The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Referring to the case of Mr. Anwar Ibrahim, a member of the House of Representatives of Malaysia at the time of the submission of the complaint, as outlined in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/181/11(a)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 180th session (May 2007),

Recalling that Mr. Anwar Ibrahim, was dismissed from his post as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister and arrested in September 1998 on charges of corruption (abuse of office) and sodomy; he was found guilty on both counts and sentenced, in April 1999 and August 2000, respectively, to a total of 15 years' imprisonment; while the Federal Court rejected his appeals against the conviction in the corruption case, in September 2004, it quashed the conviction in the sodomy case and ordered Mr. Ibrahim's release as he had already served his sentence in the corruption case; as a result of the conviction in the latter case, he will be prevented from holding office in political parties or standing for election until April 2008,

Considering in this connection that legislative elections might be held in Malaysia before that date,

Recalling further the following: owing to serious doubts about the fairness of the judicial proceedings against Mr. Ibrahim, it has declared its support for a petition submitted by a group of Malaysian citizens to the King of Malaysia requesting a full pardon for Mr. Ibrahim, as such a pardon would restore his political rights; while the authorities have affirmed that, for such a pardon to be considered, Mr. Ibrahim himself must submit a petition, his lawyers have argued that there is nothing in the law to prevent a third party from submitting a pardon petition; Mr. Ibrahim does not wish to submit a pardon petition since this would be tantamount to an admission of guilt,

1. Reaffirms its belief that Mr. Ibrahim's trials and conviction were based on a presumption of guilt, and that he should therefore be granted a pardon so as to enable him once again fully to participate in the political life of his country, in particular in legislative elections which may be held before the expiry of his debarment from exercising his political rights;

2. Reiterates therefore its full support of a pardon for Mr. Anwar Ibrahim;

3. Requests the Secretary General to inform the Malaysian authorities competent in this matter accordingly and requests the Committee to continue examining this case and report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 118th Assembly of the IPU (Cape Town, April 2008).

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the 117th IPU Assembly and related meetings" in PDF format (file size 480K approximately). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

HOME PAGEHUMAN RIGHTSMAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITYIPU STRUCTURE AND DOCUMENTS