A Malaysian human-rights lawyer has filed a US$4 trillion lawsuit against Britain for alleged atrocities suffered by Indians whose forefathers were brought as indentured laborers to Malaysia during colonial rule.
Seeking ?1 million (US$2 million) compensation for each of the currently estimated 2 million Indian Malaysians, the suit was filed in London earlier this month, Ponnusamy Waytha Moorthy told reporters while in Washington on a trip to brief the US Congress and rights groups on the issue.
"The colossal suit reflects the years of pain, suffering, humiliation, discrimination and continuous colonialization under the current Malaysian government," he said.
"It is also to highlight the negligence and failure of the British in not entrenching the rights of the minority Indians in the Constitution when they granted Malaysia independence," he said.
Many Indians were brought to Malaysia from southern India as indentured labor by the British, but their future generations "were left high and dry" when the colonial power left the country, Waytha Moorthy said.
"There has been segregation, discrimination, marginalization and other abuses of Indian Malaysians," he said.
Ethnic Indians and Chinese are minority groups in Malaysia, whose 26 million population is predominantly Malay.
The resource-rich country, which won independence in 1957 from Britain, has blossomed into one of Southeast Asia's top economies.
But Waytha Moorthy said 70 percent of Indian Malaysians were poor, with many in the middle and upper classes of the community migrating overseas.
"The future is bleak and we took this action because we have been pushed to the wall," he said.
Waytha Moorthy is also asking British courts to declare the Malaysian Constitution null and void.
He said he had three months to serve notice of the court action on the named defendant, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
H said that at least one British law firm was considering handling his case on a pro bono basis.
T. Kumar, Amnesty International's Washington-based Asia-Pacific advocacy director, refused to comment on the legal suit but noted that the British colonial power had indeed taken tens of thousands of Indians as indentured laborers to various parts of the globe.
Among the destinations for the laborers were South Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji and Mauritius, he said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS