Mahathir is a fine one for talking

Raja Sara Petra

Reading Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s blog posting today is like reading ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’. I just could not believe Mahathir would have the audacity to say what he said. The gall of that old man accusing Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak of doing what Mahathir himself made a living of doing.

I was still in primary school back then but I remember very well one night when both my father and mother did not come home. The next day I found out they had been arrested for ‘illegal assembly’. ‘Illegal assembly’ is what they charge you for when you oppose Mahathir. Actually, my father was arrested for walking into the police station to look for my mother. So he was not really guilty of illegal assembly.

The OCPD of that police station, Bakri Zinin, saw my father and charged at him shouting and screaming. He then hit my father, who fell down. Bakri asked his police officer to arrest and handcuff my father and when my father asked, “under what charge”, Bakri replied, “we will think of something.”

The next day the police raided our house and confiscated my father’s computer, documents and files to look for ‘evidence’ with which to charge him with. They finally used the ‘evidence’ they found to detain my father without trial under the ISA in April 2001. Needless to say, they raided our house and confiscated whatever they found without any search warrant.

That may have happened 16 years ago but when you are in primary school there are some things you just never forget till the day you die. And what Mahathir did to those who oppose him is definitely something I will never forget.