by Lim Guan Eng
I do not know Teoh Beng Hock.
But now every Malaysian who reads will know who is Teoh Beng Hock – his open pleasant face, his distraught fiancé and his twisted body lying grotesquely on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) building imprinted indelibly in our minds.
I vaguely remembered meeting him once. He was one of the many idealistic, bright and young Malaysians who joined the DAP after the political tsunami on 8 March 2008 that transformed our political landscape.
Teoh wanted to participate in the flowering of democracy and forge the real changes that promised equal opportunity, good governance and justice. Teoh wanted to be part of this amazing transformation shaping his country and future. He wanted to serve the public, through his position as a personal assistant to a Selangor State EXCO member.
This wish to serve has tragically cost Teoh his life, taking him away from his loved ones. Denying his parents of a son, his fiancé of her husband and his unborn child of a father.
Teoh is not the only one. Before him there were many others, Indians Malays and Chinese but he was the first DAP member to die so cruelly.
I am still in a state of shock and am terribly upset at the MACC for allowing this to happen when Teoh was under their custody. Much as we know the evil that lurks within our security agencies, we are still shocked at such acts of depravity. Whilst the many officers are decent human beings, it is always the few criminal elements that shatter any belief that our security forces can protect us or genuinely fight corruption.
We can ask the police why they are wasting public resources to arresting PR leaders and members but not focusing their energies on criminals threatening our safety. We can ask the MACC why they are interrogating hapless personal assistants over a few thousand ringgit for 11 hours till 3.45 am(who are not even suspects) but not applying the same harsh approach on those named in the RM 12.5 billion Port Klang Free Trade Zone scandal. We can also ask why the police and MACC allow themselves to be used as political weapons of BN.
But I choose to ask what wrong has Teoh done to deserve this? He did not steal or kill, he was only trying to do his job to serve and change Malaysia.
Which is perhaps why I cry but there are no tears!
Nothing said or done would ever wipe out the tears of Teoh’s loved ones. But if there is one duty we can do is to stop the deaths. To make sure that there are no more bright, young and idealistic Malaysians like Teoh dying in the hands of police or MACC.
This is one duty that all Malaysians whether fathers or mothers, sons or daughters must undertake. That we must clean up the police force and the MACC to make Malaysia safe for our children.
I still see Teoh’s crooked body lying there so helplessly in the MACC building. Like all Malaysians, we feel sad that we got to know Teoh Beng Hock after his death. But the memory of his ultimate sacrifice shall reside in our minds for the rest of our lives. And his dreams of a better Malaysia shall live in our hearts as long as we breathe.
Teoh Beng Hock Rest In Peace!
#1 by SpeakUp on Sunday, 19 July 2009 - 7:47 pm
Onlooker … maybe the press sec. was rushing, that poor girl is always busy la. :)
#2 by limkamput on Sunday, 19 July 2009 - 8:06 pm
Conditional statements? goodness me, i am really talking with a group of phua tang sai here. I suggest you check with any textbook on English grammar, ok?
Onlooker politics, I suggest you join MCA or Gerakan. I think they write good English. Owah, so enriching, I notice the word “it” which you have just added after your broken English was pointed out earlier. How long did you take to write your last posting? I am sure you have repeatedly checked and checked again, am i right?
#3 by OrangRojak on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 12:34 am
When you start cleaning, is it possible to outlaw ‘plain clothes policemen’ used for crowd control? They appear to be indistinguishable from hooligans. See 1:12 in this video of arrests outside the MACC offices:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAxeFy2NA4
Is that someone standing on a woman lying on the ground?
They’re not police officers, they are idiots enjoying the opportunity to assault someone and get away with it.
#4 by StevePCH on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 12:40 am
YAB Lim …. to clean up the Police and MACC ? maybe we need to sack 95% of the force.
#5 by House Victim on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 1:45 am
The Rots of the Police and MACC are because of the Rots in the Constitution, the Laws, the Politicians, the Systems and those in Power!
The Rot started long time ago with the loss of Ethnics!
Can you ask the Police when can they finish the Investigation on the Cheating and Assaulting Case of a Penang Lawyer onto his clients since April 2008?
PK Government should at least be able to collect ALL the Complaints and continuously Pressing the Police and MACC for pending Complaints!
Otherwise WHO and WHAT are we going to Clean?
#6 by Callum on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 7:16 am
What do u expect from their investigations ? Before they announced their investigations, we already knew the answers. It will be the same as Kugan case. I can bet my life savings on this.
