestine protesters have been calling for a boycott of Miznon after it emerged that one of its part-owners, Israeli entrepreneur Shahar Segal, was also serving as a spokesman for the controversial US-Israeli aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Contractors guarding the foundation's aid distribution sites have opened fire on starving Palestinians scrambling for food. At least 500 people have been killed and thousands more injured while trying to access aid at the sites, according to the United Nations. Segal, whose restaurants in New York, Toronto and Paris have also drawn criticism from pro-Palestine groups overseas, has since reportedly resigned from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Gaye Demanuele insisted WACA did not instigate any violence at Miznon – it was a 'spontaneous' plan formed on Friday to 'inform diners about where they were spending their money' that spiralled into chaos. 'The restaurant was not targeted because it has Jewish owners,' she said. 'It was targeted because it is repping for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. There's nothing humanitarian about the GHF – it's an outfit that's set up to lure people into killing fields. At no point were we anti-Jewish.' It was 'disingenuous' for politicians, police, and others to conflate the Miznon action in Melbourne with the arson attacks at the synagogue or the defence company the same night, Demanuele said. 'The fire at the synagogue we are not connected with, and we would condemn. We are not about harming people. A bit of yelling is nothing compared to potentially putting people's lives at risk by burning a synagogue. That's horrific.' Another WACA 'collaborator' Charlie, known as Charlie the Commie online, told this masthead the earlier rally was organised in the wake of recent police assaults on demonstrators, including some that he said had left his friends with lasting injuries.
The Age
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Inside the splinter group that stormed an Israeli restaurant, as police make more arrests
It would be a night of disturbance for Melbourne's Jewish community. In a separate incident nearby, at almost the same time, a NSW man allegedly attempted to firebomb a synagogue while children and families were inside. Later, in the early hours of Saturday morning in Greensborough, three cars were set alight and a building spray-painted with anti-IDF graffiti at a weapons company with Israeli defence links. No one was physically injured in any of the incidents, and police say they are yet to find a formal link between the three or determine if the firebombing was an act of terror. Both WACA and the broader pro-Palestine movement have disavowed the synagogue arson as a horrifying attack. They say they stand against Israel's war in Gaza, not the Jewish community, and are frustrated by 'the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism'. But two local Palestinian protesters who did not wish to be identified said the WACA activists at Miznon were 'dickheads' too. 'They think they are righteous and have the right to impact innocent bystanders,' said one. 'It ruins public opinion – they do it in Palestine's name, and not one Palestinian was there.' 'There are a few of these groups, and WACA people are one. They come in and take things too far. We have to step in and de-escalate,' said another source, though they also noted that the chant of 'Death to the IDF' again rang out through Melbourne during Sunday's weekly pro-Palestine march. WACA is often shadowy about its activity and membership online, reminding associates not to post evidence of actions and increasingly taking steps to avoid police surveillance through encrypted messaging and carefully planned meet-ups. The group has been on the fringes of a wider campaign to expose Israeli defence ties to local companies and institutions for more than a decade. But, with the outbreak of war in Gaza and a new influx of student activists, their membership and tactics have shifted. The group say it now stands against the police too. Some who stormed the Miznon restaurant wore masks, others shirts emblazoned with 'ACAB', short for 'all cops are bastards'. Last year, WACA members were among many anti-war protesters who clashed with police outside the Land Forces weapons expo in Melbourne. (Some of those cases are still before the courts.) Months earlier, WACA scaled 60-metre cranes, formed barricades and paddled out on canoes to partially shut down the Port of Melbourne more than once as they tried to block an Israeli shipping company from docking. A police source said they had spiked truck tyres and set debris on fire during the blockade. WACA was also the first to post footage of masked vandals spray-painting and lopping the head off the King George V statue in the city during King Charles' birthday holiday last year. For this year's holiday, the same group posted new footage of the statue's head drifting off into the sea 'back to England' in a Deliveroo bag. Among those charged over the Miznon incident so far is 50-year-old Antwany Arnold, who is accused of hurling a chair at a diner at Miznon and was already out on bail for an incident at an earlier protest – which, a court heard, put him in breach of a condition not to travel into the city when he joined the action. WACA spokeswoman Gaye Demanuele, another long-time protester, said she couldn't confirm details of the arrests that would 'make people vulnerable to police' or speak in detail about the group's operations, given recent crackdowns on protest groups in Australia and overseas. Jemima Demanuele, who was photographed sticking up her middle finger at people in the restaurant during the incident, has already been stood down from her job at St Vincent's Hospital as it investigates her conduct. WACA was the 'front facing' mouthpiece of a fluid collective of activists and 'collaborators', Gaye Demanuele said, and had posted a statement 'on behalf of community members' who staged the Miznon action. 