Are our leaders out of their minds?

Federal Internal Security and Public Order director Datuk Saleh Mat Rasid hit a raw nerve yesterday when he said that the army will help the police, if necessary, at the Black 505 rally tomorrow.

He was roundly criticised and rightly so.

Use the army against unarmed Malaysians at a rally? Unbelievable!

These are just people fighting for what they believe is right. They are not the Sulu terrorists and this is not Ops Daulat II.

So what exactly is it that anybody thinks the police cannot handle?

There have been about a dozen protest rallies since the May 5 polls and not one turned violent or chaotic.

Why? One reason is that the police allowed the protestors time and space to do their thing.

But it also says something about the true nature of us Malaysians. We are not a violent or mean nation.

Members of the public are no longer perturbed about these rallies.

They know tomorrow’s will end peacefully if the police restrict their duties to traffic control and ensure smooth passage into Padang Merbok.

There is already a track record on this. Look at what happened at the Kelana Jaya stadium on May 8.
More than 100,000 protestors turned up and the only problem reported was traffic congestion.

It was the same at the other rallies across the country.

So, if the protestors are willing to brave the haze and heat tomorrow to voice their grievances in a peaceful manner, why the need for the authorities to talk so tough?

There is no need to turn this into some acid test for the new IGP or undermine public confidence in the police further by talking army. Let’s keep the peace.

[Source: The MI]

By saying that the army would be put on standby,  Datuk Saleh Mat Rasid has finally admitted to the fact that the PDRM is simply one incompetent lot, or are they?

Dharmendran's death made world news

Double standards and more double standards

By now, the above picture has gone viral on the internet showing 19-year Ong Sing Yee being led away in handcuffs at the Johore Bahru Central police station, for allegedly stamping on the pictures of Najib and Rosmah.  However, the point here is not whether Miss Ong was guilty of the act or otherwise, but the question on everyone's mind is, were the handcuffs necessary.  After all, she gave herself up and I doubt she had any intention of making a quick getaway after presenting herself to the police.  The picture of her being handcuffed will certainly be etched in the minds of many people for some time to come as it sent out the wrong message of the might of the PDRM [read UMNO] vs a helpless teenager, and for this mis-step, it will further erode UMNO's vote bank in the coming GE, as people will start to compare why no actions were taken against the culprits who committed similar offence or worse.

No handcuffs for Ling Liong Sik?

No handcuffs for Mohamed Salleh Ismail [husband of Sharizat]?

No handcuffs for Khir Toyo?




It's a NO-NO stepping on Najib's photos, but it is okay if they are Lim Guan Eng's

Urinating on Opposition leaders, an acceptable act?

More acts of urinating on Opposition leaders

Even a spritual and revered leader like Tok Guru was not spared from UMNO's urine

Tearing away the picture of Koh Tsu Koon, and still he continues to be associated with these hooligans.

This is not OK but ......

This is OK?

A funeral ceremony for Lim Guan Eng

Strange as it may seems, the police do not seem bothered looking for these people who committed these uncoathed acts.  When it involves other members of the rakyat, the police will always end up issuing a statements that "they are looking for so and so ....." and that they know who the culprits are from the photos posted on the internet and the msm.  Why don't they do the same with those from UMNO and PERKASA?

See the contrasting treatment here

It was almost laughable when I read that they initially wanted to charge Miss Ong under the Sedition Act.  The question that came to my mind was, was she a threat to national security?  Her act may seem distasteful and could only be considered a misdemeanour.  For this, they wanted to apply the Sedition Act?  It really tanatamounts to using a sledgehammer on a fly.  If the Sedition Act needs to be applied, then they should have looked into the following case involving UMNO members.

 

 

The above two pictures are clear indications of a seditious act when they called a royalty 'animal'. Now I wonder which is more serious, stamping on the pictures of Najib/Rosmah or calling the royalty 'animal'

The (in)justice meted out to ordinary citizens have become blatantly clear that there are two sets of rules.  One for BN and the other, for non-BN.

 

Ms Ong Sing Yee may not know it yet, but this pint sized teenager could probably be the one to finally topple the BN government come GE13. 

Do you think the BN government is going to act on the Suhakam report?

The panel is headed by Suhakam vice-chairperson Khaw Lake Tee (above) and assisted by commissioners Detta Samen and Mahmood Zuhdi A Majid.

Bersih staging a coup? Come on, IGP, you can't be serious?

When I first read the news report of Mahathir's claim that the recent Bersih 3.0 rally was meant to topple the government, I dismissed it as another one of his 'senilic' remarks and decided not to dignify it with a response.  But when three former IGPs jumped onto the bandwagon, singing in harmony the same song, now this is something else.  What is even more amusing is, our current IGP now wants an investigation on a possible coup d'tat by the organisers. Do the pictures below even remotely resemble a coup?

