SEPT 22 — Anti-corruption officers extorted RM1 million from money changers. Policeman sentenced to five years’ jail for shooting 14-year-old boy in the back. The Attorney-General accused of a string of serious and damning offences, including fabricating evidence.
Nope, these are not headlines from a banana republic in Central America or Zimbabwe. This is what is happening in Malaysia and is only a snapshot of a system falling into a serious state of disrepair, where there is a serious blurring of lines between law enforcers and law breakers, where the culture of easy money and lack of respect for the rule of law are hurting the country’s once-respected institutions.
Oh, you can bet that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will talk about how a few bad apples should not sully the whole basket but we believe recent evidence suggests that the problems at the anti-corruption agency are institutional rather than isolated.
Wasn’t it the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh Beng Hock’s death which found the behaviour of the MACC interrogators abhorrent? And of course that was before the Customs official fell to his death and where a CCTV recording mysteriously disappeared.
Aminulrasyid Amzah was shot in the back by a policeman and in another incident, the court awarded RM900,000 to a man who became paralysed after being shot in the back.
Are the cops remorseful? We doubt it judging by the response of top cop Tan Sri Ismail Omar. He did not think it necessary to offer Aminurasyid’s family an apology. Perhaps he had forgotten that his men tried to portray the boy as a criminal to justify the shooting.
Of course, no one can bring the boy back but a simple and heartfelt sorry to the family would have been the proper thing to do.
Instead, they received some mumbo jumbo from Ismail. But we should be grateful for small mercies. At least Ismail said something about this case.
He had said zilch about the reports and letters from his former comrade Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim detailing the alleged abuses of Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail. At the very least, the nature of the accusations merits an independent inquiry.
But Ismail has been quiet as has the prime minister. There is no charade or pretence of an investigation. Just a complete shutdown of any information.
Nobody in the police force or the MACC seems interested in pursuing these allegations.
Or maybe they are too busy making their own headlines.
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The system’s breaking down — The Malaysian Insider
September 22, 2011
Archive for the 'Security' Category
The system’s breaking down
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 31 — The refugee swap deal between Australia and Malaysia was deemed illegal by Australia’s High Court today.
The hugely controversial arrangement has been popularly referred to as the “Malaysia Solution” in Australia.The Sydney Morning Herald ran an Australian Associated Press report that quoted Chief Justice Robert French as saying that “the declaration made… was made without power and is invalid.”
The court barred asylum seekers held by Australia from being sent to Malaysia, a ruling that will likely derail the swap deal intending to send 800 boat people to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 already-processed refugees to Australia.
The move was put on hold earlier this month after Melbourne lawyer David Manne won a High Court injunction to prevent deportations pending a decision on the deal.
He argued that Australian-held asylum seekers had rights to refugee protection assessed in Australia, and that the High Court could review Bowen’s declaration that Malaysia was a suitable destination for offshore processing.
With Canberra agreeing to pick up the RM1 billion bill for the swap, the Gillard administration’s popularity has sunk under pressure from opposition leaders and human rights activists in both Pacific nations.
But Australia’s Labor government insists the swap will stem human trafficking despite a Parliament motion condemning it due to concerns over Malaysia’s treatment of refugees.
There has also been concerns that a biometric system used in Malaysia to register migrants is “riddled with problems” and reports of scalps taking advantage of an ongoing amnesty programme for illegal immigrants have raised further questions over its ability to deal with incoming asylum-seekers.
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‘Malaysia Solution’ illegal, says Australian court
August 31, 2011
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar had received SMS threats to kidnap her three-year-old daughter.
The SMS warned that if she did not stop supporting her father, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, her daughter would end up sharing the same fate as Sharlinie Mohd Nashar, a five-year-old girl who was kidnapped in 2008 and remains missing to this day.
Nurul, a mother of two, filed a report with the Dang Wangi district police headquarters this morning.
“The person told me if I continue to support my father then I will not be able to save my child. The person also told me I must urge my father to quit politics or something will happen to her,” she said.
Nurul said she was worried about the threat, saying this was not the first time her family had been threatened, citing the example of the sex video and the alleged sabotage of Anwar ’s car.
Continue reading ‘Nurul gets threat – Desperadoes have crossed the line!’
Govt paid Apco RM77m for a year
The government paid a unit of public relations consultants Apco Worldwide a hefty RM77 million for services rendered from July 15, 2009 to June 4, 2010, the Dewan Rakyat was told on Tuesday, April 13.
