Malaysia refuses UN equality pledge

KUALA LUMPUR: Tens of thousands of Malay Muslims rallied in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to celebrate the Malaysian government’s refusal to ratify a UN convention against racial discrimination.

After weeks of pressure by pro-Malay groups, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s multi-ethnic government decided last month that it would not ratify the convention, without giving a reason why it was going back on an earlier commitment to sign.

Groups reperesenting Malays, who account for around 60 percent of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic population, raised fears that signing the UN pledge could have undermined Malay privileges and threatened Islam’s status as Malaysia’s official religion. Badly beaten in an election earlier this year, Malay opposition parties seized on the issue, along with activists, to organise the rally, as race is a sensitive matter for the southeast Asian nation of 32 million people.

Seeking to rebuild support, Najib Razak, Malaysia’s scandal-plagued former prime minister, and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who replaced him as head of the former ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), and the leader of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, PAS, all attended the rally.