Yesterday, the Sun reported that the ‘five lawyers and 14 others arrested on May 7 for allegedly taking part in an illegal assembly outside the Brickfields police station are unlikely to face charges. Their police bail expired today and in keeping with an earlier instruction, they had turned up at the station to see whether the bail would be extended or they would be charged. However, they were told instead to go home’.
This is our Malaysian police force. When it suits them, they just arrest you on some trumped up charge, detain you at their leisure before finally releasing you. Then when found out, pretend to be magnanimous as if you were wrong in the first place. This has Kafka written all over it.
So what was that screaming, rolling of gates and arrests and detention all about? And was there any need to detain any more longer than to fingerprint, photograph and record their statements which can all be done rather quickly if they wanted to and thereafer released. After all, what was there to investigate? But no, this was to teach those lawyers a lesson. I wonder how this is in keeping with our police force’s supposed ‘Berkhidmat Mesra’ Program or Friendly Policing Program?
In summary, this program is supposed to encourage a harmonious interaction between individuals based on sincerity and honesty. The word ‘Mesra’ itself means all thought and action should be humanitarian in character. In the context of the police force, it means its interactions between the police force and its ‘pelanggan’ (i.e. customers), the public (this is a loose translation from the website).
When I read the write ups about the police force, its vision, its mission, their code of conduct, etc. on the website and then consider the reality, I have the strange feeling as if the website is referring to some other police force instead of ours, its declaration notwithstanding. I wonder whether Mr. Head Hunter knows of such a program.
And if the lawyers remain not charged for their so called illegal assembly, it becomes even more obvious that the entire incident was an abuse of power by the police. But then does anybody expect anything less from our police force?
Fahri Azzat practices the dark arts of the law. Although he enjoys writing and reading, he doesn't enjoy writing his own little biographies of himself. Like this one. He wished somebody else would do it for him. He has little taste in writing about himself in third person. He feels weird doing it. But the part he finds most tedious is having to pad up the lack of his accomplishments, or share some interesting facts about his rather uneventful life, as if there were some who found that oh-so-interesting; as if he were some famous person, like Michael Jackson. When he writes these biographies, the thought, 'Wei, Jangan Perasaan- ah!' lights up in his head. So he usually just lists what he got involved with, positions he held and blah, blah. But this time. Right here. Right this very moment. Uhuh. This one. This one right here. He's finally telling it like it is.
Posted on 23 May 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
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