By SM Amin and Zalinah Noordin
GEORGE TOWN, May 9:
The political arena in Malaysia is still not receptive enough towards issues of human rights, says a Penang Democratic Action Party (DAP) state assemblyman.
Tanjung Bungah assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu, on Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s advice for the latter’s recent press conference to urge the state government to consider the motion of gender equality and transgender rights to be tabled in the next state assembly sitting next week, said for now he would just cool it where the issue was concerned.
“But I will still try to bring it up in the next round of state assembly sitting and I hope the motion can be passed.
“They talk about human rights and if this issue is not about human rights, then I don’t know what is,” Teh said today.
He said there was a meeting earlier today with Lim and all the state excos and state leaders, and they were all debating on the transgender issue which Teh has been championing since 2010.
On Wednesday, Teh held a press conference to urge the state government to allow him to table the motion on transgender equality and rights, and for a committee to be formed to lend assistance to the community.
Earlier, Lim issued a press statement advising Teh to “return to the right path”.
According to Lim, a meeting was held at 2pm in Komtar and Teh had agreed to retract his proposal on the motion to be tabled in the state assembly.
“He also understood he was alone in this matter and has no support from other state assemblymen.”
Lim expressed disappointment that the issue had been propagated by Barisan Nasional (BN) media to criticise DAP.
“It is very unfortunate that my statement on the issue being Teh’s personal motion and not the state government’s has not been published by any media,” Lim added.
He said with the retraction of the motion by Teh, the issue was deemed closed and Teh accepted the decision of Penang DAP leaders and state representatives.
