Chow Kon Yeow: 曹观友

After a serious of violent crimes in Johor Baru, community leaders there are calling for a 100,000 signatures campaign to get the government to resolve crime and restore a sense of security to the people.

This morning, Penang DAP leaders held a press conference to highlight the problem. Chong Eng, who is a vocal spokesperson on crime and security in Parliament, called on Prime Minister to establish the IPCMC to address the various concerns of the people when dealing with the police.

I quoted the Royal Commission report which showed that 86 percent of the respondents from all races are extremely worried about crime happening in their neighbourhood. In fact we read about crime happening every day in the newspaper.

I also took the statistics from the Royal Police website to illustrate our concern that it is no longer safe in Malaysia.

The people are facing a double jeopardy. First the crime rate has increased by over 12 percent but the success rate in resolving crime reported has dropped by a whopping 12 percent at 36.8 percent. This is way below the international average of about 48 percent.

The past few years PDRM had managed to achieve about 48 percent in resolving crimes reported. I am not happy with this success rate. It means 52 percent of the crimes are not solved and the victims of such crimes have to suffer in vain.

But whenever I raised this matter in Parliament, the then Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar would justified that our success rate is on par with international standard and there should not be a matter of concern. This is rubbish as thousands would feel disappointed that the culprits who robbed, raped, stole and made crimes are left scot-free. (Well, recently Noh’s brother was charged for drug trafficking at the Kota Kinabalu Airport)

I told the Malayiakini reporter that the country needed a full-time Minister to tackle crimes. And Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is too busy as Prime Minister, Finance Minister and the CEO of the country to tackle crimes as well as the Internal Security Minister. Pak Lah should resign as Internal Security Minister if he is unable to fight crimes and restore peace and stability in the country. A full-time Minister must be appointed to fight crime and fight it fast.

It is indeed heartening to read in The Star the promise made by the Seberang Prai Tengah OCPD Assistant Commission Mohd Anil Shah Abdullah of his pledge to tackle the annoying Mat Rempit problem in the state.

Here is what he had said: “I will make sure that the Mat Rempit menace is eradicated from my district.”
He followed up by reassuring that the police would continue with operations to keep these Mat Rempit in check.
Mohd Anil made the pledge following the arrest of an unemployed 20-year-old youth who had on April 1 allegedly hurled a brick at a traffic cop, causing the latter to suffer face and ear injuries and fractured his left collar bone and left palm.
Hats off to Mohd Anil for taking the initiative to personally look into the Mat Rempit problem which has been going on for some time.
Now, what about the other four OCPDs in the State? Are they going to follow suit to clamp down on these unruly motorcyclists who have even gone a step ahead from indulging in illegal motor racing to intimidating and robbing motorists?
As MP of Tanjong, I do received lots of complaints of these Mat Rempit racing all over George Town in the wee hours of the morning with their deafening modified motorcycles.
Surprisingly, there is a deafening silence from the siren of the patrol cars whom we expect to chase after them.
I am sure the police would have gathered enough information from their intelligence as to where the Mat Rempit congregate and when do they rendezvous and if so why aren’t the patrol cars despatched there to do curb?
If Mohd Anil can openly promise to eradicate the Mat Rempit in his district, it is only proper that the other four OCPDs do likewise in their respective district.

“Bruised and scarred” screamed the Page 2 headline on the Star on Monday 7 November 2005. The report continues:

“Her face, chest and back appeared to have been scalded by boiling water.

There was a cut on her hand while her arms and legs were patterned with bruises and scars.

Tan Sing Nee, nine years old, was found wandering alone in Pekan Tikam Batu by a trader at 9pm on Saturday.

The Year Two pupil, who was shabbily dressed, complained she was hungry as she had not eaten that day.

The police detained her parents, a 45-year-old businessman and his 35-year-old wife (step-mother), the same night.

Kuala Muda OCPD ACP Law Hong Soon said police were now investigating the case under the Child Act 2001.

An offender could be fined up to RM20, 000 or jailed not more than 10 years, or both.”

The above child abuse case happened seven months ago. One would have expected the police to charge the father and maybe the stepmother of Sing Nee. But that was not the case.

Last Saturday, Madam Loh, the natural mother of Sing Nee came to seek my assistance. She cried that the police have not charge the suspects yet and she was given the runabout whenever she contacted the police, welfare department and hospital for information.

Madam Loh poured out her anger at a Press Conference.

The journalists were very sympathetic and took a keen interest on the well-being of Sing Nee. When the case was reported last November, many offered to adopt the girl and sent wishes to the adorable girl.

After the Press Conference, a few reporters called ACP Law Hong Soon for an update of the case.

When I read his reply the following day, I was aghast.

He said that the police have not received the medical report from the hospital and therefore they have not continued with the case.

His reply infuriated me as this is nonsensical. Did the police even bother to go after the hospital for the reports?
It is this type of attitude that make people angry with the performance of the police.

According to police statistics, PDRM is able to resolve 48 percent of all cases and they are very happy about the success rate in closing cases and bringing them to court.

But what about the 52 percent of unresolved cases which run into thousands of cases each year.

Clearly in Sing Nee’s case, the police could do a better job to mete out justice.

Thank you Rais Yatim for honouring your pledge to arrange for MPs a special preview of “Lelaki Komunis Terakhir”.

Rais had promised last Thursday in Parliament that he would invite MPs to view the documentary film to see for themselves whether the banned film is inappropriate for Malaysians.

Rais had said: “We should not comment on the movie if we haven’t seen it. How can you say that the movie promotes Chin Peng and causes security concerns if you haven’t seen it?”

The invitation came by Poslaju this morning. The preview is to be held on Sunday, 21 May 2006 at FINAS complex in Jalan Hulu Klang, Ampang at 3.30pm.

