KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has been accused of lying about a purported study fingering organised crimes in Selangor to former detainees of the abolished Emergency Ordinance (EO).
DAP national publicity chief Tony Pua (picture) questioned why the home minister has to wait until the next Parliament sitting in September to present the study when he argued for the legislation of a similar law to the contentious EO which allows for pre-emptive detention.
“The perplexing question for us to ask the home minister is, if the study is already concluded, and he already has in his possession the study, why does he need to wait two months before the report is presented to Parliament?” the Petaling Jaya Utara asked in a statement today.
Yesterday, Ahmad Zahid, in justifying the need to revive the colonial-era law, claimed he had obtain statistics “derived empirically” that in Selangor 90 per cent of organised crimes were carried out by ex-detainees released from the Simpang Renggam EO detention centre.
“I will present the statistics and the study in the Dewan Rakyat in the coming session, the September session, to prove the need for the EO,” he said.
Commenting on this, Pua described the home minister’s explanation as “oxymoronic”.
“If you read into Dato’ Seri Zahid’s statement, one can only deduce that it is completely oxymoronic. If the ‘study’ even exists, then surely for a shocking 90 per cent of the crime perpetrators to be identified, these ‘criminals’ would have been identified, arrested, investigated and possibly even charged already.
“Is the minister trying to tell us that they have identified all the suspects of all the crime incidences over the past year but are unable to arrest and charge them?” Pua asked.
The opposition has raised concerns over what it sees as the Najib administration’s attempt to use public fear over rising crime to justify resurrecting laws that allow arbitrary detention to quell dissent.
Recently, Ahmad Zahid insisted that the Sedition Act will not be repealed despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s announcement last year in a move that has opened up his administration to accusations of back-pedalling on its pledges of reforms.
The home minister’s statement ran contrary to the assurance by his fellow Cabinet colleagues Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri, who both insisted that the law will be abolished pending its replacement with the National Harmony Act.
“We are seriously concerned that the home minister is taking advantage of the public fear of rising crime to bring back draconian laws for sinister purposes in Malaysia, instead of focusing on how to improve the professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness of the police in fighting crime,” said Pua.
He also said that if Ahmad Zahid was even right on the study pertaining to ex-EO detainees, the issue only highlighted the authorities’ and Putrajaya’s weakness in dealing with crime.
The Najib administration had been accused of manipulating crime statistics to show its crusade against crime, a key issue in Malaysia, is succeeding although Ahmad Zahid rebutted the allegations, pointing out that the figures are computer-generated.
