APPEAL TO REGISTER MDC REJECTED

MDC quest for registration rejected

The promoters of the Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC) learned of the Home Ministry’s rejection of their application for registration only today, nine months after the official decision was made, due to a mix-up in addresses.In a letter dated April 9, 2008, an official of the Home Ministry said that the minister after careful investigation and consideration decided to reject the appeal to register MDC, according to MDC pro-tem information chief Joseph Tawie.

Tawie only received a copy of the letter this morning from the assistant registrar of societies in Kuching.

Change in original address

He told Malaysiakini that the MDC’s original address for official correspondence had been changed to another address in Kuching and that the ROS had been informed officially after this.

The first address was that of one of the promoters who had moved office.

The ROS letter stated: “The appeal is rejected based on Section 7(3)(a) of the Societies Act 1966 on grounds that its registration can cause a threat to security and public order.”

However, if the applicants were still interested to pursue the MDC registration then they should submit a fresh application to the Registrar of Societies (ROS), the official said.

Tawie said they had not decided whether to appeal against the ROS decision.

The application was first submitted on May 6, 2004 and the ROS rejected it on July 19, 2006 on security grounds under Section 7 (3)(a).

The protem committee on August 12, 2006 appealed against the decision of the registrar to the Minister of Home Affairs.
Tawie said he regretted the Ministry’s decision to reject the appeal against the ROS decision.

Pro-tem committee to meet

Section 7 (3) says: “The Registrar shall refuse to register a local society where - (a) it appears to him that such local society is unlawful under the provisions of this Act or any other written law or is likely to be used for unlawful purposes or any purpose prejudicial to or incompatible with peace, welfare, security, public order, good order or morality in Malaysia.”

Tawie said the pro-tem committee members will meet in the next few days to decide on whether to submit a fresh application.In the meantime, two options are open to tens of thousands of ex-PBDS members who have remained without a party since the deregistration of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) on Oct 21, 2004. (Before its deregistration, PBDS had nearly 200,000 members.)

One option is for them to join Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and the other is to join any of the existing parties in the state.
“Personally, I will call on the ex-PBDS members to find a leader and in a group let us all join PKR, hoping that one day PKR together with DAP and PAS will form not only the state government of Sarawak, but also the federal government,” Tawie said.

Only with a change of government can we change laws that are harmful to the natives, he added.