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"If you don't like this country than you leave!" I thought somebody already mentioned this!!!!

Looks like RELA is more notorious.

The uniform can bring out the power craze bully out of people who are racist, cruel and party's goons who otherwise would not be accepted as a professional military or law enforcement personnel. RELA should in times of peace be assigned patrol duties in residential areas against burglarers. Members should not be engaged in the organized hunts for alien workers except as a cordon force under the supervision of the Police in joint operations.

5 bodies pulled out from the lake you say!!! So what?

it could be they drowned when they tried to escape from Rela or Police. You cannot blame Rela or Police for that!!!

It could also be that the death are due to revenge killing by these illegal immigrants themselves. Chaos create the perfect opportunity to hide their crime.

If anyone want to cry about illegal immigrants dying why not just go visit Sandakan town in Sabah at night and see if you still feel you are in Malaysia.

Many part of Sandakan town is pretty much off limit after 8pm at night to Malaysian. So forgive me if I do not shed any tears for those dead immigrants. The less of them here the better it will be for Malaysian. Don't let your place to be like many parts of Sabah. Kick them out early, then you have less problem to deal in the future like street children and increase in crime.

I challenge anyone to try talk to the immigrants nicely and ask them to surrender themselves. You think they will listen to you when they don't even respect our law by coming here illegally? Sometimes only way to make criminals listen to you is to use a little force. Canning, beating with a batton, rubber bullets, electric shocks all should be acceptable to bring these criminals under control.

They shouldn't expect red carpet treatment by the security force when they never respected our law in the first place.

First let me quote (again) Martin Niemöller (On resistance to Nazis, recalled on his death 6 Mar '84):

"First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me."

If we remain silent over these happenings, perhaps we're the ones to disappear before long.

Then let me state the obvious:
The law and its enforcement are designed to make law-abiding citizens (and visitors) feel safe, while those who step beyond the law are expected to be punished accordingly. But when enforcers start to go beyond their authorized boundaries and standards of practice, I believe we are seeing the real signs of deterioration of law and order. This perhaps stem from an absence of accountability from those further up in the government hierarchy. When we have higher ups playing monkey games, don't expect people down the line to behave themselves, especially when they're out on their own with hardly any supervision. Hence, abuses of the system and of power and position ensue. We are seeing it happening more frequently and it is getting worse by the day. I believe current 'liberated' and transparent environment has to do with more frequent exposures of such happenings. Still, perhaps by my naively optimistic view, this is allowing the "digging up of the shit before the real cleaning up takes place"?

I certainly hope this is what's happening before the next elections come around. Otherwise my vote goes out the window.

chrispeduck , your grand daddy was an immigrant too when he reached the shores of Malaysia Truly Asia (unless ur from the lubok antu sakai resevation),so,, nobody is asking you to symphatize,just emphatize.

Warlords.

First it was some police who abused their power. Now, it's RELA. It is very obvious that people "up there" abuse their power. It is about time that the press highlighted this.

Being highlighted internationally (in the BBC), is even more disgraceful. Come on lah Malaysia mana Boleh ?

chrispeduck,
Those are some harsh harsh statements. It is true, most of what you say (and you only have to go to Central Market on a public holiday to see what I mean), but I don't think we can condone heavy handedness to the extent of death. These are still people, no matter what.

There has to be SOME control over the people coming in. Firstly direct control, as in we have to police our borders better. From what I understand. Thais can just hop merrily across the border into Perlis/Kelantan without breaking a sweat. There's an almost ferry-like service across the Straits, and let's not forget containers in the ports.

Secondly, who's in charge of issuing visas to these immigrants? We have to control the people coming in and out, and we have to vet those coming in properly first. For some reason, Indonesians get in really easily, whereas Bangladeshis and Indians (from India) don't. And anyway, there are way too many immigrants in the country. If they don't have work, they turn to crime. Control, there has to be control.

And we have to control these Rela people as well. Give an untrained person a baton and look what he becomes. They're not even military.

//Canning, beating with a batton, rubber bullets, electric shocks all should be acceptable to bring these criminals under control.//

I can't believe you can say this. Leaving human rights aside (which seems to be a foreign concept in the part of the world we're in), it's not a very far step from them using all that on immigrants to them using it on us. If you start giving people this kind of power without them being able to handle it responsibly there's no knowing how far they'll take it. It's the same with the snoop squad issue.