When an IGP doesn't think intelligently, it breeds down, and no wonder.

"Peace, brother"

Flowers from a pretty lass

Beauty and the beasts?

Hungry 'coup' members taking time off for lunch

Members of the coup in wheel chair??

"Now I know how a mat rempit feels"

"Sorry, no coup today.  We are simply too tired to stage one"

"Do we look like some devious coup plotters?"

Look who is talking

This is Dato Salleh Mat Rasid, Internal Security and Public Order Director, who on March 23 2012, said that online social network sites such as FaceBook and Twitter are a threat to national security.  See news report here. The irony is that he is also a FaceBook 'kaki' himself. So for someone who is supposed to safeguard the nation's security is himself a threat? Hmmmm.

You can view Dato Salleh's FaceBook page here.

Eve, the Snake and the Apple

It is totally unbelievable.  Suddenly the forgotten people like the Chinese and the Indians are given so much of attention by UMNO and PERKASA.  Chinese schools are now getting allocations like never before, not in thousands, but in millions of ringgit and so are the Tamil schools.  Even MIC have been instructed by the PM to focus on improving the standards and well being of the Tamil schools. A hard core racist like Ibrahim Ali suddenly found affinity with the Chinese old folks.  "Ang Pow" gifts of RM500 via BR1M are handed out to qualified recipients.  Believe it or not, UMNO care for the Chinese and Indians after all.  The big question is, why only now when the GE is so close?  I can only take it as vote buying, and UMNO have cleverly packaged them in all type of forms without making it look all that obvious.


At the end of it all, the people have to take cognizance of such tactics.  Remember what happened to Adam and Eve.  The devil tempted Eve with an apple telling her she would be "like God, knowing good and evil" [Genesis 3:4-6].  One bite and that's it.  We, the human race, suffered as a consequent.  For Malaysians, the "apples" have already been given out.  The day when you cast your votes, i.e. bite the apple, will  see whether we have to suffer another five more years of sinful rule.  We need to exorcise the evil spirits from the body of this nation by voting out the BN.

V calls out to fellow Malaysians

PDRM, why have you forsaken us?

The image of our men in blue has certainly taken a good bashing following the bashing they gave to Bersih 2.0 protesters on July 9 2011. Even long before this event, things were not going right with the PDRM especially with the increase of custodial deaths as well the increase in crime rate which they look so helpless to contain. The excuse given was, it was only due to a few 'rotten apples' that are giving the force a bad name. Then by logic, isn't it easier then to remove these 'few rotten apples' before it tarnishes the entire force? Why was it not done? The public faith is almost down to zero and unless something is drastically done, the PDRM will end up to be nothing more than a bunch of uniformed thugs.

Perhaps we could take a leaf out of the 'Robocop' movies and have our police personnel all re-program to think like our titanium armored hero. In view of their limited education [some of them], we can give them three simple directives to enable them to carry out their duties efficiently ...

1. Serve the public trust.

2. Protect the innocent.

3. Uphold the law [certainly not UMNO's law].

I believe this should solve the problem. If this doesn't work, God help us all.

PSM6 released and given hero's welcome

Some 250 people gathered at the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall last night to give a hero's welcome to the PSM 6 who were released after 28 days of detention under the Emergency Ordinance (EO).

If this is not brutality, then what is?

Taking a leaf from the Judgment at Nuremberg, "just following orders, don't fly".

The police may say they were merely following orders. Most importantly, the Nuremberg Principles drafted by America and its Allies firmly established that for all nations, whether they became signatories to the Principles or no, there is no excusing of war crimes or crimes against humanity by claims of 'just following orders,' or by virtue of being a government official, or by claims of not knowing that their conduct was a war crime, or of not being capable of stopping such crimes. No such excuses are allowed under international law.

I do hope such principles can also be applied during peace time demonstrations against governments who continuously flout the ethics of good governance. The demonstrators were not terrorists bearing arms to overthrow a government. They just want to march to the Merdeka Stadium. Why couldn't the police allow them that grace? Just following orders? The way the police behaved as though they were on a war footing.

The proof is here - Tung Shin Hospital sprayed and tear gassed

Police shot tear gas and sprayed water from water cannons into the compound of the Tung Shin Hospital along Jalan Pudu, according to two of its staff, in order to disperse the crowd from the Bersih 2.0 rally yesterday.

One of the staff who is in charge of ambulance management, said that the police fired tear gas three times. He added the spray from the water cannons was unable to reach the main hospital, but hit a building in the compound.

The middle-aged man who wanted to remain anonymous, said that the police started firing tear gas towards a group of people who gathered in front of the Chinese medicine hospital and the male staff hostel which are located beside the main building.

