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Friday, September 14, 2007

Law of jungle in Selayang?

I am not sure whether I was the first blogger to raise the issue of the Selayang bounty hunters for hounds. I posted that in A pig of a problem after Kean-Jin Lim, one of my Penang Lang, advised me of that silly and dangerous promotion by the Selayang Town Council.

I blogged that together with the issue of the Malacca State government’s created brouhaha over pig farms, where I pointed out that there seems to be a perception among non-Muslims that the authorities have been conducting an insensitive campaign against animals that are anathema to Muslims.

Cynical kaytee have no complaints about rounding up stray dogs for disposal but I did ask in that posting why stray cats weren't, when in fact, cats actually are more dangerous to human beings for the diseases they can pass on to us.

Mind you, kaytee has been one of the few Chinamen who supported the re-location of the Malacca pig farms. I wasn’t and am not racially blind, but I couldn't help agreeing with the sentiments against unnecessary bounty hunting for dogs, which would only invite mucho trouble in the likely form of rambo-ish aggravation against dog owners.

However, reading malaysiakini this evening I have been appalled by the thuggish behaviour of a Selayang resident committee representative (named Rashid) who allegedly lunged at Malaysian Animal Rights and Welfare Association president N Surendran, obviously to assault him.

A wheel-chair bound Anthony Thanasayan, who runs Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association, was caught helplessly in the middle.

Anthony said: “I’m on a wheelchair. I can’t run. I cannot protect myself. I was very scared.”

Human rights lawyer P Uthayakumar who attended the press conference questioned the motive of the Selayang MPS inviting resident committee representatives to the meet.


He said: “The meeting was only to involve animal lovers and the MPS. Why were outsiders brought in? Were they brought in to neutralise the animal lovers?”

Then Lim Ann Nee, an animal lover who was taking video footage of the scene at the lobby, was allegedly hit on one arm several times with a booklet by Rashid who seemed to have thrown fundamental chivalry out of the window in assaulting a lady. If the allegation is true, then he has been an unmitigated scumbag, a grub, a slime slug!

Lim related: “I told him at least seven times ‘Don’t touch me!’. But he was chasing us away.”

The animal lobby group also said that several MPS and resident committee representatives hurled abuses at the NGO delegation.

If the above have been true, then Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) didn’t invite the NGOs in good faith, but with the intention to threaten them with physical violence, to intimidate them. The NGOs’ allegation revealed that the abuses and violence began just a mere 10 minutes into the meeting, which lends credence to the allegation of lack of good faith from MPS.

Is this the standard for our public bodies, one which is not even democratically elected, where the law of the jungle rules, where thuggish savagery and violence are norms for avoiding accountability or to suppress different views.

AAB and his cohorts have a lot to answer for.

7 comments:

  1. Human rights lawyer P Uthayakumar who attended the press conference questioned the motive of the Selayang MPS inviting resident committee representatives to the meet. Why not invite Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban next?

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. I deleted a name that BrightEyes @ 2:50 PM, September 16, 2007
    had identified when he said...

    "The feral dogs will have to go as they pose a safety and health hazard to residents. But you don't do that with a public dog-catching contest. Inexperienced participants are going to get mauled by packs of stray mutts, and you're gonna have cases of pet kidnapping by unethical contestants.

    And ironicly, while criticizing the others for being rude & insolent, Rashid (was it Rasheed xxxxxx xxxxxx?) behaved like one of those stray dogs he wished to eliminate."


    Sorry, unless we have proof of teh ID of alleged assaulter, we can named names ;-)

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  4. typo, last line should be:

    "Sorry, unless we have proof of the ID of alleged assaulter, we cannot named names on the blog." ;-)

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  5. one mistake after another - grammatically should be "cannot name names"

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  6. You know what... MPS still have the "Dog Catching Competition" on their website. Are they being sincere about scrapping the competition?

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  7. ^ Aw... c'mon. You don't expect them to frequently update their webpage, do you?

    The only government website thats well updated is probably the Inland Revenue Board... so you can pay your taxes on time.

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