Philosophy Politics Economics |
| There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Utusan Posted: 01 Jul 2013 06:57 PM PDT Rencana Awang Selamat semalam dalam Mingguan Malaysia menuduh bahawa "pemimpin DAP, Tony Pua dalam reaksinya mengeluarkan kenyataan provokatif. Beliau mencadangkan pasar Ramadan turut ditutup kerana didakwanya menyebabkan kesesakan lalu lintas." Awang Selamat menulis bahawa "kenyataan" saya "ternyata menyinggung perasaan umat Islam lebih-lebih lagi menjelang Ramadan. Awang tidak terkejut. DAP memang parti paling rasis dan selalu mencabar kepentingan Islam." Awang Selamat berkata bahawa saya "mengambil mudah kesabaran orang Islam, yang ada batasnya… elok sahaja beliau berhijrah ke Taiwan atau Hong Kong." Ada pepatah orang putih yang berbunyi "there are lies, damned lies and statistics". Saya rasa lebih sesuai jika pepatah tersebut diubah menjadi "there are lies, damned lies and Utusan". Utusan Malaysia merupakan sebuah akhbar tanpa moral, yang lidah bercabang bagai biawak. Terlebih dahulu, saya ingin menyatakan secara terus-terang bahawa saya tidak pernah meminta supaya pasar Ramadan ditutup. Oleh sebab itu, isu "menyinggung perasaan umat Islam" atau "mengambil mudah kesabaran orang Islam" langsung tidak terbangkit. Utusan Malaysia hanya mengemukaan pembohongan dan memutar-belitkan segala kenyataan pemimpin DAP secara 180 darjah, untuk memberikan persepsi palsu bahawa DAP merupakan "parti rasis" yang sentiasa "mencabar kepentingan Islam". Dalam persidangan media di Parlimen pada Rabu, 26hb Jun 2013 minggu lalu bersama Ahli Parlimen Bukit Katil dan Kota Melaka, Shamsul Iskandar dan Sim Tong Him, kami tidak pernah mendesak penutupan pasar Ramadan. Sebaliknya, selain daripada isu Jonker Walk, kami telah membangkitkan isu bahawa kerajaan UMNO Melaka telah mengeluarkan arahan untuk menutup bazaar Ramadan di Taman Cempaka, di kawasan parlimen Bukit Katil. Kami telah membantah tindakan kerajaan UMNO Melaka yang menganiayai lebih daripada 300 penjaja-penjaja di bazaar Ramadan Taman Cempaka yang merupakan antara terbesar dan terpopular di Melaka. Malah lesen-lesen yang telahpun ditawarkan kepada pihak penjaja di sana telah ditarik balik tergesa-gesa. Walaupun kedua-dua pasar Jonker Walk dan bazaar Ramadan Taman Cempaka mempunyai sejarah selama 13 tahun, ia ditutup oleh kerajaan UMNO kerana MCA tewas di Kota Melaka, dan UMNO, yang diwakili oleh bekas Ketua Menteri Melaka, Datuk Seri Ali Rustam tewas di Bukit Katil. Ini merupakan tindakan balas dendam oleh Ketua Menteri Melaka yang baru, Datuk Idris Haron, yang mungkin masih didalangi oleh Datuk Seri Ali Rustam, yang tidak puas hati dengan rakyat yang memberikan sokong kepada Pakatan Rakyat. Sidang media kami pada 26hb Jun jelas menunjukkan bahawa UMNO sendiri yang telah menutup bazaar Ramadan, dan bukannya DAP atau Pakatan Rakyat yang tidak berkuasa berbuat begitu. Saya telah merujuk semula video sidang media hari tersebut dan mencatat perkataan-perkataan yang saya telah sebut, yang telah diputar-belitkan oleh Utusan Malaysia. "Akhir sekali, kalau katakan satu-satu pasar malam, atau pasar tani, atau bazaar Ramadan akan menyebabkan kesesakan lalulintas, maka saya rasa semua pasar-pasar, semua pasar tani di Melaka, di mana-mana negeri pun patut dibatalkan secara langsung. Kenapa tutup saja di Jonker Walk atau di Taman Cempaka? So kita rasa segala tindakan yang diambil oleh kerajaan negeri Melaka adalah tindakan politik yang langsung tidak mengambil kira keperluan rakyat di Malaysia dan hanya mengambil (kira) kepentingan Umno mereka sendiri."Konteks kenyataan saya yang menyoal tindakan kerajaan UMNO Melaka adalah jelas. Hanya yang bodoh, atau yang berniat jahat sengaja memberikan maksud lain kepada apa yang saya sebut. Saya telah menyindir logik Ketua Menteri Melaka yang memberikan alasan tidak wajar bahawa pasar Jonker Walk dan Taman Cempaka ditutup untuk menyelesaikan kesesakan jalanraya. Kami tidak boleh terima alasan tersebut kerana alasan tersebut akan menyebabkan semua pasar malam, pasar tani dan bazaar Ramadan ditutup, dan bukan sahaja di Jonker Walk dan Taman Cempaka. Saya mencabar Utusan Malaysia untuk memperbetulkan tuduhan liar mereka. Saya akan memberikan peluang kepada Utusan untuk menerbitkan berita bahawa sekarang, adalah Ahli Parlimen DAP yang mempertahankan hak orang Islam untuk mengekalkan pasar Ramadan yang selama 13 tahun disambut baik oleh rakyat di Melaka. Saya juga mencabar Utusan untuk membongkarkan kebenaran bahawa yang menutup bazaar Ramadan, "yang menyinggung perasaan umat Islam lebih-lebih lagi menjelang Ramadan" adalah kerajaan UMNO-Barisan Nasional di Melaka. |
| Stop Procrastinating, Reform the Police Posted: 01 Jul 2013 08:59 AM PDT First of all, I would like to express my commiseration to Youth and Sports Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin whose house in Bukit Damansara was burglared in broad daylight over the weekend. My own terrace house had been burglared twice in 2009 and 2010, which was a reason why my family moved into an apartment which has 24 hours security in 2011. No one, whether a Minister, politician, whether from Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional, or any man on the street, should be subjected to the trauma of crime in this country. We are thankful that in this instance, no one was injured in the incident. The above, and many other crime incidents in recent months occuring to VIPS, including family members of other ministers and senior police officers proved that crime is not mere perception in Malaysia. If Minister's and senior police officers are not safe from crime, then how can the ordinary city folks even sleep in peace? Khairy himself has accepted as such in his Facebook comment yesterday evening on the incident. He wrote that "Insiden ini adalah peringatan kepada kita semua bahawa jenayah merupakan masalah serius di negara kita. Masalah ini adalah perkara yang nyata, bukan semata-mata persepsi." The threat of crime has forced the man on the street to take matters into their own hands by setting up "illegal" boom gates and access barriers as well as forking out millions of Ringgit every year to employ security guards to protect themselves. Therefore these acts of barricading their housing estates into war zones are certainly not acts of wanting to "live in exclusivity" as alleged by Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, Member of Parliament for Kota Belud previously in Parliament. There is no question that crime statistics over the past years have been manipulated to give Malaysians a false perception of security. The government claims that street crimes have been reduced by 40% in recent years while the crime index has fallen by 25% from 2007 to 2011. What the government has attempted to hide from Malaysians was that non-index crime index have over the same period increased by a whopping 69%! The most incredulous of the BN Government claims must be that Malaysia is the safest country in Southeast Asia, even safer than Singapore, and some say, Hong Kong and Japan. We must stop lying to ourselves and the Government must start admitting the severity of crime in the country. Only and unless the Government and the police are willing to accept that fact, there will be no sense of urgency among the authorities to make things better. What we will get instead is excuses by the police force and even Pemandu itself, that the repeal of Emergency Ordinance to keep suspects under 2 year detentions have caused an increase in crime. The Malaysian Police must concede that the real reason behind the weaknesses in fighting crime is the sheer misallocation of resources within the force. Over the past 8 years, the criminal investigation department (CID) comprises barely 9% of the police force. In stark contrast, 41% of uniformed police perform management functions, while 31% are tasked with internal security and public order such as the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU), the Light Strike Force as well as the General Operations Force. Even the Special Branch of the police has nearly the same number of personnel as the CID. In fact the Budget figures in 2010 showed that the police produced 733,237 reports and security checks by the Special Branch, but only 211,645 criminal investigation papers. So Special Branch produced more than three times as many reports as the CID. The 2005 Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) Report has recommended about 20,000 uniformed personnel or 22% of the force could be reassigned to go back to active core policing work. Unfortunately this recommendation was never taken seriously by the Home Ministry. The Home Ministry and the Malaysian police must stop giving excuses to the rising spate of crime. It must accept the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry carried out 8 years ago, and implement all the necessary measures to improve the effectiveness and professionalism of the police force. The failure to do so will only see crime persist at high and increasing levels, making Malaysia unsafe not only for its citizens, but also as a conducive country of business and investment. |
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