Indigenous-Orang Asli

An exciting and eye opener morning for me.
Together with Rasah MP Loke Siew Fook and my assistant, we visited Kampung Sebir near Jalan Labu which apparently falls within our constituency.
Kampung Sebir was a small village inhabited by about 60-70 indigenous people or orang asli.

We was understand that recently there is a businessman who have got the permission from the authority to cut down trees and sold it for business purposes next to the customary reserved land of the villagers. However, the businessman has recently cut down a few trees which the villagers claimed belong to their area. However, legally speaking, whose land the trees belong to was still unidentified as Jabatan Penghutanan officer has not shown up this morning to tell us.

We was welcomed by the villagers this morning. It surprised me whereby the male wore their traditional headgear, each representing their status in the society. We was told to be seated on the floor as a matter of respect to the 'adat'.

The meeting turn out to be one of the like 'Mahkamah Penghulu' which forms as the lowest court in our Judicial system. It definitely excite me when i see such 'trial'. As a lawyer, i had learned about this Mahakamah Penghulu, but have not seen it in my life even in the capacity as a lawyer. It is eye opener and honour for me to have witness such proceeding as Mahkamah Penghulu is almost extinct in the system. The 'hearing' today was to try the trespasser(the businessman) and pass a sentence according to their customary law.

It was chaired by the Penghulu-Tok Batin and a panel of 'jury'. The businessman seems at last has compromised and ready to accept the sentence pass by the Tok Batin and the 'jury'. However, the panel failed to decide on the sentence to be place to the 'criminal' and asked to postpone to another date as they need to discuss in some sort of 'chamber of justice' (couldn't remember the exact name, but i think it was 'Bilik Kehakiman').

Indigenous people, the true Bumiputera in Malaysia, they are not penumpang, not migrant has been neglected in areas such as culture, education, health, human rights and the environment. Steps must be taken to preserve their natural habitat and culture, international guidelines and declaration such as Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People which adopted by the United Nations and Malaysia as a signatory country should have observed the said Declaration.