'While politicians in so-called Australia clutch their pearls over one meal that was interrupted, we ask people to refocus their attention on Israel's genocidal reign of terror over the Palestinians,' WACA's statement read. Demanuele was also one of the protesters at Miznon, and has been criticised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for justifying the trashing of the restaurant while appearing in an ABC broadcast this week. 'There is no justification for that,' Albanese said on Thursday. 'The idea that somehow the cause of justice for Palestinians is advanced by behaviour like that is not only delusional, it is destructive.' Asked about criticism of WACA by the broader pro-Palestine movement, Demanuele said: 'People are afraid of being associated with a more radical element because they see how the state represses protest … Because their income is threatened, their reputation is threatened, now [Premier] Jacinta Allan and Anthony Albanese are talking about terrorism.' 'They've formed a taskforce to deal with us,' Demanuele added, referring to Allan's flagged crackdown on protest and the new antisemitism taskforce set up following the synagogue arson and Miznon incident. Federally, too, the government is considering stripping funding from institutions that fail to combat what is deemed hatred against Jewish people, as well as screening visa applicants for antisemitic views. The earlier rally on Friday, railing against recent deaths in custody and alleged police violence at protests, was organised by WACA and other pro-Palestinian groups. But the rally split over WACA's plans to march to Miznon – most refused to join them. Pro-Palestine protesters have been calling for a boycott of Miznon after it emerged that one of its part-owners, Israeli entrepreneur Shahar Segal, was also serving as a spokesman for the controversial US-Israeli aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Contractors guarding the foundation's aid distribution sites have opened fire on starving Palestinians scrambling for food. At least 500 people have been killed and thousands more injured while trying to access aid at the sites, according to the United Nations. Segal, whose restaurants in New York, Toronto and Paris have also drawn criticism from pro-Palestine groups overseas, has since reportedly resigned from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Gaye Demanuele insisted WACA did not instigate any violence at Miznon – it was a 'spontaneous' plan formed on Friday to 'inform diners about where they were spending their money' that spiralled into chaos. 'The restaurant was not targeted because it has Jewish owners,' she said. 'It was targeted because it is repping for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. There's nothing humanitarian about the GHF – it's an outfit that's set up to lure people into killing fields. At no point were we anti-Jewish.' It was 'disingenuous' for politicians, police, and others to conflate the Miznon action in Melbourne with the arson attacks at the synagogue or the defence company the same night, Demanuele said. 'The fire at the synagogue we are not connected with, and we would condemn. We are not about harming people. A bit of yelling is nothing compared to potentially putting people's lives at risk by burning a synagogue. That's horrific.' Another WACA 'collaborator' Charlie, known as Charlie the Commie online, told this masthead the earlier rally was organised in the wake of recent police assaults on demonstrators, including some that he said had left his friends with lasting injuries.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Case 137' Review: Dominik Moll's Riveting Police Procedural Places Good Cop and Bad Cop on Opposite Sides
'Why does everyone hate the police?' It's a fair and earnest question, lobbed halfway through 'Case 137' by 12-year-old Victor (Solan Machado Graner) at his mother Stéphanie (Léa Drucker) — who has a hard time coming up with a satisfactory answer, not least because she's in the police herself. 'It's not a likable job,' she eventually admits. 