The police then broke into the compound and start arresting people, while some of the protesters successfully fled to the small hill beside Tung Shin Hospital to avoid arrest, he said when interviewed byMalaysiakini.

Police denial

The inspector-general of police Ismail Omar and Kuala Lumpur acting police chief Amar Singh, have denied that the riot police fired tear gas into the premises of Tung Shin hospital.

However,Malaysiakini has received many photos from the public showing the police spraying water and shooting tear gas shells into the compound, to rebut the claims of the police.

The Tung Shin staff member said that the protesters were cornered by the Federal Reserve Unit who sealed off both ends of the road.

He said they were forced to flee into Tung Shin hospital because they were unable to get into the Plaza Rakyat abandoned project site which is right opposite the hospital.

He thought that the police could have done better to avoid the hospital getting involved.

"If the police could drive out the crowd from Masjid Jamek to the hospital, they could also drive out them further away. There's no need to for the hospital to be involved in a siege. But they left the crowd no choice, but to head for the hospital," he added.

He stressed that although there were more than 500 people at the scene, they behaved well without being noisy or destroying anything.

"They know this is a hospital, hence their actions were very respectful in order to let the hospital can operate as usual.

"There was some chaos when the police start firing tear gas. They hid inside the hospital, and waited quietly until the gas was gone," he added.

One of the ambulance drivers of the hospital also said that the crowd behaved peacefully in front of the hospital, but many of them rushed into the toilet to wash their faces in order to ease the pain of the tear gas.

He said that the hospital didn't suffer any losses and the incident didn't cause any impact to the patients.

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Kuala Lumpur acting police chief Amar Singh today denied claims that riot police fired tear gas into the compound of the Tung Shin Hospital along Jalan Pudu, despite evidence indicating otherwise.

He also defended his officers' actions in employing "reasonable force" to disperse the protestors assembled there, saying that the crowd had provoked the police and were "not very friendly".

"... there was no tear gas thrown. I saw the whole incident, I was there," he said at a press conference at the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.

Claims have been rife on social networking sites with eyewitnesses and opposition party members posting numerous pictures and videos of riot police allegedly firing tear gas and a water cannon into the compound of the private hospital.

At least several hundred protesters were there seeking refuge.

When asked if the police are aware of the mounting photographic and video evidence backing the claims, Amar appeared taken aback and only responded by saying that he will "check and see".

He repeated that tear gas was not used in the alleged assault on protesters in Tung Sin, but said he could not remember whether or not water cannon (above) was used.

Amar claimed that the protesters had provoked the police into taking action, including throwing objects at officers who were on duty.

“I believe you saw the crowd, you saw the people reacting there, and police had to use reasonable force, to apprehend these people.

“The crowd was not very friendly, either, the crowd was aggressive, so we had to use reasonable force to make arrest and the like... To disperse the crowd, we had to use whatever means that we had.

“You must have been there yesterday, you would have seen the crowd provoking the police, and some of them actually throwing items at the police, you saw it yesterday clearly yourself,” he told journalists.

When asked to clarify what he meant by “reasonable force”, Amar said it is no different from inspector general of police Ismail Omar's statement that the police had used “minimal force” to disperse the protesters.

“Our job as police (is) when there is a gathering, we disperse the gathering,” he said.

'Detainees well treated'

Amar also swatted aside claims that the 1,697 detainees were ill-treated while being held at three separate locations last night, stating that preparations were made to make sure each and every detainee was comfortable.

“We set up tents for them, we prepared a buffet for them, they had enough space to pray, there were sufficient toilets... we spent RM25 on food for each detainee. That is far better than the rations my men were getting,” he said.

The city's top cop also pointed out that the majority of the detainees were released unconditionally, with only a small but unspecified number released on bail after processing at three separate locations – the police training centre (Pulapol), the Cheras FRU centre and the Jinjang police station.

“The last person was released at around 11.30pm. It was very fast and I'm very happy it did not last too long.”

Amar urged protesters and detainees who have any complaints of alleged police brutality or abuse to lodge reports with the police.

“If there are any complaints of abuse, bring it to us and we will investigate it,” he said.

[Source: Mkini]

IGP said only 6,000 turned up. You be the judge

THERE ARE 19 POSTINGS ON THE JULY 9 EVENT. PLEASE VISIT THE ARCHIVES ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF MY BLOG TO VIEW THEM.

IGP said only 6,000 supporters showed up for the BERSIH rally. Does this look like 6,000 to you?

Honouring those who braved the odds and those who fell, but soldiered on.

THERE ARE 19 POSTINGS ON THE JULY 9 EVENT. PLEASE VISIT THE ARCHIVES ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF MY BLOG TO VIEW THEM.

