 | | Looks fair comely from the back. I'd rather strip search her than some old fart with a turban, too. |
Malaysia's deputy internal security minister has apologised for inflaming a police abuse scandal by apparently defending the stripping of a Chinese woman at a police station, an act made public by a secretly shot video.
| Do I get the impression that if it wasn't on tape it wouldn't have happened? |
Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar on Wednesday said his remarks were misinterpreted. "I openly apologise if the meaning of my comments was received negatively," Noh was quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama. Noh whipped up a storm of protest by saying on Tuesday that he believed police had not violated procedures in making the Chinese woman strip and perform squats in a lockup.
| "It's right there in the manual, page 308!" |
A video of the incident made public last week sparked a national scandal. "If the foreigners think we are cruel, ask them to go back to their own country... For me, it was conducted in accordance with the rules," Noh told reporters in parliament on Tuesday, according to local media. On Wednesday, Noh denied those remarks.
| "Nope. Nope. Never happend. Who? Me? Nahhh!" |
"I said that if our country isn't peaceful or if the police are as cruel as what is being claimed about them nowadays, then how could it be that many foreigners live in our country," he said.
| "... regardless of what it sounds like on the tape!" |
Earlier on Wednesday, Lim Kit Siang, the opposition leader in Parliament, urged Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to suspend Noh. The Malay Mail newspaper said Noh had "lost his cool after repeated badgering" by journalists over the issue.
| Personally, I think he's just an anus. |
It was not clear whether the woman in the video is a Chinese citizen or an ethnic Chinese Malaysian, but the incident has bolstered long-standing claims by human rights activists that detainees are routinely mistreated in police custody. It has also raised concerns that police unfairly target Chinese.
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