On my comment in Malaysian Police Reforms - What does it have to take?:
"An abuse is an abuse, regardless of the power or identity of the nation of the abused"
I had referred to the pathetic attempts by police apologists to weave around the inconsequential rather than recognise the fact that a woman, regardless of whether she is of brown, yellow, black, white or green skin, had been abused by the police, equally regardless of whether of brown, yellow, black, white or green skin.
Reader Ali Allah Ditta commented:
“Police abuses are a normal feature, the police & even the Deputy KPM admitted it. But what shits me why out of the blues the gomen comes up with the idea of a badan siasatan bebas. Worst of all,the badan siasatan bebas is not bebas at all.There is a former minister,a court judge & 2 lawyers who had work for the gomen."
"Its just a coverup,an eyewash to impress a foreign govt.but what about our poor citizens who suffered the worst abuses than the lady in the videoclip?”
Reader Ali is correct in describing the true motive of the Malaysian government in holding an independent inquiry into the police abuse of Chinese nationals, and that the action smacks of double standard.
In that same posting I had in fact raised the real reason. The Malaysian prime minister has been concerned with a China angry over the mistreatment of her citizens, with possible adverse economic consequences for Malaysia. I had also pointed out in Malaysian PM must act against deputy IGP, the prime minister's assurance to the Chinese authority that there would be no 'cover-up' in the investigation. Has that been a Freudian slip in suggesting that there had been 'cover-ups' all along?
It’s no different from how Singapore was economically threatened by India some years ago. Yes, tough and morally recalcitrant Singapore was warned by India to desist when the island nation wanted to cane Indian nationals who entered or overstayed Singapore illegally. Singapore realised that economically it had so much to lose if it went ahead with its usual brutal approach that it meekly backed off from its threat.
Caning illegal migrants? That’s Singapore! But it took a bigger size nation to threaten the small bully. Bloody good on India for standing up for her citizens.
Reader Ali is right again because if we examine the terms of reference for the Independent Inquiry, the first term stands out quite illogically in such a serious matter of police abuse:
“Determine whether the woman seen in the video clip doing ear squats in the nude was one of the five Chinese nationals who were arrested and held by police.”
Why should that be important, so important that it stands out as the first term of reference? A woman had been abused and the inquiry should be assigned to investigate into the abuse per se instead of worrying whether she was a Chinese national.
As the current news have it, that particular victim may yet metamorphosed into a local, perhaps to facilitate the prime minister in telling his counterpart that it wasn’t a Chinese national who was abused – it was just a local woman. I suppose that could be sufficiently satisfactory to the Chinese authorities because they, like the Malaysian authorities, abuse their own people too.
But sadly, of the four terms of reference, of which 3 relate directly to that nude-ear-squat incident, there has not been one that says:
“Determine whether there has been a pattern of such police abuses, where police detainees, of both genders and all nationalities or ethnic grouping, had suffered from human rights violation and/or crimes perpetrated by police personnel detaining members of the public, whether by lawful or unlawful means.”
Brian Melbancke wrote in 'Philotimus: the Warre Betwixt Nature and Fortune,' in 1583: 'Thou canst not or wilt not see wood for trees', which has relevance here as I see the terms of the Independent Inquiry as a case of 'chasing the trees and ignoring the woods.'
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