Thursday, April 17, 2008

Secret executions in Malaysia?

Well, it seems we are placed on the global list of butchers.

According to the Star, Amnesty International (AI) has alleged Malaysia carried out secret executions. AI alluded to our police state where people disliked by authorities had been quietly knocked off.

The Star wrote:

The amnesty report “expressed deep concern” that many more people were killed secretly in countries such as Mongolia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

The report claimed that China executed more people than any other country in the world last year by putting at least 470 people to death.

The report also claimed that Iran remained to be the country with the second highest number of executions with 377, and that the number had nearly doubled from the year before.

The United States was fifth in the rankings with 42 executions.

It urged countries to take heed of a United Nations resolution in December 2007 calling for the open and transparent use of the death penalty as a step toward abolishing it altogether.

Naturally our deputy IGP has repudiated the AI’s allegation.

I want to comment on two issues:

Firstly, though I agree with the deputy IGP that technically there had been no secret executions, there were nonethless killings in police custody. What had occurred with some very very unfortunate people, particularly Indians, had been the suspected (unintended but nonetheless terrible) manslaughter or even murder of several whilst they were brutalised in police custody. And these horrendous alleged police killings is publicly known to be a frightening 80 in a period of just over four years.


The RMP interrogators have a notoriety of beating up suspects severely and brutally, leading to a couple of deaths. That’s police draconian f*ups which would then be allegedly covered up by the police and their professional associates.

However these deaths in police custody are openly known and have been alleged by many as acts of police murders, which are yet to be satisfactorily resolved. We most certainly need the IPCMC, but please, not a watered down version. Malaysiakini has reported on this issue several times over.

I had blogged on this in April 2006 in a post titled Most Dangerous Place in Malaysia! I had then written (extracts):

Tan Sri Siti Norma Yaakob, the Chief Judge of Malaya, has expressed her deep concerns that 80 deaths in police custody occurred between January 2000 and December 2004 – that’s an average of 20 people dying per annum while in police custody, or almost a frightening 2 per month for 4 continuous years - but only 6 inquests, less than 10% of the deaths, were even held.

The Chief Judge has been troubled that in some instances, deaths occurred hours after detention. As an example, mechanic Alias Othman was detained at 10 pm on March 22 for alleging causing a disturbance at a mosque in Bachok, Kelantan, but just a mere 5 hours later, he was very dead. Siti Norma wants answers why so many people have died under such circumstances.

She demanded to know why police had seen it fit to decide that inquests were unnecessary in 22 cases of such deaths. She reckoned the abysmal failures to conduct inquests have resulted in public perception that there was foul play or the police had something to hide, which naturally added to the negative perceptions about the police force. In fact, the Criminal Procedure Code specifically makes it mandatory to have inquests into deaths under police custody.

Yet the IGP has not addressed this unacceptable omission, a violation of the Criminal Procedure Code.

However, these are not secret executions per se, in the very meaning of the word ‘covert killings’. Mind you, any form of illegal killing shouldn’t be tolerated nor excused, and the guilty must be made to account for their illegal actions.


See related posts:
(1) Was Udayappan Beheaded After His Death?
(2) Problem of the Royal Malaysian Police
(3) KTemoc asks PM same questions again
(4) Don't expect AAB to change police!

Secondly, I am very surprised and disappointed that AI has placed the USA as only fifth on the list of countries executing people, though of course AI was referring to the justice system.


I ask of AI to include America’s war crimes in various parts of the world and to cover as well the covert executions under the American’s program of ‘extraordinary rendition’, the USA’s idea of globalising torture which often led to deaths.

Under the evil ‘extraordinary rendition’ program, to avoid violating US laws, the USA Administration has farmed its torture of Islamic suspects offshore to several of its client states like Jordan, Egyptian, many former East European countries now keen for a slice of American aid, and as was once alleged, Thailand as well.

Many of the suspects were not even terrorists but often innocent civilians offered up by client states, who were suspected of being 'cosy' with al Qaeda or the Taliban, when they were pressured by the US to show results in their claimed anti-terrorist campaigns.

