The Honeymoon’s Over
By Hakim Joe
With the passing of the first 100 days of Najib’s Administration, the honeymoon is really over, for the Opposition party members, that is. Now it seems that the kids’ gloves are off, either that or his incompetence is really showing and his lack of control of the party apparatus is overtly evident.
For Teoh Beng Hock, Najib’s ineptitude can never be justified nor rectified ever again because he is no longer with us. Why must Teoh make the ultimate sacrifice just because the government sees fit to enlist former cops to man this new agency? Corruption was, and still is a crime that does not merit the death penalty, especially when Teoh is merely assisting in MACC’s investigations and not even considered a suspect.
Is it therefore standard procedure for MACC to apprehend and interrogate all the people they consider capable of assisting the agency in their investigations? If they can sentence a non-suspect to death, what will they do the real criminal who admits his or her crime voluntarily (without hardship persuasion)? Death for the entire family?
Instead of having just one single enforcement agency causing custodial deaths, now we have two. Might as well start building the ovens now because the new apartheid/Nazi laws will be implemented soon enough. The public’s confidence in the PDRM is already at an all time low and yet we must now suffer MACC’s judge-jury-executioner actions as well. What is next? Death squads to collect water and electricity bills? Death penalty for illegal parking?
When one is found guilty of a crime like drug trafficking and first degree murder and sentenced to death, there is the full course of law to ensure that the execution is performed in accordance to the law after all avenues of appeals have been exhausted. This is usually by hanging. Now we have a new type of execution method but without ensuring that the full course of law has been observed.
When Black South Africans accidentally kept falling off the windows from tall buildings, the Special Squad always has a ready answer, none of this “Gua Tak Tahu” business. Regardless of the fact that these Black South Africans kept falling from the windows of the security agency buildings (and practically nowhere else), at least they kept issuing standard responses to the public instead of saying that they don’t know. Another standard response was to say that the suspect was killed while attempting to escape. Let’s hope this does not happen here.
First political death in the country during Najib’s Administration and it does not bode well for all Malaysians as it has just been 100 days. TDM used the ISA to incarcerate his enemies but they walked out from Kamunting alive. Will Najib take it a step further?