#7 by SpeakUp on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 8:59 am
Callum … another Kugan in the making. Investigations are carried out dilligently but then dead end. Mysterious circumstances. Sigh …
#8 by Onlooker Politics on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 9:29 am
“Onlooker politics, I suggest you join MCA or Gerakan. I think they write good English.” (limkamput)
limkamput,
Thank you for telling me that you are the agent for MCA or Gerakan. I did sometimes read articles contributed by writers from MCA or Gerakan. However, I did not usually take their writings too seriously because I always found that there were tragically lack of intellectual substance in those writings!
“How long did you take to write your last posting? I am sure you have repeatedly checked and checked again, am i right?” (limkamput)
limkamput,
There was sometimes no chance for me to check on my writing in this blog because I couldn’t get to see the blogpage. This blogsite had been exposed to high risk of international cyberattack recently. YB Kit should explore the possibility of migrating the blog server location to a much nearer neighbouring such as Singapore.
#9 by Onlooker Politics on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 9:31 am
This blogsite had been exposed to high risk of international cyberattack recently. YB Kit should explore the possibility of migrating the blog server location to a much nearer neighbouring COUNTRY such as Singapore.
#10 by OrangRojak on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 10:05 am
Onlooker Politics – I see LKS has been tweeting that his blog has been hacked recently. I have often found the site inaccessible. It seems to me that the problem is coincident with times of great political interest. ‘Cyber warriors’ or ‘Idiots with nothing better to do’ – whatever you want to call them – need good access too. The more efficient the access to the site, the easier it is to hack.
Given the noted coincidence, it is my strong suspicion that LKS’ server (hardware or server) is simply incapable of coping at times of high load. If LKS were to have a week of Azly Rahman articles, I would expect his site to enjoy its tip-top performance.
The blogging platforms (like WordPress) rely heavily on dynamically-generated content, requiring great resources at the server. I’d be interested to know what fraction of a server LKS uses at SliceHost. There are things that can be done to WordPress to greatly reduce its dynamic demand, but they are by no means straightforward.
I could be wrong – it would be interesting to hear what LKS’ admin has to say about the issue. Whatever the problem is, it would be good to solve it, as LKS blog has been less reliable recently than some sites in gov.my – and that really is saying something.
#11 by Onlooker Politics on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 10:15 am
“Given the noted coincidence, it is my strong suspicion that LKS’ server (hardware or server) is simply incapable of coping at times of high load.” (OrangRojak)
OrangRojak,
This is a highly possible reason of the server down problem of LKS blogsite. Recently this blogsite changed to use bigger fonts, which may take up more megabits of the data throughput.
LKS’s admin also has to make sure that he/she never shares a same web server with other clients of the web server operator. It may be too costly to hire a web server by LKS himself but it will efficiently cut down the server downtime, which could be caused by cyberattack being done on another website which shares the same web server computer as LKS.
#12 by Callum on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 10:29 am
This has been going on for far too long. The MACC acts like God. They kidnap families and torture those they arrest. They threaten those they interrogate with death if they refuse to talk.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The writing was already on the wall very much earlier. Alarm bells were wailing like banshees. But this was largely ignored. It was ignored because it was Malaysia Today that had triggered the alarm bells. Malaysia Today is not the most reliable source. It does not offer the best of information. What Malaysia Today dabbles in are rumours and innuendoes.
When the Anti-Corruption Agency, now called the MACC, kidnapped the family of a police inspector, Malaysia Today raised the alarm. They had kidnapped the wife and child of a police inspector who had investigated a Chinese underworld boss on the instructions of a higher-up with the rank of ASP.
The inspector was just doing what his boss had ordered him to do, and that was to open a file and launch an investigation into the activities of the Chinese prostitution, loan shark, drugs and gambling syndicate. And this resulted in the detention of three syndicate bosses.
What the MACC wanted the police inspector to do was quite simple. They wanted him to change his report so that the three underworld bosses can be freed from detention. And he would have to do that if he wants to secure the release of his family.
The police inspector refused to do that. Instead, he made a police report. And so did his wife. But nothing was done about the matter. The MACC officers were not arrested and dragged to court on kidnapping charges.
The MACC then leaked information to the media that they are investigating a very senior police officer, the Director of the CCD, for the crime of not declaring RM27 million worth of assets. The fact that MACC investigations come under the Official Secrets Act was not a hindrance. After all, the OSA is only used against opposition supporters and not against those who serve those who walk in the corridors of power.
Nevertheless, the Director of the CCD was finally not charged for not declaring RM27 million in assets. He was charged for using police property for his personal reasons, something that all government officers, ministers and politicians do blatantly every day of the week. But his real crime is that he detained several Chinese underworld bosses who control the prostitution, loan shark, drugs and gambling business all over Malaysia.
Then they arrested the lawyer who acted for the CCD Director. The MACC officers came to his office on the eve of Hari Raya and handcuffed him after roughing him up like one would do to an armed bank robber. To ensure that the lawyer suffered the greatest embarrassment this Hollywood-style arrest was done in full view of the entire office.