The sum was revealed by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz in a written reply to Tian Chua (Batu-PKR).
Nazri said the payments to the Apco unit, Syarikat Mind Teams Sdn Bhd, were made for two categories of services — public affairs and government affairs services, and strategic communications, public relations and press outreach.
“For public affairs services, US$640,000 (RM2.07 million) was paid to Mind Teams for services provided between July 15, 2009 and Jan 15, 2010.
“Another US$640,000 were paid for services rendered between January 15, 2010 and July 15, 2010,” said Nazri.
A sum of US$11,853,579 was paid for strategic communications from June 3, 2009 to Dec 2, 2009, he said.
“A further sum of US$11,273,579 was paid for the same services rendered between Dec 3, 2009 to June 4, 2010,” said Nazri.
“They are very old engines… they are not state-of-the-art. So, it is not of strategic asset to the nation. It is not as though they are Sukhoi or F-18 engines.”
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s your prime minister (and defence minister when these “non-strategic” engines were stolen) talking.
The callousness of the statement simply beggars belief. It’s like saying that old fighter jet engines going walkabout from under the RMAF’s noses is about as serious as someone making off with a box of pencils from the Sungai Besi Air Force base.
In that vein, you could also say that the Port Klang Free Zone scandal isn’t really that big a deal. It’s not like the country can’t afford to flush RM12 billion down the drain. We can always shake Petronas down for more loose change.
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That dispute, in turn, has been described by some observers as a sign of political maneuvering, as the governing party struggles to maintain its dominance after setbacks in national and state elections in March 2008.Some political analysts and politicians accuse Prime Minister Najib Razak of raising racial and religious issues as he tries to solidify his Malay base. In a difficult balancing act, he must also woo ethnic Chinese and Indians whose opposition contributed to his party’s setback in 2008.
“The political contestation is a lot more intensified,” said Elizabeth Wong, a state official who is a member of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, an opposition party. “In Malaysia the central theme will always be about the Malay identity and about Islam. The parties come up with various policies or means to attempt to appeal to the Muslim Malay voters.”
Mr. Najib condemned the violence, saying the government would “take whatever steps it can to prevent such acts.”
In an interview, the main opposition figure, Anwar Ibrahim, implied that the government was behind the current tensions. “This is the last hope — to incite racial and religious sentiments to cling to power,” he said. “Immediately since the disastrous defeat in the March 2008 election they have been fanning this.”
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In this atmosphere, there is a danger that the furor over religious language will feed on itself, said Marina Mahathir, daughter of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is a newspaper columnist and social activist.“It’s only a few people who are inflamed about it, while the rest of the country is going on as if normal,” she said in an interview. “But if you keep stoking and if you keep giving these people leeway, sooner or later more and more people will think, ‘Oh, maybe we should be upset as well.’ “
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Continue reading ‘Churches Attacked Amid Furor in Malaysia – NY Times’
It Happened Under Your Watch, Najib!
Bakri Musa
10 January, 2010“Don’t point the fingers at UMNO or anyone else,” so declared an angry Najib Razak, responding to a question on last Friday’s bombing of a church. It was pathetic to see him react thus, a body language that bespoke of a sinister kid whose bag of malicious tricks finally exploded in his face.
Najib would like us to believe that those acts of arson were spontaneous combustion. What a pathetic attempt at extricating himself from the ugly and dangerous mess he helped create! His performance was more to convince himself, for he could not possibly convince us.
Here he was after pouring the gasoline feigning surprise when someone finally lit a match. It was Najib who only the day before the incident declared that “Muslim groups were free to protest and express their views about the ‘Allah’ issue.” Just in case that message did not register, he added that the authorities would not stop groups from gathering at mosques and protesting there. Najib’s cousin and Home Minister, Hishammuddin, echoed the same sentiments.
Obviously somebody took them at their words. It is truly touching to see these two ministers belatedly becoming so protective of citizens’ rights to protest! The pair obviously do not appreciate the subtle but enormous difference between having those rights and the wisdom to exercise them appropriately.
Mea Culpa
10 January, 2010
By Fahri Azzat
A meditation on our culpability as a citizen for the church attack and burnings that started on 8 January 2010.
My initial reaction upon discovering that churches were attacked and burned was to brim with my almost customary outrage and disgust. A house of worship no matter what the religion is entitled to respect and treated as sacred ground, more so by those who do not belong to that religion.