'Enforcing the law doesn't make you friends.' He doesn't know the half of it. Stéphanie is no standard cop, but an investigator in the French IGPN (internal affairs) department, making professional enemies left and right as she investigates various cases of police brutality and misconduct — while outside the force, she finds herself tarred by the same ACAB brush as those she's bringing to account. Not that Dominik Moll's clear-eyed, fuss-free and entirely gripping procedural drama asks viewers to shed any tears for her: Personal integrity ultimately counts for little in service of a crooked institution. After a few years off the French auteur A-list, Moll enjoyed a surge in acclaim (and swept last year's César Awards) with his 2023 film 'The Night of the 12th' — an ostensibly straightforward true-crime policier that revealed more intricately ambiguous moral layers as it unfolded. It was a more sober and stringent genre exercise than the playful Hitchcock homages with which he made his name in the early 2000s, and the change evidently agreed with him. 'Case 137,' premiering as Moll's first Cannes competition entry since 2005's 'Lemming,' ventures even more tautly into pure procedural territory, probing one fictional (but compositely fact-inspired) case involving corrupt Search and Investigation Brigade (or BRI) officers to the very bitter end, with little in the way of sensationalism or sentimentality, but a surprisingly pointed sidebar on cat videos. More from Variety São Paulo's Film Cash Rebate Delivers Early Wins, Sets Stage for 2025 Edition Brazil's Trailblazing Film-TV Org Spcine Turns 10 'Left-Handed Girl' Review: Sean Baker Collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou's Solo Debut Pulses Like Taipei After Dark The result should play at least as well with local and international audiences as 'The Night of the 12th' did, given the universal resonance and topicality of its skeptical stance regarding the police — and thanks in no small part to an anchoring performance of substantial complexity and bone-weary humanity by the reliably compelling Léa Drucker. Her character is introduced briskly questioning one officer accused of undue violence while performing crowd control at the populist yellow-vest protests that erupted throughout France in late 2018. He snapped after 15 years of clean and dutiful service, he admits, before begging Stéphanie not to strip him of his job. 'Policing is all I can do,' he pleads. The question of whether he really can do that hangs in the air. Either way, he's one of many such cases, with the IGPN overwhelmed by the steady influx of complaints stemming from the protests: Laurent Rouan's sharp, disciplined editing files multiple interviews and lines of inquiry into a combined, mounting sense of institutional crisis. If Stéphanie tends toward sympathy with her accused colleagues as she investigates them, her next assignment tests that impulse, as distraught mother and nursing auxiliary Joëlle (Sandra Colombo) claims her 20-year-old son Guillaume was shot in the head, wholly unprovoked, by unidentified BRI officers on a day trip to Paris, leaving him with life-changing injuries. The victim's family and friends are unconvinced that Stéphanie can do much to bring the perpetrators to justice — 'Like you'll believe my word against theirs,' mumbles pal and witness Remi (Valentin Campagne) — and Moll's cool overview of the systemic workings of 'the police's police' rather justifies their caginess. But the accusation nags at Stéphanie more than most that come across her desk, perhaps in part because she shares a hometown with the family, but more because the extreme evasiveness and defensiveness of the BRI brass she interviews in her preliminary investigation give her every reason to suspect very foul play. Working against her is the relatively high public regard for the BRI in the wake of their response to the 2015 Bataclan attack — even officers accused of vicious brutality get a round of hero's applause when brought out of custody — and an us-against-them approach to her department by seemingly all other police factions. Her ex-husband and his new girlfriend, both cops, treat her with disdain: 'Your half-assed enquiries smear the whole force,' fumes the latter. Damning video evidence of the officers' identity and their guilt eventually surfaces courtesy of a chance eyewitness ('Saint Omer' star Guslagie Malanda, in a brief, blistering turn) who's initially wary of coming forward — caustically pointing out to Stéphanie that many Black and Arab victims of police violence don't get as much due process as the white victim in this instance. Even with the video secured, however, the case is far from open-and-shut legally: The thin blue line gets awfully blurred as Stéphanie runs into infuriating technicalities and roadblocks from higher-ups. Drucker, initially a crisp, headstrong presence, turns increasingly brittle and recessive as the wheels of injustice turn, seemingly internalizing another, more ruthless question she gets asked in the course of her investigation: 'You do your job well, but what use is your job?' Humor and texture come via glimpses of her home life as a single mother, with Machado Graner (brother of 'Anatomy of a Fall' breakout Milo) excellent as the testy, vulnerable Victor, an early adolescent just beginning to see his parents and their profession through more jaded eyes. An adorable stray kitten introduces an unexpected note of cuteness, leading Stéphanie into the joys of online cat videos, though her father cautions against such distractions in life: 'When everyone's brainwashed and democracy's dead, you'll regret watching so many kitties.' Intelligent, drily seething and duly enraging in turn, 'Case 137' keeps its mind strictly on the job. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
