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DEATH PENALTY-MALAYSIA: Sane Voices Amidst Hysteria
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30, 2007 (IPS) - In a small dingy community meeting room in Taman Kosas, a depressed working class suburb north of the city of factory workers and petty traders, Rohana Bakar, a 36-year-old mother of two girls, is trying hard to keep her ground.
Bakar tries to explain again but is greeted with cries of scorn and anger. About 30 women, some single mothers, and a dozen children, pack the room.
"We can’t save our kids by hanging the culprits. The death penalty is not the solution. The death penalty has been around for 50 years and but crime cases have soared," she persists in fluent Malay, clutching her six-year-old daughter.
"We must protect our children and teach them to protect themselves, but killing culprits is not going to save out children," she adds in desperation,
pleading for support.
The reason they have come together is apparent from a glance at the front pages of the newspapers strewn on the floor. A killer, who it is believed has so far abducted and sexually abused three girls, murdering one of them, is still at large and the mothers are angry and
frightened.
"This monster raped, abused and killed Nurin ... he must
hang for the heinous crimes," one mother says, pointing
to the newspapers on the floor. "We have to protect
our kids from this monster ... only death for him will
do."
Just as in that fear-filled room, everywhere in the
country the debate is raging over how to deal with the
gruesome death of nine-year-old Nurin Jazlin abducted in August and held for nearly a month, sexually abused and
eventually murdered.
Her body was stuffed in a gym bag and left by a
staircase in Petaling Jaya, a suburb south of the
city, late September.
Outrage over Nurin’s death has been sharpened because
a video camera mounted in the street caught a man on a
motorcycle with a bag.
He was filmed leaving the bag with Nurin's body beside a
staircase.
But the recording, although taken to the U.S. and
enhanced by the FBI, is not clear enough to identify
the culprit or his vehicle registration number.
Police have up to now drawn blanks, arresting several
"suspects" and releasing them later. The public mood
is for vengeance and a swift execution when the killer
is eventually brought to justice.
A few lone voices like Bakar are speaking up to argue
that the death penalty is a cruel, state-sanctioned
public killing that does not solve or remove gangsters
and criminals from the streets.
"We are outraged by the brutal murder. This is a
disgusting and terrifying crime and a sad reflection
of how unsafe our country has become for girls and
(the) young," said Shanon Shah Sidik, executive director of
Amnesty International in Malaysia.
"Public outrage in this matter is understandable but
calls for the death penalty to be applied are
misplaced.
"Countless men and women have been executed worldwide
for crimes of murder and sexual violence yet there
is no convincing evidence that the death penalty is a
deterrent.
"The nation mourns Nurin Jazlin. Let us never have to
mourn another girl in these circumstances ever again,"
he argued.
But such words only invite more expression of public
outrage.
People are writing to newspapers and calling up
television and radio stations to say that "monsters"
who kill children should be swiftly led away to their
execution.
"Criminals who committed sexual crimes and murder
should be given the death penalty," writes S. K.
Mathews, a member of the public, in a letter to
Malaysiakini.com, an independent online news provider.
"These monsters do not deserve to be among us in
society," he continues, reflecting widely held public
views. "The death penalty should remain."
Rising violent crime is fuelling demands for tough
measures against criminals and many see the death
penalty as the cure for all ills.
"The public are angry and upset because nearly nine
women are raped every day and many see the death
penalty as a quick solution," says opposition leader
Lim Guan Eng.
"We must not rush to condemn," he says, advocating
studies to determine the root causes of rising crime.
"There is no one-solution-fits-all here," he says,
adding that the experience of other countries showed
that crime was a complex issue and needed to be treated
professionally.
In the first seven months of this year, there were
1,814 cases of rape compared to 1,362 during the
corresponding period last year – an increase of 33
percent, according to official statistics.
But there were five times as many unreported rape
cases, making Malaysia the "crime capital" of Southeast Asia, Lim says.
Malaysia imposes the death penalty for a raft of
crimes from murder to drug trafficking (of more than
200 grams), terrorism and even poisoning of the
water supply. Between 1960 and October 2004, there
were 434 executions, according to the last available
statistics.
"Malaysia should not execute, should not carry out
state killing no matter what the crime," said human
rights lawyer Charles Hector. "There is simply no
justification for the state to kill."
The Malaysian Bar, which represents 13,000 lawyers,
passed a resolution in 2006, urging Malaysia to emulate
the Philippines, a fellow member of the ASEAN regional
grouping, to abolish the death penalty.
"At the very least it can declare a moratorium with a
view to abolishing the death penalty," Hector told
IPS.
Human rights lawyer and executive director of
Malaysians Against Death Penalty, MADPET, Surendran
Nagarajan said the organisation recognized the
"seriousness of violent crime and the extreme suffering it causes to victims and their families," but it was totally against the death penalty.
"It is a cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment," he
told IPS. "There is possibility of judicial errors and
the innocent would be killed."
He blamed politicians for the current hysteria among
the public for the retention and use of the death
penalty.
"This is the usual knee-jerk reaction fuelled by
politicians who are exploiting public fear and
revulsion at crimes against children," Nagarajan said.
"We should not fall for this manufactured hysteria."
(END)
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