Teresa Kok

by Martin Jalleh
29 December 2005

One does not need to be a seasoned or sharp politician to spot the naked reality that little has changed in this country in spite of the PM’s constant chant of change. The charade of change can be easily seen by the naked eye.

Since the last general elections Pak Lah has been ‘squatting” rather contentedly on his laurels. On several occasions he has been caught exposing his glaring political impotence when decisive and daring action was demanded.

With each passing day, the veneer of a government supposedly different from the last is slowly stripped away. Even the blind can see the facade. The Squatgate scandal reveals in dramatic fashion the naked truth that its time for Pak Lah to stop talking and start baring his teeth.

The expose is nothing new. There are many who have had to suffer the same or even worse trauma in silence. But the scandal is pregnant with ironies. It is actually the absolute lack of integrity of the Royal Malaysian Police that has been left stark naked.

Equally ironic is the fact that it took a video clip of several seconds captured by a policeman in a police station (!) to highlight, both locally and internationally, the long history of bullying and brutality by many of our men and women in blue.

Tragic is the bare fact that the government’s initial strong and swift response to Squatgate had everything to do with tourism and little with human rights. Equally tragic is that an independent inquiry had to be set up to ascertain the nationality of the victim!

Can anything be more tragic than UMNO’s desperate ‘heroes’, who were very silent initially, blaming Teresa Kok and Lim Kit Siang for ‘shaming the country’ and ‘encouraging voyeurism’ when the bare bones of the issue is the long arm of the law getting out of hand?

Doctors have poked holes at the police’s argument that the act of squatting is capable of dislodging any hidden foreign objects inside body orifices. A medical doctor wrote to Malaysiakini arguing that the testimony at a Squatgate hearing given by a doctor supporting the police’s view simply does not hold.

Some feel Squatgate has its roots in the severe and savage beating up of a blindfolded and handcuffed Anwar Ibrahim by former IGP Tan Sri Rahim Noor in the police sanctuary of Bukit Aman in a “straightforward case of unprovoked assault”.

Yet, as suggested above, there have been countless personal testimonies (especially by former ISA detainees) on the disgraceful, disgusting, despicable, degrading and dehumanizing treatment of detainees by the police, long before the infamous 1998 police black eye episode.

Police Business as Usual

The initial police response to Squatgate came through Deputy IGP Musa Hassan who insisted that the policewoman in Squatgate was merely carrying out a ‘routine check’ and that it is ‘the perpetrator behind the video footage whom we (the police) are after’.

It clearly contradicted the stance taken by the PM and DPM. And there was no remorse for this, as one of his police officers would even testify later at a hearing of the independent inquiry on Squatgate that ear squats is a ‘heritage and tradition’!

(The Royal Commission on the Police had opined that making a woman strip and perform deep squats whilst holding her ears tantamount to a breach of police regulation. But no one had an ear for such truths.)

Who is Musa that he could even dare to turn a deaf ear and openly defy the top brass in Bolehland? He is the very same man who had to rewrite twice a sodomy charge against Anwar Ibrahim after the latter’s defence team had pointed out that the building where the crime allegedly took place was not even up at the time!

He is also the very same man who had seized a supposedly semen- stained mattress, sent it to be examined in a police laboratory and dramatically carted it to court for several days to prove that Anwar had taken part in illegal sex. When the ‘stain’ on Anwar failed to stick, the prosecution changed the sodomy to a corruption charge!

All the major players in the Anwar Ibrahim trials have been rewarded with some of the highest positions in the land. For Musa it is only a matter of time when he becomes the nation’s top cop. His response to Squatgate could be a preview of how things are going to be when he takes over.

Naked questions

Squatgate has also opened wide the gate to many naked questions like: ‘Who is telling the truth?’ ‘Who is in charge in this country?’, ‘Who is running this country?’ and ‘Does the PM know what is going on?’

Pak Lah has ‘squatted’ on his promise to implement the 125 recommendations of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police, made seven months ago.

