Penan’s human rights are being ignored

US human rights report shines spotlight on Penan tribe
19 April

A new US government human rights report has highlighted the Penan tribe’s battle to protect their rainforests in Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, from logging.

The US State Department document cites claims by indigenous rights groups that Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s government has leased the Penan’s land ‘to logging companies and land developers in exchange for political favors and money’.

Taib Mahmud has been in power for 30 years, and won state elections last week. Thousands of Penan tribespeople were unable to vote because they have not been issued with identity cards.

The US report describes accounts that ‘logging companies harassed and sometimes threatened vocal Penan leaders’ and that ‘workers from two logging companies… regularly sexually abused Penan women and girls’. A government minister has confirmed the rapes, but no action has been taken against the perpetrators.

The hunter-gatherer Penan are fighting to keep their last remaining rainforest safe from the logging companies. One Penan woman told Survival, ‘Our land and our river have been destroyed by the logging company, by the oil palm plantation. It brings hardship and suffering to our land.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The State Department report adds weight to growing worldwide condemnation of the Sarawak government’s treatment of the Penan. The Penan’s human rights are being ignored, their forests destroyed, and their survival threatened.’

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/7228

Army Personnel Suspended

Why would a hunter left a dead hornbill after shooting it? Do you think a poacher dare to shoot near army camp? If it was a poacher why didn't the army track down the poacher? There are too many unanswered questions. I just don't believe it. But can you spot the spin?

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Sunday April 3, 2011 MYT 4:50:38 PM Five army personnel suspended for slaughtering hornbill

SHAH ALAM: Five army personnel, including an officer, who slaughtered a great pied hornbill and posed with the dead animal, have been suspended from duties, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

He said the personnel would also be charged under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.

The picture of them posing with the slaughtered bird, allegedly taken at the Royal Belum State Park in Perak was published in the local media recently and made its way online, drawing criticisms from environmentalists.

Ahmad Zahid said investigations showed that the bird, a protected species in Malaysia, had been shot by a hunter.

"The bird fell to the ground and upon seeing the dying bird, they slaughtered it," he told reporters after attending a family day at a theme park, here Sunday.

Ahmad Zahid said although the army personnel were not the ones who shot the hornbill, they should have tried to save it. - Bernama