In a league of banana republics

The retrogressive PCA Bill has put us in a position where people run the risk of being detained without trial and where our society will never be at peace with itself.

COMMENT

By Kua Kia Soong

The amendments to the Prevention of Crime Act (PCA) which allows detention without trial is symptomatic of a failed transformation programme by the Najib government to bring the country into the league of nations that follow the rule of law.

No other country that espouses adherence to democracy and human rights uses detention without trial laws to tackle crime.

The reasons why this situation has come about and why the government has been helpless in implementing the Independent Police Complaints & Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) perhaps point to more sinister factors involving skeletons in government leaders’ cupboards.

And the reason why organised crime has become so intractable in recent years points to rotten apples in the police barrel.

We have had some hints of that recently. You will remember that after he retired, the former IGP Musa Hassan had revealed political influences on the police force to release certain individuals. This IGP’s former aide de camp, Noor Azizul Rahim in turn retaliated by accusing Musa of wrongdoings and silencing critics.

I can’t think of any other reasons for the impunity enjoyed by the police despite the annual human rights violations relating to detentions without trial, deaths in police custody and deaths through police shootings. After all, the IPCMC was one of the recommendations by the Royal Commission on the Police in 2005.

Suaram’s Human Rights Report 2012 show that deaths in police custody and deaths through police shootings continue unabated: Deaths in police custody cases show 7 in 2010, 25 in 2011 and 9 in 2012; deaths through police shooting cases show 18 in 2010, 25 in 2011 and 37 in 2012.

Between 2000 and 2012, there were in total 209 deaths in police custody cases; between 2007 and 2012, there were 298 deaths through police shootings.

Tackling the problem of crime

The government and the police with the assistance of the mainstream media have recently made a big play of the proliferation of gangs and gangsters inflicted crimes in the country, blaming it on the repeal of the Emergency Ordinance (EO) which was intended for emergency purposes to save the life of a nation.

Unfortunately, the EO was a convenient way for the police to rope in anyone they didn’t like. This included respected members of parliament like Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, the MP for Sungai Siput, who was detained without trial with five other PSM leaders in 2011 as well as suspected thiefs and illegal lottery runners.

The government, police and the mainstream press have not asked the pertinent question: how did cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore and others tackle their triad problems without relying on detention without trial?

We have a Societies Act that is obsessed with cracking down on any organisation that is not pro-BN and that is why Suaram chose to register under the Registrar of Companies.

In places like Hong Kong, their Societies Ordinance and an Organized & Serious Crimes Ordinance have been specifically enacted to tackle the triad problem. The former outlaws triads in Hong Kong and imposes stiff prison terms and penalties for any person convicted of professing or claiming to be an office bearer or managing or assisting in the management of a triad.

Hong Kong also established an Independent Commission against Corruption in 1974. The agency targeted brazen corruption within police ranks linked with triads, provided heavier penalties for organized crime activities and authorized the courts to confiscate the proceeds of such crimes.

Hong Kong, as a British Colony, had the reputation of being one of the most corrupt cities in the world with a cosy association between law enforcement agencies and organized crime syndicates.

Nearly all types of organized crimes, vice, gambling and drugs, were protected. Within three years, they had smashed all corruption syndicates in the government and prosecuted 247 government officers, including 143 police officers.

Their success has been attributed to: (i) having an independent anti-corruption agency, free from any interference in conducting their investigation; (ii) strong financial support; (iii) having wide investigative powers, empowered to investigate all crimes which are connected with corruption but with an elaborate check and balance system to prevent abuse of such wide power; (iv) being highly professional in investigations, including video recording of all interviews of suspects; (v) a strategy that includes prevention and education.

Although Hong Kong is not totally free of violent crime, it is a comparatively safe place to live in. Comparable communities in developed Asia, like Japan, Korea and Singapore, also have markedly lower crime rates than most Western societies. (South China Morning Post, Feb 22, 2013)

Failure to solve poverty

Social dislocation, inequality and poverty are known factors in crime.

The destruction of the rubber plantation communities, growing inequality and marginalisation through racial discrimination has driven many into crime.

Poverty and crime are clearly feeding on each other, and the government has to make this a priority in its professed transformation plan.

They should not be indulging in their usual wasteful exploits of spying on dissidents, harassing NGOs, detaining dissidents without trial, breaking up peaceful assemblies and such distractions from the serious work of tackling organised crime.

This retrogressive PCA Bill has put us in the league of banana republics in which people run the risk of being detained without trial and where our society will never be at peace with itself.

Kua Kia Soong is Suaram’s advisor.