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DEC 2 — Our friend Rocky argues thus: since law enforcement in Britain and Hong Kong can question detainees after hours, why not Malaysia?

I think it our duty to point out somewhat disingenuous reasoning whenever we see it.

The appropriate response to the question above is painstakingly simple:

How many cases are there in either Britain or Hong Kong of suspects having died in custody?

How many cases have there been of a witness falling to his death from the 14th floor?

I believe the reasoning put forth by these proponents of interrogation after hours to be fallacious and in bad taste.

I would feel totally safe being interrogated by authorities in Britain or Hong Kong — countries where there is some semblance of rule of law, and where the cops don’t have a cutthroat reputation of taking a swing at you whenever they feel like it.

Had Teoh Beng Hock or Kugan happened in those countries, there would be an immense uproar and multiple heads would likely roll.

Malaysia? I don’t think anyone even knows what happened to the one and only (low-ranking, Indian) policeman charged in relation to Kugan’s death. The media didn’t even seem to cover his court mention on Nov 5.

Would any of us feel safe being interrogated after hours in Malaysia? Where Kugan looked to have been beaten to death? Where Francis Udayapan was found dead in a river? Where one former deputy prime minister can be brutally beaten while in handcuffs by the nation's top cop, while the police bodyguards of another former deputy prime minister can be found guilty of murdering his aide's girlfriend?

The reason Tan Boon Wah — the same man who was interrogated that very same fateful night with Teoh Beng Hock at Plaza Masalam — sued the MACC and won (the case in which the ruling on after-hours interrogations was made) was out of outrage against what happened that night, and to make sure no Malaysian will ever have to endure such trauma and risk.

I think Tan, of all people, should know. During his interrogation that went as late into the night as Teoh’s, he was subject to both racism as well as threats to both him and his family.

I myself was subject to some very minor abuse during interrogations while I was detained, but Tung Ket Ming, who was detained around the same time as myself wasn’t so lucky.

During an investigation into a mobile shop robbery, Tung said he was “punched and elbowed in the face whipped with a rubber hose on his soles, his legs, his head and his neck. On his final evening in the cell, he was taken to a room of 6-7 police officers, including his investigation officer who was apparently in his 20s, who assaulted him again for reporting that he was mistreated by the police to the magistrate.”

But perhaps Tung was “luckier” that B. Prabakar, who was “repeatedly beaten, kicked and stepped on by at least 10 police personnel. He said the police officers involved then scalded him with boiling water after he could not identify several persons in some photographs. Prabakar further said that during his five-day remand period, police had hung a long piece of cloth from the interrogation room ceiling and tied it around his neck while he stood on a chair. They then threatened to knock away the chair.”

Just how are we supposed to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? These are not isolated cases, but examples of a systemic and long-lasting problem. At least these guys escaped with their lives; the same could not be said for Kugan, Francis Udayapan, and Altantuya.

I don’t quite understand what these advocates of after-hours interrogation are after. The majority of these petty thefts are so urgent that they can’t keep a suspect overnight in the lockup as the law fully provides before interrogating him in the light of day?

Our IGP, of course, has gone off to merajuk on his own odd tangent. He equivocates wanting an end to interrogations of suspects after hours to closing police stations at 5pm — “Then those who want to lodge police reports after office hours can see Karpal.”

What is he? Twelve years old?

What does interrogating suspects have to do with making police reports?

I find these efforts to detract from the matter at hand — which involves upholding the most fundamental and basic of human rights, and not behaving like animals towards any suspects or witnesses — to be a poor attempt at covering up our dismal record of deaths and abuse in custody.

I don’t believe that this barbaric behaviour towards any human being is justified under any circumstances, but even those who believe that such inhumanity is a deterrent to crime cannot possibly have a point. After all, this appalling state of affairs has continued for years and years, and yet crime just keeps rising.

Perhaps we could check this rise in crime if the police stopped acting like criminals. Perhaps if they had the same standards of professionalism as Britain, Hong Kong or (and I hate to say it) Singapore, then Malaysians wouldn’t care what time of the day they were interrogated.

As it stands, I think we should be fighting for all the protection possible for those detained, especially when such protections are already provided for under the law.

Nathaniel Tan was once a guest of His Majesty's government. He didn't quite enjoy it, but never ceases to be thankful to those who worked the hardest to get him out, and everyone who cared.