Dr M's daughter inks 'Harapan don't U-turn' on Rome Statute petition

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's daughter, Marina, is among those who inked a petition urging Pakatan Harapan not to backtrack on its decision to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The online petition on Change.org states that the Rome Statute would provide justice to the 298 people killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down some 50km from the Ukraine-Russian border in July 2014.

At the time of writing, the petition, which Marina had also tweeted, was signed by more than 9,700 people.

The petition was started by the same group of students responsible for leaking an executive summary of a paper by four academics purportedly used to convince the Conference of Rulers to reject the Rome Statute.

Last week, Mahathir announced that Malaysia would be withdrawing from the Rome Statute, a month after ratifying the treaty.

The prime minister blamed the decision on those who had sown confusion over the issue and attempted to pit the royals against his administration.

During the press conference, Mahathir singled out a particular individual, whom he claimed wanted to be “free to beat up people and things like that.”

However, the prime minister said if the person does this, he would send the police to arrest him regardless of his position.

Although he did not mention names, speculation was rife that he was referring to Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, who had been a vocal opponent to Putrajaya acceding to the Rome Statute.

The crown prince argued that the treaty would threaten the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Malays and Islam.

Following the withdrawal, Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said Putrajaya reversed its decision to avoid a coup attempt.

“(There was the) possibility of the issue being manipulated to the extent that people go to the streets, moved by the 'deep state' and certain apparatus," he added.

The term 'deep state' generally refers to secretive elements of a country's security and bureaucratic establishments working to undermine the legitimate government.