I wrote a piece in that anger and have reproduced it below, just so you can get an idea into my emotional state at the time and contrast it with my present. I blamed the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Inspector General of Police, in short, the usual suspects, for virtually allowing those Islamist zealots to commit those acts of arson and terrorism. I would have posted that piece were it not for a server problem that prevented me from doing so and forced me to sleep. When I woke up and re-read the draft, I felt different. There was a distance between how I felt today and yesterday. It no longer resonated with me. Truth be told, after reading it, I thought it shallow and even a little untruthful.
Yesterday’s (8 January 2010) anger that seized me gave way this morning to a great sadness and pity not just for the church, or even the Prime Minister and his cronies, but for each and every one of us, and so our country. Worse, I actually felt somehow culpable for the church burnings! Why do I, who abhors violence, have nothing to do with the church burnings, and despise the Islamist zealots that did it, still feel responsible?
Though the burning wreck is the handiwork of Islamist zealots, I cannot help but see the fingerprints of our apathy, our greed, our selfishness, our ignorance, our obsession with convenience and ease in there too. What I completely missed earlier now stands so clearly and brightly that I can no longer ignore it.
When we take no interest in the affairs of our country, in our countrymen; when we remain mute and paralyzed in the face of injustice and manifestation of evil; when we fold our arms and pretend helplessness; when we devote our life to the temple of entertainment and self-indulgence; we are responsible.
We are responsible because we let them into our lives and letting them govern us. We are responsible when we vote them in or couldn’t be bothered to vote them out. As much as our present leaders are to blame on a political, societal and operational level, we are equally blameworthy on a spiritual and morally culpable level. The truth is we, as citizens, have failed ourselves and our country as surely as we have appointed leaders destined to disappoint and fail us and our country; men like the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.
Our Failings
9 January, 2010
By Art Harun
The failings of the political Malay are discovered in the burning ashes of the churches attacked in Kuala Lumpur.
“And as the flames climbed high into the night; To light the sacrifical rite; I saw Satan laughing with delight; The day the music died.”
American Pie -Don McLean
And so, this is what has become of us. A nation where the music has long since died.
We have banished our conscience at the foot of political expediency. We have long since been only moved to claim what is ours, or what we believe to be ours, and ours alone. We have long since been only moved to protect our rights or what we believe to be our rights.
We have been indoctrinated to think and we do think that everything in this land has a proprietary right attached to it. And we draw a line. These are mine. Those are yours. And into my area you should not encroach. We are like wild dogs pissing everywhere to mark our territory.
We have also been taught to differentiate our fellow human beings based on the colour of their skin. And the faith we bear. And the language we speak. And we now believe that only us and us alone are right. Everybody else is wrong. And we also now believe that only us and us alone matter. Everything, everyone else does not.
Soon we realise that we even have to own our race and the colour of our skin. We also have to own our language. That is sacrosanct. It cannot be Bahasa Malaysia nor Bahasa Kebangsaan. It has to be Bahasa Melayu. Because that is us. Because that language belongs to us. That is ours. We must possess it. We must not let it go. And we piss and piss drawing lines to mark our territory. While others have gone to the moon and back.
Now we own our faith. And our God. We now piss all over to mark and re-mark our territory, again and again. And again, that this is our territory. Ours. Mine. Not yours. And don’t you dare encroach into my area. Because you have no right over what is mine. You had better get away from it.
We have locked away our capacity to engage and to argue in a locker room somewhere between Putrajaya and KLCC. We have thrown away the keys. We have deleted civility, good manners and human decency from our hard disk.
WE HAVE our own Tiger scandal. Of all the bizarre things that have been stolen anywhere, anytime, any place, that of two F5 Tiger fighter aircraft engines worth RM100mil from our air force must rank as among the top of the list.
That hefty pieces of equipment can be quietly squirreled out of a high security Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base and taken all the way to Argentina complete with documentation is a major embarrassment to the country.
More importantly, it is a serious security breach which is no laughing matter, although the event has considerable satirical possibilities and gives weight to that old saying that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
It takes the spirit of “Malaysia Boleh” to new astronomical heights but for totally the wrong reasons. If only this spirit of ingenuity, innovation and cunning were used for all the right reasons, we would have achieved high-income status a long time ago.
Instead, those engaged in such nefarious and illegal activities seem to be the ones moving up the precarious high-income ladder at a rapid pace, leaving the rest of us gawking up in utter amazement at the means that they have employed to get there.
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Continue reading ‘Jet Engines – Truth is stranger than fiction’