We need these workers for our economy, and we need to control them, but we shouldn't treat them like sh*t just because they're in no position to fight back.

chrispeduck,

Three points for you to ponder upon.

1. We are not the only country facing the problem of illegal immigrants. Countries like UK, France and the US are also swamped with illegal immigrants. How often do you hear of bodies of immigrants being fished out of lakes after a police operation? Says a lot about what our country has become, doesn't it?

2. There are thousands of Malaysian illegal immigrants in other countries. I know some of them; you probably might too. How would you feel if the Japanese or English police conduct a raid and bodies of your friend or relative is fished out after that?

3. Lastly and perhaps the most important. Have you ever thought HOW these people are getting in? Do you think it is possible for so many to get in if the police or Rela are dong their job in the first place? Or are these immigrants being done in twice? That they may be paying the same people who chase and beat them up later to get into the country in the first place?

All three I pondered upon :)

Did you read the article about the place where the raid was done?

It is a place where there are "gangs of illegals" who are fighting gang war.

Like I said, who killed them? Rela? could be... but also could be gang war related death, could also be they drowned while trying to flee.

I don't know of any illegal immigrants, I know a lot of migrants to other country but none illegal.

Our country is not ideal, there will always be people who benefited from these illegals by harbouring them or even selling them MyKad but does that mean we must STOP catching them and sending them home???

The very reason that it is so easy and peaceful for them to stay here is the fact that they tell their family to all come here there is nothing to fear.

Wah they give me red carpet and a nice ride to a detention center and fatten me for 10 days and then send me home on a nice plane.

Cool hey everyone bring everyone lets go to Malaysia!!!!! Worse case they feed us only unlike country like Singapore who torture us by canning us.

yeah!!!!! go go go illegal!!!

chrispeduck,

All I want to add is that truly civilised nations have laws and punishments for those who break the law.

In case you have forgotten, we too have jail sentences AND whipping for illegals. Let the laws be applied by the justice system and not by cowboys.

You ask whether law enforcers were responsible for the deaths or whether the immigrants are dying because of gang fights.

Try asking Irene Fernandez which is the more likely scenario. Just don't take her to jail for speaking the truth again.

Orangdunia,

right so just because Irene Fernandez found some abuse in one detention center now evertime something bad happened that got to do with illegal immigrants then the law enforcement group MUST be guilty is it?

What is that called? Guilty by association? or Guilty until proven innocent? or both :)

having said that I never said there shouldn't be any investigation. By all means do it, as much as I hate those illegal immigrants I do hate the rots in our government as well.

Maybe the problem is the migrant workers can move too freely making it hard to know who is legal and who is not. I am not sure where I read but I think Saudi Arabia system of controlling their foreign labourer seems to be pretty interesting.

What they did is to get contract workers and put them in a special area to stay there. The only movement for them is from where they stay to their working place throughout their contract.

You marry, they deport you. You don't like the condition, you can go back anytime.

No migrants walking around, economy needs still satisfied.

chrispeduck,

I don't want to take cheap shots at you but do you honestly think it was just one camp that treated detainees badly. That the 'botak' incident was out of the ordinary? That the IGP slapping someone was an isolated incident?

Never mind, the way the country is heading,you will probably 'experience' our police force one day. I am betting that your opinion will change pretty quickly then.

And no, concentration camps are not the answer. If we let them in, we must treat them as fellow human beings.

orangdunia,

actually the major difference between our arguments is only on the treatment of the illegal immigrants part lar

regarding the police force, don't forget the squatting case :)

Frankly speaking, I totally do not have any faith in the Malaysian police lar, too many previous experience where they have let us down here.

Totally lose faith in them already sorry to say, in fact it is the same case with the garmen lar :)

chrispeduck,

Great! Nice to know that we see eye to eye on everything else except the immigrants.

Hopefully you can get to know some of them better. The next time you see one, try inviting him for a cup of tea. You might just find a truly nice person out to earn some money through hard work(like you and me).

cheers and bye!