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/182/12(b)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 181st session (October 2007),

Recalling the following: having been dismissed from his post as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mr. Anwar Ibrahim was arrested in September 1998 and prosecuted on charges of corruption 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; on 10 July 2002 his appeal against the corruption charges was rejected at last instance by the Federal Court; he lodged an application for a review of that decision, which the Federal Court rejected on 15 September 2004; on 2 September 2004 the Federal Court quashed the conviction in the sodomy case and ordered Mr. Ibrahim's release, as he had already served his sentence in the corruption case; under Malaysian law, as a result of the conviction in the corruption case, Mr. Ibrahim was prevented from holding office in political parties or standing for election until 14 April 2008; a pardon petition submitted in May 2005 by a group of Malaysian citizens has not been considered,

Considering that Mr. Anwar Ibrahim was able to campaign for the Kaedilan Rakyat Party (People's Justice Party), which is led by his wife Dr. Wan Azizah, in the 8 March 2008 elections, in which opposition parties took 47.8% of the ballot nationwide, and that he has now recovered his political rights,

1. Notes with satisfaction that Mr. Anwar Ibrahim was able to participate although not to stand in the recent election campaign and that he has now recovered his political rights, which will allow him to stand in any by-election that may be held; consequently decides to close his case;

2. Reaffirms neverthelessits belief that Mr. Ibrahim's trials and conviction were based on a presumption of guilt, and regrets therefore that he was not granted a royal pardon, which would have enabled him to stand in the March 2008 elections.

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the 118th IPU Assembly and related meetings" in PDF format (file size 547K approximately). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

HOME PAGEHUMAN RIGHTSMAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITYIPU STRUCTURE AND DOCUMENTS