The Day I Was Tear-gassed by Vernon Kedit

FOR MY JULY 9 POSTINGS, PLEASE REFER TO THE ARCHIVES

Even as I write this, the after-effects of being exposed to tear gas earlier today are still lingering; a throbbing headache and slight nausea. Yes, I sucked on rock salts to neutralise the tear gas, I covered my face with a wet towel and I wore a mask. But being a 'virgin activist', it was all a very real shock for me and more so to my system.

We began the day by assembling at the entrance to Petaling Street around 11.30am. Huge crowds were already gathering and soon enough, the signal came for us to begin marching.

The Sarawak contingent was led by YB Baru Bian and YB See Chew How. The pictures below were taken at the start of the march, around 1pm.

We marched peacefully and chanted "Bersih! Bersih! Hidup Bersih!". We reached the junction in front of Menara Maybank, where we were joined by throngs of people coming from Bukit Bintang on the right.

As these pictures incontrovertibly reveal, the streets of KL were NOT quiet as suggested by the state-controlled mainstream media. In our vicinity at Puduraya alone, I estimate at least 10,000 people. Nevertheless, the mood was joyous yet orderly. Marshals were posted at various points to keep the crowd moving at a steady pace. It really was very safe and almost carnival-like. There were even tourists joining us and cheering us along. It also began to drizzle lightly.

Minutes after I took these pictures, the horror began.

The police began shooting water cannons. People began to move away from the police line, but it was still orderly as the marshals began re-routing us. And then suddenly canisters of tear gas began flying through the air. That was when all hell broke loose. People began running. As the canisters were shot from way up front, I didn't think they would reach us. So we stood our ground and tried to take pictures of the flying canisters. Then suddenly one canister flew right over our heads and landed just a few feet from where we were standing. That was when we began to run. But it was too late.

Paul Bian had already taken out his towel and soaked it in water and wrapped it around his face. Lynette and I were just too shell-shocked by the whole spectacle. Baru was busy trying to organise everyone. So we just ran! The gas got into our eyes and into our noses. We made a mad dash for the ramp leading down to the basement of Puduraya Station, the closest escape route we could see. It was frightening! I reached for my left pocket and fumbled for the packet of rock salts Lynette had distributed earlier in the day and popped a few stubs into my mouth. Big mistake! More gas got into my lungs. Panic had set in and all we could think of was just getting away from the tear gas. I managed to cover my face with a towel. All this while running! As we reached the ramp, another canister fell right in front of us! We just ran right through the toxic smog which was thick and horrible. Just horrible! I kept pouring water over my face with one hand while the other hand was desperately trying to shield my nose from the noxious fumes as I put on and adjusted my face mask.

When we finally got to the safety of the basement, we were coughing our lungs out! Breathing was difficult and for a moment there I thought I was going to suffocate to death! Our eyes were stinging and it felt like someone was spraying acid into our eyes! My nose was runny and my mind was racing! What if they shot more canisters down the ramp into the basement? What if the exit was blocked and more canisters were on their way from the other side?

Finally, after about 15 minutes, the panic had dissipated and we settled down to take stock of the situation. YB See Chee How and several others had been separated from us in the chaos. Now the Sarawak contingent was well and truly dispersed all over the place.

All around us, people were helping one another and offering rock salts and mineral water bottles. It was amazing and heartening to see various races united in one cause and looking out for each other. I tried to tweet but apparently there was no internet connection.

We began to move along with the crowd, and found refuge across the street at Tung Shin Hospital.

Internet connection was restored and so I began tweeting again, and sending bbms. We took more pictures as we rested and planned our next move on how to get to Stadium Merdeka, the rallying point.



I began updating my facebook, and then...



The police began firing tear gas canisters into the grounds of the Tung Shin Hospital! So we ran again!

We came to a dead end, and had to climb over a 12-foot fence into the ground of the Nan Kai Chinese School. Amazingly, no one pushed or shoved. People were orderly and many offered to help others over the high fence. It really was touching to see how a Chinese aunty held out her hand to a Malay boy while an old Malay uncle offered his salts and water to Baru Bian. The rakyat truly came together and showed unity in adversity.

And then my blackberry battery died on me. So I couldn't take pictures or tweet or update facebook or keep track of what was happening elsewhere. We were told that the police had cut off all routes to Stadium Merdeka. Undeterred, we moved with the crowd. We were determined to get to Stadium Merdeka no matter what. So we just followed the flow of the crowd as the marshals directed.

Shortly after 4pm, we were told that the crowd at the Stadium had begun to disperse. We heard of more horror stories at KL Sentral. The marshals said to call it a day. So we decided to return to our hotel.

[Vernon Kedit is the political secretary for PKR Sarawak chief Baru Bian]

FOR MY JULY 9 POSTINGS, PLEASE REFER TO THE ARCHIVES

Some pix taken from Dataran Merdeka