A legacy of justice for Aminulrasyid, Kugan, Teoh
By Pak Bui
Aminulrasyid Amzah, Kugan Ananthan and Teoh Beng Hock are grim reminders that violence against ordinary Malaysians, by enforcement organs of a brutal and power-hungry government, knows no race.
This is 1 Malaysia.
The question remains: how are we to stop state-sanctioned violence against our citizens? Is our current response adequate? Is an ad hoc review of the shooting, and perhaps of the police firearms standard operating procedure, by a “special panel” of the Great and the Good, headed by deputy home minister Abu Seman Yusop, enough?
It is painfully clear that the panel may not be so Great, and the panelists are unlikely to be particularly Good, at finding and implementing solutions to the dozens of fatal police shootings each year. The panel is nothing more than a half-hearted attempt to respond to public anger, expressed by Malays and non-Malays alike, after the boy Aminulrasyid’s life was snuffed out.
Former Bar Council president Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari has described the home ministry’s “special panel” as a whitewash. So far, the panel has only declared there were “inconsistencies” between the evidence and witness statements.
“The people are concerned the panel chaired by the Abu Seman will not actually address the issue or may hide some findings,” Kuthubul said. He urged the government to implement an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).
The IPCMC is long overdue, but it is hardly enough. This is because the police brutality we keep witnessing is only a symptom of a government’s malaise, and not the cause.
What is the cause? The Umno government has set the police against the community, to shore up its sliding popular support. Umno politicians have used the police as strongmen, and as enforcers, to clamp down on political dissent, from any ethnic group. The police have been most obliging, by beating demonstrators, by helping to unseat the Perak government, and by harassing Pakatan Rakyat elected representatives.
As a result, many members of the police force have come to consider themselves untouchable. Umno demonstrated this by giving kid-gloves treatment to the woeful but emblematic Inspector-General Musa Hassan, when he threatened to pull police off the streets following condemnation of Amirulrasyid’s killing.
Even attack dogs need a handler.