Malaysia Today wrote about all this. Malaysia Today not only wrote about all this but Malaysia Today repeated the stories again and again to make sure no one would say they somehow missed the story. But still nothing was done. No one denied the story. More importantly, no one did anything about what Malaysia Today revealed.
The MACC has been a tool of those who walk in the corridors of power for a long, long time. Officially, Barisan Nasional has 14 component members with Umno as the lead partner. Unofficially, Barisan Nasional has seventeen component members. The Election Commission is the fifteenth component member of Barisan Nasional, the Malaysian police the sixteenth, and the MACC the seventeenth. They all serve the interests of Umno and the Prime Minister.
The writing was already on the wall very much earlier. Alarm bells were wailing like banshees. But this was largely ignored. It was ignored because it was Malaysia Today that had triggered the alarm bells. Malaysia Today is not the most reliable source. It does not offer the best of information. What Malaysia Today dabbles in are rumours and innuendoes.
“Where is the smoking gun?” they ask. “Show me the body!” they demand. No gun, no body, then no crime has been committed.
Well, today, there is a body. It is the body of a most unfortunate Chinese opposition member who was arrested and tortured by the MACC officers. Yes, he was tortured. And he was tortured because the MACC wanted him to talk.
But he could not talk. He could not talk because there was nothing to talk about. The MACC wanted him to finger his comrades in the opposition. They wanted him to implicate his friends in the opposition for various crimes that the MACC alleges had been committed by those in the opposition.
He tried to explain that he is not being stubborn. He tried to explain that no crime had been committed. He tried to explain that he could not possibly implicate his comrades in the opposition for various crimes if these crimes are merely a figment of the MACC’s imagination.
So they continued to torture him. And he could no longer stand the torture. After all, he is not the macho type of man. He is but a gentle man who only wanted to get married this weekend. That was all that he wanted.
They threatened to kill him if he refuses to talk. With tears running down his cheeks he begged for mercy and pleaded with them not to harm him. They threatened to throw him off the top floor if he refuses to talk. Sobbing like a baby he went down on his knees and begged for his life.
They dragged him across the room and opened the window. Then something went terribly wrong. It was supposed to be just a threat. They just wanted to put fear in him. They did not really want to throw him off the top floor. They just wanted him to see what the ground floor looks like from the top floor.
The unfortunate young man panicked. He went ballistic when he saw the distance he would have to travel before hitting the ground floor. He struggled. They could not hold onto him. Gravity took over and the life of this young man was prematurely snuffed out.
The MACC then announced that they had released him the night before. They failed to announce that they had not released him from custody but released him from this world. Then they suddenly found his body the day after. He jumped. He committed suicide. He took his own life. He was never tortured. He was not dragged to the window with the threat that they would teach him how to fly.
This has been going on for far too long. The MACC acts like God. They kidnap families and torture those they arrest. They threaten those they interrogate with death if they refuse to talk.
And now one young man has really died. But no one will be punished. No one will be punished because they will say the young man took his own life. Why he took his own life no one knows. He was never tortured. He was never threatened with death. He was not made to look how far down the ground floor is. He was not accidentally dropped when he panicked and struggled and they could not get a good grip on him.
That is what they will be telling you and me later today.
#13 by Loh on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 10:55 am
MACC chief said that the death of Teoh Beng Hock was not his responsibility. He was wrong firstly because TBH was in MACC custody, and as head of MACC, he is responsible for actions of his staff for not having ensured that people walk and could also walk out of MACC.
It MACC had acted professionally in fighting corruption it would have given priority to investigate cases based on severity of corrupt practice primarily based on the quantum involved. The persons who investigate on the case where the late TBH was summoned as witness will have to await the conclusion on how Khir Toyo was able to afford a home valued at RM 25 million with salary of MB for a decade. Also Khir Toyo claimed that the house was valued at RM 3.5 which would represent what he had to pay. How was it possible for housing developer to subsidize the balance? Had there been a payment in kind made by Khir Toyo as MB of Selangor to somebody who eventually foots the bill on the balance of value of the house?
The appropriation of funds on state allocation in Selangor government has attracted attention of MACC not because MACC was interested to pursue its mandate to wipe out corruption. It is to harass Pakatan Rakyat government. Had the MACC chief took his responsibility professionally, the investigation of the current case would be of the lowest priority. If the late TBH was not called as witness, he is still alive today. MACC chief cannot shirk his responsibly. Let his conscience pricks him, if he has any.
#14 by Callum on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 11:03 am
Assume TBH is convicted, but the amount so such trivial (few thousands only), does this warrant him to commit suicide ???? Only idiots believe.
