During the weekend, together with Perak DAP State leaders, including Perak DAP State Chairman and State Assemblyman for Sitiawan, Ngeh Koo Ham, DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Ipoh Barat, M. Kula Segaran, DAP Perak State Assemby representatives, Su Keong Siong (Pasir Pinji), Seah Leong Peng (Pasir Bedamar), Keong Meng Seng (Menglembu), Chen Fook Chye (Keranji), Hee Yit Fong (Jlapang), I made a hectic and grueling two-day 14-place whistle-stop campaign of Perak state to launch “Good Cops, Safe Malaysia” as a top campaign theme in the next general election expected to be held within 60 days.
I found great resonance and support from Malaysians regardless of race, religion, gender or age to this campaign theme as it struck a deep chord among all Malaysians who have never felt more unsafe for themselves and their loved ones in the nation’s 50-year history.
All Malaysians and political parties must regard the breakdown of law and order and the endemic crime situation in the country as having reached crisis proportion – where Malaysians have lost the twin fundamental liberties to be free from crime and the fear of crime.
Everyday, Malaysians live in fear about the safety of themselves and their loved ones, whether in the streets, public places or even in the privacy of their homes.
The gravity of the crime and law-and-order crisis in the country was further driven home by the latest crime statistics released by the police on Wednesday, with the Prime Minister and Internal Security Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi confessing that he was “worried” about the rising crime index.
Abdullah pointed out that the number of serious crimes increased by 13.36 per cent nationwide last year, jumping from 44,016 cases in 2006 to 49,897 in 2006, with gang robbery without use of firearms galloping by more than 159 per cent.
Further study of the crime statistics show a very grave picture of the endemic crime and breakdown of law-and-order situation in the country in the four years of Abdullah’s premiership.
Violent Crime
Offences 2003 2007 +/- %
Total 22,790 49,897 27,107 119
Gang 1,920 7,067 5,147 268
Robbery
Without
Firearms
Rape 1,471 3,177 1,706 116
Thus, although serious crimes have shot up by 13.4 per cent last year as compared to the previous year, they have shot up by 119%, with gang robbery without firearms leaping by 268% and rape by 116% in the four years of Abdullah premiership from 2003 to 2007!
In the past four years, the incidence of rape had more than doubled from a daily average of four women raped a day in 2003 to 8.5 cases last year!
It must be regarded as a national scandal and outrage, which is totally unacceptable by all Malaysians, that the crime index had crashed through the 200,000 barrier in 2007 to 224,298 cases – when the Royal Police Commission had said in its report in 2005 that the crime index of 156,455 cases of crime for 2004 “seriously dented Malaysia’s reputation as a safe country” and recommended an immediate reduction of the crime index by 20 per cent in the next 12 months.
Instead of lower crime rate, the crime index had soared to reach endemic proportions, with total crime index rising by 45%, violent crime shooting up by 119%, gang robbery without firearms leaping by 268% and rape hiking by 116% in the four years of Abdullah premiership from 2003 to 2007!
The Prime Minister has made a personal plea to the abductor to free five-year-old Sharlinie Mohd Nashar and return her immediately and safely to her family as everyone is praying that she would not meet with the fate of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin who was abducted, raped and murdered with her body subsequently abandoned in a sports bag near where Sharlinie went missing in Taman Medan, Petaling Jaya.
All Malaysians fully support the Prime Minister’s call as the Malaysian society has become very sick and rotten despite all the surface progress, prosperity and piety that such dastardly crimes involving innocent children have become the nightmare of parents.
However, while in full agreement with and understanding the sentiments prompting the Prime Minister’s plea to the abductor to free Sharlinie unharmed, Abdullah’s plea nonetheless raised legitimate public policy questions as to whether it reflected a serious breakdown of law-and-order and a failure by the government and the police to achieve the three core policing objectives set by the Royal Police Commission, the chief of which is to keep crime low!
If Malaysia is to have an efficient, competent and professional world-class police force, it must be able to strike fear among the criminals. The spectacle of the Prime Minister, who is also Internal Security Minister responsible for the police force, issuing a plea to the abductor of Sharlinie to be merciful and free her immediately, reinforces the stereotype impression that in Malaysia it is the Police and government who are in fear of the criminals when it should be the other way round.
Malaysia cannot continue to allow a situation where criminals and gangsters have an upper hand – with serious allegations of gangland control of the police left unrebutted or challenged – while ordinary Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, gender or age, are deprived of their two fundamental rights to be free from crime and the fear of crime.
It is for this reason that the DAP has decided to create Malaysian political and electoral history by making low crime and law-and-order a top election issue, which has never been the case in the past 11 general elections.
However, I call on all political parties to adopt “Good Cops, Safe Malaysia” as the common top campaign theme in the forthcoming general election for two reasons:
• Malaysians have never been more worried about personal safety and property security today as compared to any period in the past 50 years or even in the past four years of the Abdullah premiership; and
• The right to personal safety and life is the mother of all human rights without which it is pointless to talk about development, progress, prosperity or even all the other human rights – for without life, all other human rights cease to have meaning.