Did you invite the reporter from Berita Harian to come along, Dr Rais?

The film’s writer and director Amir Muhammad had said that reports in Berita Harian might have influenced the authorities to ban his movie.

The film was earlier passed uncut by the National Film Censorship Board and had even been viewed by the Special Branch.

I didn’t know the perk of an MP included free filmshow but Dr. Rais must make sure security is good. We do not want the film preview to be hijacked by groups who go berserk at the mention of Chin Peng.

TRUTH: Women are raped everyday in this country

Speech by DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Tanjong Chow Kon Yeow when debating the second supplementary budget at Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, 4 May 2006
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The Police announced the Crime Index for the months of January and March 2006 and it is worrying 56,116 criminal cases were recorded in just three months.

There were 12,210 cases of violent crimes, 36,960 cases of property crime (including 14,937 cases of snatch theft), 1,731 commercial crime and 5,215 narcotics crime.

It is alarming to note that 586 cases of rape and 478 cases of outrage of modesty have been recorded in this period.

This works out to 6.5 cases of rape and 5.3 cases of outrage of modesty every day!

Rape cases have increased from an average of 4 cases daily a few years ago to 6.5 cases daily now.

According to women NGOs, for every case of reported rape, there could be 4 cases that are not reported.

The high number of snatch theft (with many victims losing their lives) has instilled a sense of fear and lack of security among the citizens and tourists.

We can no longer feel safe in our towns and cities, women and men, young and old, regardless of our class or creed.

We call for better policing to keep our environment free from crimes.

Speech by DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Tanjong Chow Kon Yeow when debating the second supplementary budget at Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, 4 May 2006
Call for special intake programme to increase Chinese representation in the Police Force
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The government has been propagating that Chinese are not interested to join the police force because of brighter prospects in other fields.

I think this is a myth.
According to the Police Force Commission yearly reports, close to a thousand Chinese men and women applied to join the police force yearly, either as cadet ASP, Probation Inspector or Constables.

For the period of 2002 to 2004, a total of 1564 Chinese applied to join as cadet ASP and Probation Inspector. But only 157 of them were called for interviews and of these 56 were appointed. This works out to be a low 3.5 percent of the total number f applicants.

It was slightly better in the Constable category when 230 (15.5%) of the 1481 Chinese applicants were appointed to join the force.

Obviously, it is not true that Chinese are not interested to join the police force. Despite the low number of Chinese applicants as compared to other ethnic groups, a rather low number of them were eventually appointed.

We need a Malaysian’s police force and there should be a special programme to increase the number of Chinese officers and rank and file.

The Parliament’s Human Rights Caucus invited the Royal Police Commissioners for a dialogue lunch with MPs at Parliament today.

Before the function, I asked Datuk Nazri whether the lunch is a farewell lunch for our Royal Commissioners in view of the objection to the formation of the IPCMC.

UMNO MPs who are not normally interested in the affairs of the Caucus, came in full force with the intention to bash our Royal Commissioners. There were not enough seats and two additional tables were set up hurriedly to accomodate all the MPs.

The Royal Commissioners were led by Tun Mohamed Haniff and others who came included Dato Kadir Jasin, Ivy Josiah, Dr Denison Jayasooria and Dato Micheal Yeoh (ASLI).

Tun Haniff gave a short address on the job of the Royal Commission and why IPCMC was proposed to be established.Kadir followed by recounting his few encounters with Pak Lah on the formation of the Royal Commission.

When the session was opened for questions from the floor, the infamous MP for Jerai came out to make remarks in support of the police and he took the Royal Commission to task for targeting the police and further questioned whether the Commission was professional enough in discharging their duties. He even asked what Tun Haniff had done during his tenure as the IGP.

In an immediate response, Tun Haniff said “what is there to be done when there was no problem then, when I was the IGP a discliplinary committe was set up but when I resigned, my successors did not continued with the internal control mechanism. That’s why we need the IPCMC so that it would become a permanent feature to check on the police…”

Dr Denison (MIC) then refuted Jerai’s suggestion that the Commission did not do a professional job. Dr Denison went on a lecture on the methodology and the feedbacks from the public and the field trips toAustralia, New Zealand, England and Hong Kong and his remark was reassuring that the IPCMC is for the good of the country.

Next UMNO MP for Jasin echoed Jerai’s opposition to the IPCMC. He asked why the police was targetted when in actual fact, agencies like JPJ, Immigration and Custom were found to be more prone to corrupt practices. He asserted that the powers of Parliament would be usurped and why should all the 125 recommendations of the Royal Commission be accepted in total.

Kadir said earlier that the Commission’s report would be damning. His reply was equally damning. He said it is up to Parliament to legislate the IPCMC and questioned why should MPs give away their powers to legislate on the IPCMC to check on the police.

Ivy Josiah then made a damning concluding remarks on behalf of the Royal Commissioners. “We are not only targetting the police, we agree that other departments have their share of problems, but our mandate is to look into the police force. Furthermore the police is the most important agency, it even look after other agencies and have the power to put away people for a few years..”

Other MPs who spoke included Dr Tan Seng Giaw and Dato Halim from the Opposition, who spoke for IPCMC and Ombudsman. The suspended UMNO MP for Kota Baru Zaid Ibrahim also called for more openness to the Royal Commission’s recommendations.

At the end of the luncheon, I felt the Royal Commissioners have done a good job demolishing the arguments of the vocal objections of UMNO MPs.

Kadir said earlier that he had asked the Prime Minister whether the latter was serious in reforming the police and Pak Lah replied firmly : “I am serious”.

I really hope so. Please give him the strength to do what is good for the country.