FEB 16 — More than a week ago, six groups of Muslim NGOs, the self-proclaimed “Council of Islamic NGOs” (despite acts that are far from Islamic, thus this article will only address them as “NGOs” rather than “Islamic NGOs”), publicly offered RM1,200 to anyone who would slap Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, and record the footage as evidence.

This is straightforward criminal offence of assault. I will attempt to break down the general principles that form the requirements for assault that, if fulfilled, would constitute an offence of assault.

For a criminal offence to be established, the actus reus (the act) and the mens rea (mental element) must be fulfilled.

The actus reus here is broken down into three sub-elements: positive act, apprehension, and immediate violence.

Positive act
Positive act requirement here is not limited to the conduct of the person who threatens (in this case, the six NGOs) but also to threatening words. This principle echoes that understanding that “a thing said is a thing done”, and that we are accountable for the words we utter if they are violent in nature. Words are action. From our scenario, the positive act was the offer of paying RM1,200 to anyone who slapped Teresa Kok and recorded it. This is blatant as this offer was clearly enunciated in public and reported by news portals in the country — there were even posters made to emphasise the offer.

The violent element to the act is the killing of the two live chickens and the smearing of the blood over posters of various opposition leaders. This is violent because it implies the extent of the violence and “warning” this group of individuals were willing to carry out — almost like a “I want you dead” kind of gesture. Violent? Scary, too.

Apprehension of violence
The apprehension of violence simply means the expectation the victim has towards the possible violent act against him/her. It does not require the victim to be fearful of it. It will be an apprehension so long as he/she knows that such attack might be ensuing.

Any reasonable person would expect that such violent attack against him/her is ensuing especially when it was an offer made to the public with a monetary incentive. Teresa Kok’s political party, Democratic Action Party (DAP), that has arranged additional personal protection for Teresa is good evidence of such an apprehension.

Immediate violence
The offer to slap was made right there and then at the point of announcement, and this was sufficient to fulfill the immediacy requirement. The increase of monetary “reward” from RM500 to RM1,200 is further evidence that the six NGOs want their end (of slapping Teresa Kok) achieved quicker and more immediately.

Mens rea
Furthermore, the mens rea element is a straightforward test as well. A person would be having the mental element of an assault if he/she has the intention of deliberately causing the actus reus or must have foreseen the victim to apprehend the violence.

It does not matter if the slap (as later poorly defended by the NGOs) was done out of “kesayangan” or not, as so long as there is an intention to execute the violent act upon a person, it will be sufficient to constitute a mens rea element.

Implications
Without a doubt, since the Royal Malaysian Police is a department under the Home Ministry, and the Ministry has taken upon itself to ensure public safety with proper law enforcement, the response given by Dato Seri Zahid Hamidi is poor at best. He replied that it would only constitute a threat if it was a death threat that was issued. This is obviously problematic and speaks volumes on how unwilling and unprofessional the Minister is, especially when assault does not require the threat to be death threat, it just needs to be a reasonably violent threat (a low threshold).

It also defeats the protective purpose of the offence of assault has to our daily lives as, contrary to common understanding, battery is the offence that requires an actual physical contact, whereas assault is an offence that does not require any form of physical contact, but a reasonable and immediate threat of violence would suffice.

Principally, this consequently is a violation of the rule of law. The rule of law means that we should always resort to the law as the most supreme source of protection and accountability, instead of being ruled by arbitrary decisions made by incompetent public authorities.

The anger in the group of six NGOs is unfounded anyway, because until today, none of the video footages were found or discussed to be anti-(something), instead we find refuge in our overly-employed knee-jerk reactions to say that it is meant to be racially divisive, just because everything nowadays will be racially divisive. In other words, it is because it is. Our judgmental minds and incapacity to provide the benefit of doubt have become defining in our identities. We ban books and newspapers before we look into the content.

Won’t stop, can’t stop
But really, who are we kidding. It would not be hard to retrace many of the sacrileges that were carried out arguably of greater magnitude but not acted upon. For example, the cow head protest in 2009, where the police would rather arrest the 16 candlelight protesters at Dataran Merdeka than the ones who were “identified” to be involved in the cow head protest.

We can lose our sense of humour and the ability to laugh at ourselves, but do not lose our interest in the supremacy of the law, integrity of public institutions, and fostering of common harmony, despite the fatigue and countless “Haih, what to do…”s. Do not lose hope.

As honest Malaysians, we cannot just do the minimum by always dissociating ourselves with these farces by saying “they do not represent true Malaysians”. We must act to condemn such intolerances and participate in collective actions to prohibit such actions from being repeated in different patterns or urge authorities to act appropriately. Because if we do not, the “not-Malaysians” might just slowly infiltrate our society, and commonsense might be harder and harder to find.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online