Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 10:29:55 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, May 20 2009 1:29 am
Subject: M'sian Gov't must do soul-searching over IGP's appoitment
Will Najib removes an idiot IGP who had proven loyalty to him...? :-p
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Gov't must do soul-searching over IGP's appoitment
Frankly Xroy | May 19, 09 4:42pm
I refer to the Malaysiakini report Quit now, lawyers tell IGP, home
minister.
I think it is high time the government seriously considered moving out
the Inspector-General of Police as he seems to have an extremely low
standard of reasoning and this is dangerous for a man who commands
such a high position.
Five lawyers were reported to have been arrested for gathering in
front of the Brickfields police station in Kuala Lumpur to render
legal aid to people who were arrested for during a candlelight vigil
in support of Bersih activist Wong Chin Huat.
In the first place, how was Wong Chin Huat's actions illegal? All he
did was to encourage people to wear black in defiance of the
government's actions. And how is that illegal?
Secondly, how is the holding of a candlelight vigil illegal? It is
done in democracies throughout the world when people show their
concern for a lot of things - worship, mourning and including for the
trampling of the democratic rights of their fellow citizens when they
get arrested for merely saying things that amount to saying boo to a
goose.
So what is the IGP saying? He has to lend more clarity to what he
means. To answer his question, ‘First we should ask these questions,
are lawyers above the law? and the answer is ‘no'.
They aren't and they should be punished even more if they break the
law and the same principle should apply to the IGP and his fellow
policemen as they are the custodians of the law.
Now, what seems to have been done here is that lawyers were arrested
whilst in the process of performing the very task they are bound to do
- defending the defenceless. So how did they break the law?
Isn't arresting them whilst they are trying to perform this duty an
infringement of the basic rights of the persons arrested? A right to
legal aid and the duty of a lawyer to offer his services?
If anyone has broken the law is was the police at the Perak state
secretariat police building the very next day after the courts had
declared Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin the rightful menteri besar of Perak.
He was blocked from entering the premises b y the police. Is that not
breaking the law and if it was, are the IGP and his personnel immune
from action if they commit an offence?
I was ashamed to read that he, the IGP, said, ‘I will not allow
Malaysia to become another Thailand.' Let me remind him that in
Thailand the democratic rights of the people are protected by the
police, the custodians of the law, and that is really wonderful the
people there have the confidence of the police.
In Thailand the people wore yellow, closed down an airport, the police
guarded them, and almost toppled the government in the process.
Then another group wore red, and stopped the meeting of the Asean
heads of State and they too were guarded by the police till they
turned violent. Even after that, the police action was brief and not
excessive.
In Malaysia people got arrested for wearing black, they got arrested
for having breakfast at licenced coffee shops and all this in the name
of democracy?
Surely if there is any ‘soul-searching' to be done, it is for the
government to do over this IGP's appointment. I do not think he has
the capacity to really rationally reason out the issues and this
verdict is from the whole trail of actions he has been taking since
the last general elections.
The Home Minister on the other hand , lacks the experience, and is to
young for such a task.
I shall leave it for the government to assess the situation but
something is really wrong when the police decide that arresting people
they do not like for no apparent wrong is a right they have.
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