#15 by OrangRojak on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 11:14 am
by Onlooker Politics: bigger fonts, which may take up more megabits of the data throughput.
Are you pulling my leg?! The content and style of text on webpages are defined separately. The text remains the same, but the site suggests to your browser what font and what size to display the text in. The instructions for exactly how to draw the different fonts (such as Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman etc) are stored on your computer, usually coming packaged with your operating system.
The site only ‘suggests’ which fonts to use because different computers may have different fonts installed. Your browser tries to match the locally installed fonts with the suggestions from the site and uses the best compromise (or exact match, if you’re lucky). The text is ‘rendered’ by looking up the drawing instruction for each character in turn and drawing it with curved lines (a square array of on-or-off dots in the bad old days, remember?)
LKS’ blog uses the very common UTF-8 character encoding (use ‘curl –head’, or ‘Tools..Page Info’ in something like Firefox), which means most of the Latin characters take 8 bits (one byte) to store. ‘Funny’ characters (like 汉字) may take 2 to 4 bytes each. The font suggestion can be changed on the server without touching the text itself.
The amount of data transferred remains the same. Rendering fonts is quite hard work for your own computer, so larger, more complex fonts will be slower (but not usually enough to notice) to render by your CPU, but won’t have any effect at all on LKS’ server.
I’m sorry if you were pulling my leg – I have fallen for it completely.
#16 by Onlooker Politics on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 12:29 pm
“I’m sorry if you were pulling my leg – I have fallen for it completely.” (OrangRojak)
Sorry, I may feed you with some wrong information in the previous comment.
What I actually mean is that the graphics-based presentation takes up much more megabits than the text-based presentation in this blogsite!
#17 by limkamput on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 1:24 pm
However, I did not usually take their writings too seriously because I always found that there were tragically lack of intellectual substance in those writings!
Let me rewrite for you:
However, I did not usually take their writings too seriously because I always found that they tragically lack intellectual substance!
Hope you know the difference between there and they!
#18 by OrangRojak on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 1:29 pm
graphics-based presentation
Well, LKS’ admin hasn’t done a bad job in this respect. If your browser supports it, you can right-click on one of the images that makes up the page’s design (such as the grey header) and ‘View Image’ or ‘View Background Image’. When your browser loads that image, you’ll see it’s stored on another server, not LKS’ server at all!
Of course, you’re right for those of us at home! Some of the recent changes means that a fresh download of an LKS blog page is over 600KB of data (check it by saving a ‘complete’ copy of the page and looking at the folder your browser creates to store the accessory files). That’s a quarter of a minute when my Streamyx connection is working properly, or 2 or 3 minutes on a normal day!
You can get some idea of how loaded LKS’ blog is by looking at the source of a page from his site (right click in the blank space on one of his pages and ‘View Source’). Near the bottom of the code is a comment that tells you how many queries (are these DB queries?) and how much time the server needed to build the page. LKS pages take about half a second in the early morning (3-4am), but often take 10-20 seconds during the day and over 30 queries. The queries seem a little high, but 10-20 seconds to build a page is terrible – an enthusiastic visitor might click ‘refresh’ more frequently than that!
I still think the problem is the server unable to cope with demand in times of excitement because all the pages are dynamically built. I think if the admins search Google for “wordpress cache”, they’ll find something in there to massively reduce the work the server has to do. Of course, I could be completely wrong – all I know is that the site is dead and there are very few clues…
#19 by iamkkk on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 1:56 pm
Before a regime going to collapse, it will act and behave disorderly. It is what happenning now in 1Malaysia. Let’s purnish them “kow kow” on the next GE.
#20 by Woof on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 8:07 pm
Teoh was seen by another DAP witness walking and looking tired and dazed. Which could only mean he already left the custody of his interrogators.
How then could MACC be responsible?? Don’t misunderstand. I’d like to make them responsible as much as anyone else.
The MACC head is responsible for the conduct of his officers so long as what they are doing is in the course of their employment. Just what is ‘in the course of employment’?
Baby face Teoh appears to fit the profile of someone who is law abiding, kind and gentle soul but also the kind of person school yard bullies would love to toy with. It is possible that his interrogators themselves having been forced to work that late and for such long hours that they took it out on him after work. It went too far and Teoh fell. Somehow.
However preposterous that may appear to many, it has to be investigated.
#21 by Woof on Monday, 20 July 2009 - 8:18 pm
However, everything that is being said and has been said and will continue to be said about our law enforcement agencies and deaths under mysterious circumstances is true. This has to be stopped. Somehow.
#22 by House Victim on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 - 12:00 am
I had came across a posting in this Blog to draw our attention that there is no blood shade around Beng Hock body.
Should a live person falling from 14th floor down without blood shade?