He has failed to implement the Commission’s call for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) which would have served as a deterrent to incidences such as Squatgate.

His ministers and deputy ministers stammered, stuttered and stumbled over their very own statements and that of each other on Squategate. The message changed considerably as it went down the chain of command.

After protecting himself with layers and layers of excuses and incoherent explanations Home Minister Azmi Khalid found Squatgate too hot to handle. The poor man developed a high fever and cold feet and could not hold a supposedly tell-all press conference.

The response of Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar to Squatgate revealed how wet behind the ears the deputy minister was! First he jumped on the bandwagon of public outrage, then he absolved the police—based on their own findings. To those not satisfied with the police procedures, he said they were ‘welcome to sue the police or the government’.

Next he declared that foreigners could go home if they think Malaysia is a cruel country. Then he denied saying it and blamed the press for misinterpreting him. A replay of his press conference led to a reproach from the PM, and finally a public apology from the deputy minister!

Accused by Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang of showing utter contempt for Parliament by withholding the nationality of the victim, Noh claimed that he had no prior knowledge about the identity of the victim in the nude video clip and that he had read it in the newspapers.

Noh’s explanation was a big no-no. It contradicted his earlier revelation that he had received a full report from the police on the incident four days after the clip was exposed. He also contradicted the statements of his peer, Deputy Internal Security Minister Chia Kwang Chye.

It is indeed difficult to believe that Noh was not in the know considering a lance corporal’s testimony at a hearing of the independent inquiry that he was informed of the woman’s identity in June ‘three months’ before Theresa Kok had showed the clip in Parliament!

Further, the police could immediately and confidently identify the police station where the incident took place. Surely they had all the details of the woman too. Finally, the fact that they could call the woman to the independent inquiry places the noose around Noh’s credibility.

DPM Najib Abdul Razak had claimed that both he and Pak Lah did not know the actual identity of the woman. If this was true, why were they not informed? Was the woman’s identity withheld because of the Dec 6 by-election in Pengkalan Pasir, Kelantan?

The PM had said that there should be no cover-up at all. Yet the public perception is that his government is not baring the truth. His response that if the police had revealed the victim’s identity, the public would not have believed them is unbelievable. Please tell us the truth, PM.

With the revelation that the victim is a local Malay woman, UMNO has sent in their Disaster Assistance and Rescue Troupe (DART) consisting of a few sedated senators and MPs who often squat around in Parliament with their theatrics. They have put up a desperate act of denial, diversion and damage control.

Squatgate more than adds on to the growing body of evidence of the degrading treatment and abuse of women (and men) in police custody and the failure of Pak Lah to act. It further confirms the police’s growing abuse of power with impunity.

The Police Royal Commission Report so rightly points out that there is a growing concern around the world over the ‘culture of impunity’ within police forces and PDRM is not exempted. It warns that ‘A culture of impunity feeds on itself.’

The police has through the last 24 years become so much part of a political system which has spawned an unbridled arrogance and abuse of power, injustice and corruption, which is largely due to UMNO-BN hegemony. Like their political masters, they do what they like. The brute force of the police is very connected with the brute majority of the BN in parliament.

To expect the police to change without a corresponding change in political culture would be mere wishful-thinking. To a certain extent each of us is responsible for Squatgate. The rakyat has an indispensable role to play to ensure necessary checks and balances are brought back into our democratic system. One clear avenue is through the ballot box.

Sadly, the naked truth is that the public furore over Squatgate will soon fizzle out. People will forget very fast. They will slip back into their fantasy world and comfort zones…till the next scandal and royal commission of inquiry…

But may we be consoled that there are those who are bold and brave enough to speak out and uphold the truth, no matter what the circumstance may be. We see this in Teresa Kok, and as we come to a near end of the Year of the Cockerel, surely many citizens of Bolehland will not hesitate to vote her ‘Woman of the Year’!