Why the double standards?
You protest the alleged inhumane treatment being meted out by the US on blood-thirsty, murderous members of the terrorist organisation that has killed over 4,000 innocent people in New York, Kenya, Tanzania and elsewhere.
But where was your outrage when former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was beaten and when other 'injustices' occurred in Malaysia?
Requiring dangerous, maximum security prisoners - in this case, terrorists who would not hesitate to kill their captors - to wear shackles and hoods as they are moved from one area to another, pales by comparison to how your government has been violating the human rights of your own fellow Malaysians.
The infringement of human rights committed by the government of which you are a part has been well documented in the reports written by Amnesty International, the US department of state, Human Rights Watch, and even by Suhakam, Malaysia's own human rights commission.
Don't get me wrong. The US military has a clear obligation to treat its prisoners humanely and in accordance with international standards. But so does the Malaysian government?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you don't agree, then you should be honest and admit that you are practising double standards?
Speaking of which, the US military authorities allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to assess their conditions.
Will you, as foreign minister, permit this respected international organisation to visit the many Malaysian ISA detainees held by your government and assess their conditions, too?
After all, they did not hijack airplanes and blow up skyscrapers and kill 4,000 people. All they did was to exercise their freedom of speech and assembly, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and say things that you and your boss didn't want to hear.
