What does Malaysia's losing a FIFA event have to do with the TPP? Quite a bit.

[cali]

Malaysia. Part of the TPP, a country with serious human rights issues and human trafficking so prevalent, that the SD upgraded despite no improvement in these areas, to push the TPP.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/malaysia-loses-fifa-event-over-israel-visas-105752886.html


August 2, 2016 12:00AM EDT

Malaysia: New Law Gives Government Sweeping Powers


Malaysia’s new National Security Council (NSC) Act, which came into force on August 1, 2016, is a tool for repression that should be immediately repealed, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should instead revise its laws to incorporate international human rights standards into the effort to counter terrorism.

<snip>

“Given the Malaysian government’s recent track record of harassing and arresting government critics, the likely abuses under this new law are truly frightening,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “There are serious concerns that this law will be used as a back door to severe rights violations, using government claims that it only seeks to protect its citizens from terror threats.”

Enacting this law is a serious step backward on human rights by Prime Minister Najib, who in September 2011 scrapped the country’s infamous Internal Security Act (ISA) as part of what he said were efforts to find “the right balance” between national security and personal freedom. He promised new legislation that would protect fundamental rights and freedoms.

<snip>


https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/02/malaysia-new-law-gives-government-sweeping-powers

Malaysia Needed a Clean Human Rights Record—So the State Department Just Gave It to Them

When President Obama was selling Congress on granting “fast track” for his Trans-Pacific Partnership, he made lots of huge (and improbable) promises. His new 12-nation trade deal would protect worker rights better than ever before in the global economy, he vowed, and the environment too. Human exploitation is wrong; Obama said he would stop it. Despite spirited resistance from skeptical Democrats, the Republican Congress drank the Kool-Aid.

Sure enough, Obama sort of kept his promise to address human rights abuses in Malaysia, though he did so by simply denying the country’s well-documented record of human exploitation. With an obscure bureaucratic fix at the State Department, the president cleansed Malaysia—where millions of Asian women, men, and children come in search of jobs and find themselves forced into sex slavery, indentured labor, and debt peonage—of its notorious record of human trafficking

Malaysia was just awarded a ratings upgrade that contradicts the facts of the State Department’s own reports and investigations. This is the kind of odious backroom deal that often accompanies trade negotiations. Without the upgrade, Malaysia would have been barred from signing on as one of America’s TPP partners.

Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Robert Menendez of New Jersey didn’t like the smell. The decision, Brown said, “is grounded in politics—not in facts.… Giving countries with clear evidence of human rights violations like Malaysia a front row seat to join the TPP is unconscionable.”


<snip>

https://www.thenation.com/article/malaysia-needed-a-clean-human-rights-record-so-the-state-department-just-gave-it-to-them/

There hasn't been reform in Malaysia since the SD upgraded Malaysia's rating regard human rights. To the contrary there is CLEAR and indisputable evidence that human rights are degrading even further in that country.

How anyone could believe that the TPP will improve human rights in Malaysia isn't beyond me- it's a clear case of shutting one's eyes to the obvious.

[True Dough]

1. cali, you're making it really hard for me to find reasons to support the TPP

I mentioned to you the other day that your posts had me reconsidering my position. One of the facets of the trade deal that I thought still might give it legs to stand on was Obama's commitment to human rights globally. But if there is political manipulation occurring to make it appear that TPP partner nations pass the smell test, then that's unacceptable.

I mean, if FIFA is pulling an event in Malaysia because the country is led by a bunch of bad actors, then that's really saying something, seeing a FIFA has long been known for corruption!

[cali]

2. I don't mean to be doing that. And the FIFA event is the least of it.

It's that the SD upgraded Malaysia's human rights record rating for blatantly political reasons- to ensure its inclusion in the TPP. What is so sad and infuriating to me, is that human rights are degrading badly in Malaysia since the SD upgraded its record last year.

The facts speak for themselves.

[True Dough]

3. Don't get me wrong

You're doing a service by linking to these articles and adding your opinion. I just had hopes of finding legitimate reasons why the TPP is a worthy deal since President Obama is firmly behind it.

But those reasons are vaporizing every day...

[cali]

5. kick. this should be a scandal. It's unexceptable that the SD

uprated Malaysia's human rights record when it is getting worse not better- and it certainly had NOT improved when they uprated it, according to the Department's own data.