The only criticism I would put forth is that you present the information in almost encyclopedic format, where my personal preference is to have more of a ’story’ unfold. This engages the reader more. A good piece of work.

The first indication of similar ‘Squatgate’ scandals (a moniker named after Watergate) tracked back to last November where a few female Chinese nationals were forced to do nude squats at a police lockup. As the case was brought by the Opposition, it did not create much of a stir, not until a very similar Squatgate case, this time with a video evidence. The video spread like wild fire through video CDs and mobile phones and it was brought to attention in the Malaysian Parliament where the Opposition MP, Teresa Kok showed her fellow MP colleagues a copy of the video. The ruling Barisan Nasional MPs were at shock at that time, but were later in denial with the police force, saying that ‘they were just following the procedure’. An MP even proclaimed “If the orang asing (foreigners) think we are zalim (cruel), ask them to go back to their own country.” Most media outlets, many of which are owned by political parties in the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, did not report these comments after being reportedly told not to by the Prime Minister’s office, but the comments received coverage in the evening edition of some local newspapers and many foreign ones. The Prime Minister even ordered Home Minister Azmi Khalid to travel to China to ‘apologise to the Chinese government’ but was later denied that the trip was intended for that.

Malaysians are very ‘ethnic-conscious’ by nature and this is a fact. Initially it was thought that the Squatgate detainee was a Chinese national. However, it was later revealed that she was in fact a Malay citizen of Malaysia, who later was suing the government for RM 10 million. The etnicity of the detainee was thought to be hidden by the BN government to avoid giving a bad image to them due to a local by-elections at that time. Due to the confusion of the race, two editors of a local Chinese press were even ‘asked to resign’.

Despite an independent commission being set up to investigate the Squatgate, to makes things worse, several police abuse cases emerged after that, which includes the Baldgate, involving the shaving bald of 11 senior citizens under the same excuse ‘we are just following procedure’.

Police abuse and corruption is nothing new in Malaysia. After the takeover from Dr. Mahathir after 22 years in power by the current PM Abdullah in 2003, he pledged in his election manifesto that a Royal Commissions would be set up to investigate and revamp the police force. The Royal Commissions came up with 128 recommendations, which includes the formation of the Independent Police Commission on Misconduct and Complaints (IPCMC). However, the IPCMC did not even see a light till today, a just a few days ago, the Bar Council and several NGOs had to send a memorandum to the PM for the implementation of it. The IPCMC was also faced with strong objection from the police force themselves, which includes the open rejection by the police head himself and posting of several ‘threatening actions’ (which includes ‘letting crime rise’) on their police website. Not surprising, some BN (UMNO) MPs also openly rejected the IPCMC as this would portray a bad image for them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111401312.html

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the human rights group WITNESS is piloting a new Human Rights Video Hub in association with international blog aggregator Global Voices Online. Their first efforts focus on a police shooting in Malaysia and…