See my previous posts:
(1) American Gestapo (2)!
(2) The Tragedy of an Afghan Taxi Driver
(3) US Black Site in Udon Thani, Thailand
(4) The American Black Room
(5) Terrorism - Take a 2nd Look at the Culprits!

AI should also look at Israel where it has a publicly known and officially acknowledged policy of assassination (executing) people it doesn’t like, particularly Palestinians and other Arabs and not excluding its own Israeli citizens or for that matter, anyone.

Read Deuteronomic Israeli Military

I would place the world’s Nation’s killers as:

No 1 - USA – consider its murders of countless thousands of innocent civilians in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and almost every nook in the world.

No 2 - Britain - for its role in Iraq and various other former colonies for at least the last 200 years, including its ‘My Lai’ at Batang Kali, Malaysia – see Piers Brandon review of Forgotten Wars by Christopher Bayly & Tim Harper, where he wrote:


Communist guerrillas attempted to destroy colonial rule in Malaya. When they murdered three white planters in 1948, the Governor declared a state of emergency. The aim was, in General Templer's phrase, to win hearts and minds.


In practice, British repression was similar to Japanese, including detentions and deportations, the resettlement of hundreds of thousands in fortified villages and savage counter-terror.

In 1948 Scots Guards murdered 26 Chinese at Batang Kali, and later Marine Commandos sent home trophy photographs of severed heads. The insurgency was crushed and Malaya gained independence in 1957. But there was never an investigation into the Batang Kali massacre.

This is symptomatic, Bayly and Harper rightly say, of British resistance to having a full post-mortem on the Empire.

Regrettably the authors didn't include the fact that the current Malaysian government didn't want the case reopened. Just last week, the Scotsman published:

In 1970, the British government ordered fresh investigations into the killings. The inquiries were led by Chief Superintendent Frank Williams, who had investigated into the Great Train Robbery. Williams had sworn testimonies from some of the Scots Guardsmen who said that "one of the sergeants gave the order to shoot, I fired my rifle at the people at the river bank… the villagers were unarmed; they were not running away."

Williams was leaving for Malaysia to continue his investigations when the Conservatives defeated the then Labour government and all further investigations were cancelled.

In 2004, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was also Internal Security Minister during a 1997 investigation, said the case was closed as there was no evidence to charge anyone.

(3) China, Russia and North Korea (mostly for killing their own people)

(4) Israel (for killing Palestiniasn and others), Iran and some Arab countries (for killing their own citizens)

(5) (feel free to fill in any other countries) ........

13 comments:

  1. BN DODS do whatever they like...

    we need someone to follow their tail!

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  2. The greatest known death toll in history due to deliberate human actions was Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward.

    The People's Republic of China's own official statistics today lists it as 14 Million between 1959 and 1962.

    Some outside scholars have put the number between 20 to 40 Million

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  3. ;-) the post is about State sanction executions, not death toll.

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  4. If that is the case, then most of the casualties of war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan can't be counted in that category either.

    Even the "Victor's Justice" of the Nuremberg Trials by the WWII allies knew how to differentiate between Deliberately Ordered Executions and casualties from Military War actions.

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  5. Great Leap Forward is tragic case of famine, mainly caused by bad weather and poor policy implementation. It was not deliberate act. But what was deliberate was that the US and its allies refused to ship any grain to China even when China was desperate and willing to pay for them. Also, the millions figures (up to 70 millions according to some) were conjectures, as they were based on unreliable population statistics from census. These were no real census (China was too poor to carry out door to door census in those days) but sampling with high degree of errors. If a lot of people died, one would have seen many photos of people in emaciated conditions with large bellies as in Ethiopia.


    US have killed thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Somehow this was never counted as 'killing' by AI. And bear in mind, many killed were innocent women and children, from deadly missiles launched from Nato planes. As usual, they are silent on these aspects of killing, claiming that such reports cannot be verified independently. These barbaric people have never really learnt from the lessons in Vietnam, where millions have died. All in the name of freedom.

