KUALA LUMPUR: LoyarBurok, started by some lawyers and law students some six years ago as a blog which they dubbed to give sharp and witty commentaries on the state of the country’s social, political and economic affairs, now has its own resource centre.
Shanmuga K (sic), co-founder of Pusat Rakyat LB, said that with the setting up of the centre, they hoped to “gather, mobilise and empower Malaysians to win back the country for the rakyat.”
Indie bands – Barcode, Sounders, Lord Bobo’s Minions and MC Stiff – added colour to the opening of the centre with music carrying humanitarian and social justice themes.
The event at Jalan Bangsar Utama here yesterday also featured a Rakyat’s Wall for visitors to scribble their thoughts on the country.
The organisers also introduced a soon-to-be-launched voting education programme called UndiMalaysia, aimed mainly at young Malaysians who are naive about their voting rights.
The event also served as a recruitment drive for more “LoyarBurokkers”, whose number currently hovers around 200.
“It will be a resource centre to educate the public on constitutional, human rights and other bread-and-butter issues,” Shanmuga (sic) said at the launch of the centre, also called the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights.
Regarding the UndiMalaysia programme, he said: “We need Malaysians to look beyond a politician’s personality and vote based on local and national issues that impact them.”
Fellow founder Edmund Bon said they wanted to train non-lawyers to understand the importance of the constitution and human rights.
Bon, who worked on the Bar Council’s constitutional education programme, added: “We are exploring different ways to reach out to the community, including the rural folk, in the months to come.”
Besides running the website, the group had previously published a book on the Perak constitutional crisis and sold “freedom size” T-shirts.
Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR) is a non-profit based in Kuala Lumpur with the mission of promoting active democratic participation and human rights awareness.
Posted on 23 March 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
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6 Responses to LoyarBurok Opens Up Resource Centre to ‘Empower Malaysians’, The Star Online, Sunday March 20, 2011