Over the recent years things have not gone so well in Malaysia. Abuse of power, rampant corruption, disregard for rule of law are amongst the pressing issues Malaysians were forced to deal with. When the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal happened, we thought it simply couldn’t get any worse.
On Monday, we woke up to news about the arrest of an ex-journalist, Sidek Kamiso, for a tweet that allegedly insulted Islam.
The police broke into his home, which he shares with his wife and two young children, in the early hours of the morning without a search warrant.
The bully boys in blue uniform did not produce a warrant despite repeated requests to do so by Sidek and his wife.
This is atrocious and a flagrant abuse of power by the police. It only goes to demonstrate their high-handedness.
Simply put, the police behaved like thugs as opposed to keepers of the law.
What is even more shocking is a tweet by police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, commending the hooliganism by his officers.
The family was initially unaware of Sidek’s whereabouts and it makes no sense to detain him in his home in Petaling Jaya and produce him in a courthouse in Johor Bahru.
This entire episode reeks of a Gestapo-like era, in that the UMNO-led ruling government uses the police to suppress any form of dissent to its administration, stifling free speech and other crucial provisions of a functioning democracy.
We can now say that Malaysia is indeed a police state. And while I pledge solidarity with Sidek and his family, we must all come together to oppose this amoral statecraft.