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  6. kk46, I am sure you have heard of My Lai and its (numerous) likes (like in the FFZ), and worse, Ops Pheonix, which were executions of civilians, with the latter being officially sanctioned as black ops. Ops Phoenix targeted and assassinated 'suspects', chiefly South Vietnamese civilians. The word 'suspects' became convenient for the Yanks that whenever they killed innocent men, women and children, especially in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the victims would be described as 'terrorist suspects'.

    In Vietnam, they taught their newcomers to the theatre that in a suspect area, "if a Viet runs, he/she is a Cong; if he/she doesn't he/she is a brave Cong". For teh Yanks, it's like their ancestors shooting up the native Americans, mere 'injuns' to them.

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  7. Yes, we are talking about intended pre-meditated murder and wanton slaughter. Not unintended misconceived ignorant policies and acts of God.

    The US is unquestionably, the biggest murderer in the modern history; ie post WWII. Vietnam alone is bloodied by American bullets and bombs to the tune of at least two million deaths. And that's excluding millions more injured and maimed for life.

    And now these bastard neo cons anti-communist, anti-Chinese ideolgues wants Chinese blood. Were it not for the EU's close support and alignment with America, one might just wash off this mad racialism as a one-off quirk of the US; a last throw-punch by George W Bush before leaving office.

    Do we need further proof what and how the West perceives he East? Japan would be living in cuckoo land if they think the West lives them!

    Watch out for December 2012. That's just 4 years away. Will the West find an excuse, a pretext to launch a war with China?

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  8. one of secret executions 'accidently' became public .... the mongolian case.

    Bones and fragments belonging to multiple different individuals found at the site? Or was that an unsubstantiated rumour?

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  9. one of 'our' secret executions...

    ReplyDelete
  10. ;-) the post is about State sanction executions, not death toll.

    Is that so? Your own heading for this blog topic is:
    "Secret executions in Malaysia?"
    and typically you run off all over the world. Apa lah lu. Off topik lah tu.

    Lagi bila orang buat sama,you cakap not to the point. Haiyah ini cerita ketam menyuruh anaknya jalan betul lah.

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  11. All this anti-Chinese by the West ....

    It is just another racial thing ... the fear and disgust of potentially being "bossed" by another race ... an "inferior" race or races.

    What do you think all these all China bashing via the media mouth-pieces media of America and Europe is all about? What do you think all those legislation just being enacted against Sovereign Wealth Funds is all about?

    It is not just China. The West do not just feel dignified in allowing non Whites taking over their corporations and becoming their bosses. Whether its Saudia Arabias, Emirates, Dubaians, Japanese, Koreans, etc...

    And seeing how the Chinese in particular, have the potential to "conquer" the world economically, they are fearful. And being fearful, the "war" now is to stop or hinder China from progressing further.

    As simple people might express it this way ... "Communism cannot! .. Capitalism also cannot! .. Then what can?"

    There is no justice in this world. Maybe it is true, "power comes from the barrel of the gun". Then maybe the West may not be adopting such a bullying posture.

    Clearly suffering, impoverished ordinary Chinese does not matter.

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  12. Mullah KT blogged about this topic and ran all over the world so as to be able to bash the West and the US. This is his special hidden joy and purpose.

    One would prefer him to focus rather more on the local scenario and history. A long time has passed since Batang Kali.

    Of course Badawi wouldn't want any inquiry into the distant past because this may trigger off verboten questions about the history of Bolehland's own armed forces, as well, since then. Like e.g. during May 13 and the days following afterwards. Like as if Bolehland's armed forces never committed such things, ever, all these decades.

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  13. (quote);-) the post is about State sanction executions, not death toll.



    Aiseh KT... Amnesty was talking about capital punishment in the countries legal system, then you go on to bring in another subject on wartime atrocities. With that sort of thinking, kk46 has the right to bring up China's disastrous Great Leap (although she didn't mention the equally disastrous Cultural Revolution which of hundreds of thousands of Chinese died)

    You also left out Germany and Japan, unless you wanna change the goalposts again to after year 1950. :P

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