Reader Ali Allah Ditta has been annoyed by my blogging on the Petaling Jaya Abu Ghraib-ish abuse.
He must have felt that I was getting at the Royal Malaysian Police, and 'suggested' that the next time my house is robbed or I have a road accident, I should report the incident to the DAP or the Chinese government.
His annoyance with me is not unique as I witnessed on other blogs such comments rejecting criticism of the police abuse by the supporters of the law enforcers.
I pose a few questions for Ali, namely:
(1) Are police public servants or our caste superiors?
(2) Are police beyond criticism by a member of the public?
(3) Are shameful police abuses to be tolerated, with the public closing an eye to their crimes?
(4) Should a Malaysian citizen in Malaysia report crimes or accidents to the Chinese government, a foreign entity? And why do you suggest this?
(5) What's wrong with a Malaysian citizen taking his or her problems to the DAP, a Malaysian political party? Afterall, nowadays, many do, and we should wonder why?
Think about these questions, answer them if you wish and I'll continue soon ........
Ali, thanks for your comments. I appreciate your clarification.
ReplyDeleteMy postings on police abuses was centred on those incidents where the abuses were apparent. They were not wide-sweeping against every police person in the RMP - no, I did not use the proverbial long bamboo pole to sweep everone down in its path.
Those specific incidents were the police stripping of women detainee, slapping them when they objected, rifling their handbags for cash, extorting from them or their husbands, peeping at them while they bathed, making lewd gestures at one of them like **her breast size was great**, etc, and the last straw, the totally unjustified nude ear squat punishment.
We Malaysians have one unsophisticated word for all the above - 'bullying'. I can't and we all shouldn't tolerate any form of 'bullying', especially when the bully has been provided with legislated powers by the people through parliament to be our security guardians.
All the above were abuses of one form or naother, but what broke the camel's back was the deputy IGP's nerve to pre-empt any proper investigation by declaring that nude-ear-squat was **normal** police procedure, even when the DPM and various other ministers had recoiled from the terrible act.
Just remember how we recoiled from the original Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Gulag, etc, scandals - KTemoc was one of the first in Malaysian blogosphere to condemn the perpetrators and their superiors. I had been the most vocal in my condemnation of the atrocities committed against Fallujah. Abuses, crimes or bullying, that's what they were and probably still are.
I wonder whether you have one of my earlier postings where I revealed that a senior member of my family, a policeman, was assassinated by the communist terrorist during the Emergency. He was in the same branch as CPO Yuen Yuet Leng probably was - the SB. I am not devoid of respect or affection for the police, but definitely not those terrible people at the Petaling Jaya station.