By Lim Guan Eng, Chief Minister of Penang
Abdul Khalid Abu Bakar has never ceased to serially baffle and confuse Malaysians when he forgets his statutory role as a IGP but talks instead like an extremist UMNO politician. Khalid Abu Bakar should be ashamed that instead of showing any remorse on the police behalf for failing to find those who caused the death of Teoh Beng Hock, the IGP is now trying to divert attention for his failure by taking action against Lim Kit Siang for sedition.
Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said that DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Kit Siang had committed an offence under the Sedition Act by stating that Teoh was murdered and that the real perpetrators had yet to be arrested in an article in The Rocket, published on July 16. The IGP claimed that Lim Kit Siang’s article on the fifth-year anniversary of Teoh Beng Hock’s death was attempting to incite people to think that Teoh Beng Hock was killed.
Teoh, 30, the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, was found dead on July 16, 2009 on the fifth floor corridor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam after he had given a statement at the office of the Selangor branch of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on the 14th floor of the building. What is wrong for Kit Siang to write in his article “Malaysians will not rest until justice is done for the killing of Teoh Beng Hock” and both DAP and Pakatan Rakyat will continue to highlight the injustice of Teoh Beng Hock’s unresolved murder?
Is it now a crime in Malaysia to seek for justice to be done and that the killers be punished?
Clearly the IGP is callous and inhumane for not feeling or understanding the pain and loss to the family members and friends from the death of an innocent man. Teoh Beng Hock’s family had rejected in no uncertain terms any suggestion or implication that Teoh caused his own death because he was happily about to get married and become a father. It is the duty of the authorities, including the police, to solve this murder and find Teoh’s killers.
By wanting to punish and act against Kit Siang under the Sedition Act for stating that Malaysian will not rest until justice is done for the killing of Teoh Beng Hock, the IGP might as well act against the entire party leadership of the DAP and all our 37 MPs and 105 State Assemblypersons who take a similar principled position. Khalid should decide whether he wants to act responsibly and professionally in his statutory role as IGP by stopping such a politically motivated witch-hunt against Kit Siang or else Khalid should resign as IGP and be the extremist UMNO politician if he so wishes.
