— Othman Wahab
The Malaysian Insider
Jul 24, 2011
JULY 24 — Between the reactions of Utusan Malaysia and Datuk Nazri Aziz to the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Teoh Beng Hock’s death, we can draw this common thread: there is no remorse on the part of the government for the loss of life.
Oh sure, Nazri offered his hearfelt apology after the release of the report on Thursday but that was the public relations puff. The hollowness of the apology was laid bare by what he said about Teoh’s “weak character” leading him to commit suicide.
The minister chose to misread the expert testimony by forensic psychiatrist Paul Mullen. Mullen said he did not find anything that would suggest that Teoh was suicidal or predisposed to suicide in custody. So where did Nazri pluck out this stuff about Teoh’s weak character contributing to his “suicide”.
This erroneous statement was in bad faith and calls into question how sincere the government is in offering its apologies to Teoh’s family.
The RCI’s findings on the role of the MACC in heaping unwarranted pressure on Teoh was pretty unequivocal. It is clear that the investigators were bent on getting a result for their superiors (who wanted to please their Umno masters). So they tortured a young man with interrogations tactics that have no place in any organisation.
If there was a villain in this sordid tale, it was certainly the MACC which opened this probe on the flimsiest of pretences and then behaved like thugs.
The RCI recommended for action to be taken against these bullies. But the mediocre Umno operators at Utusan Malaysia chose to absolve the MACC from blame, once again allowing their anti-Chinese bias to boil over by accusing the DAP of wrongdoing.
The Umno operators at Utusan (the people at that establishment are not journalists) also ventured that it was common practice for suicides to happen during interrogations.
Mind you, this is a paper owned by Umno and therefore is the government mouthpiece. It has deliberately misinterpreted the findings of the RCI just like Nazri did.
This is what we are left with in Malaysia, my dear fellow citizens. Lies, lies and more lies. There is no subtlety, their statements are just lies dressed up.
And that editor at The Star wonders why Malaysians are angry. Maybe he no longer cares if he is lied to or talked down to everyday by the government or politicians or government proxies.
But we cannot allow this sorry state of affairs to continue.
#1 by undertaker888 on Monday, 25 July 2011 - 7:48 am
They are sorry all right.
they are sorry they can’t get false testimonies out of tbh n sarbaini.
they are sorry for not able to fool the rakyat after letting the big fishes off.
they are sorry for not wasting more of public funds.
they are sorry for not being successful enough for their political masters.
#2 by k1980 on Monday, 25 July 2011 - 8:22 am
The government is really sorry that Air Asia has moved out.
AirAsia’s decision to move the headquarters is a serious negative propaganda blow for Najib’s 1Malaysia Plan, an intensive effort to lure foreign direct investment to Malaysia.
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3339&Itemid=229
#3 by ktteokt on Monday, 25 July 2011 - 9:25 am
“…..it was common practice for suicides to happen during interrogations”. If that is so, Khir Toyo would have committed suicide a THOUSAND TIMES at MACC office considering the amount of the corruption he was involved in!
#4 by dagen on Monday, 25 July 2011 - 9:35 am
About what k1980 said, Air Asia is owned by the hairy monkey isnt it? That indian fella is only his frontman, I was told. Is this true? If it is then I say umno could now feel for real that the ground under their feet has gone quite quite soft. Umnoputras are shipping out!
Anyway. Well, whatever.
Never mind the people’s fast sliding confidence in them. With might in their palm umno have always been confident of ensuring their own continuity. But I think the soft ground feel is now begining to eat away this all important confidence of theirs. The july 9th rally and the very strong opposition support given by the sarawakians in effect erased away completely ibrahim bin perkasa’s short lived pronouncement of relief on behalf of umno that “the worst is over” after the kerdau and merlimau by-elections. Not only is the fire for change still burning, it is now burning with immensely increased intensity.
It would be fantastic if pakatan won in GE13. It is definitely a winnable battle, in my view. But a lot would depend on whether the battle ground is sufficiently level. Whatever it may be I certainly hope that pakatan could triumph with a decisive margin. Of course we must anticipate a fierce do or die and absolutely dirty counter attack by umno.
Even if pakatan could not unseat umno in GE13, I am quite certain that this time round pakatan would surely match umno (i.e. BN) almost nearly in terms of parliamentary representation. And this I believe would be enough to rock and unsettle umno so badly that the whole party would just capsize and sink.
In other words, pakatan has a large target to aim at. In compasion umno’s target is small. Umno must not only win but also regain (1) the lost 2/3 majority; (2) penang; (3) selangor; and (4) kedah; and retain perak.
So fellas, keep up the pressure. Maybe we can force umno to commit suicide before GE13.