police abuse abundant

the hotest topic now on everybody’s lips, is of course about the ‘squatgate scandal’ – the video clip of a young naked lady doing the ear squat. hmm… squatgate eh? i suppose this name was creatively thought of by politics101, obviously influenced by the infamous watergate scandal? lots of posts regarding the squatgate scandal can be found no his blog, and also of course at the blogs of lim kit siang and teresa kok.

i’m sure you had already read of news and blog posts here and there, like the IGP saying strip search is routine, the police prefer to go after the one who took the video, lawyers saying strip search is illegal, an independant commission to investigate the scandal being set up and so on.

the latest news we heard now is that the young lady is not a chinese national, as everyone seemed to think but a local drug suspect.

well, whoever she is, nothing changes – the fact that she shouldn’t be humiliated such remains.

if you read politics101’s blog, you will realise that after this squatgate scandal surfaced, many other people had come forward to spill the beans that they had been abused too like the claim by some chinese tourists that they had been abused by officers from the penang immigration officers. they were forced to imitate dogs and frogs, made to jump on sharp stones for 1/2 hour and get this… eat rice with maggots! eek!!

then we had one norazimah mohd nor claiming she had been forced to strip and… worst than ear squat – to do push-ups… 5 years ago! can you imagine that? surprise? shocked? nah, sadly not at all. when this squatgate scandal was exposed, some of my friends said they were shocked but i said “aiya, biasa saja lah. this happened before… only not reported or not blown up like this time.” just think of irene fernandez. she reported abuse in the detention camp, but sadly she was charged instead. earlier we also heard of a transexual reporting how he… er… she… he… was abused.
(picture taken from rivertext)

i understand that in some cases, the police have to use force but they shouldn’t go overboard. in some instances, although a suspect may look obviously guilty or he may be very fierce or wild, still that should not give the police license to abused them. oh… but someone had said that the police are licensed gangsters (while the gangsters are unlicensed police??). i guess this, sadly, tells that the police are ‘power happy’… you know, like when we said ‘trigger happy’ one goes round shooting everybody in sight, when they are ‘power happy’ means they feel the are licensed with power, so happily, they go around abusing or terrorising suspects. it’s like part of their job.

eerie. scary.
picture taken from the commentator jm.