To improve accessibility, the venue for a public hearing on crime for Klang Valley residents has been changed from Seri Kembangan to Petaling Jaya.

The venue for the hearing, set to be held on July 11 from 8.30 pm, has been changed to the Civic Hall along Jalan Yong Shook Lin from its previous location in Serdang Raja, Seri Kembangan.

The venues for other hearings, in Johor and Penang have not been changed.

"We want a big turnout and we want to know their feelings on crime," Parliamentary Human Rights Caucus chairperson Nazri Aziz told a press conference in Parliament lobby today.

"There's no denying that the crime rate is high and there is a general dissatisfaction among the public regarding police response to their complaints. So we do expect the public to come out and speak," he said.

Nazri stressed that the hearings are "not a police bashing programme."

"It's not about you coming here and hearing us giving the figures and facts. You can give the facts that the crime has gone down, but on the ground it's what the public feels that matters," he said.

"We can hear about the actual fear on the ground, direct feelings from the people," he added.

To help the police

He said the caucus does not know "what will conspire" and expects that "people will come and they will come and say they lodge reports and nothing was done."

Nazri said the police had been informed of the hearings and he reminded the force "what we are doing is to help the police."

Yesterday, Opposition Leader and caucus deputy chairperson Lim Kit Siang and fellow member DAP MP Fong Po Kuan had briefed Johor Chief Police Officer (CPO) Hussein Ismail on the objectives of the hearings.

The first hearing will be held from this Sunday at the Tropical Inn in Jalan Gereja, Johor Bahru from 2.30pm.

The public hearings were mooted following a drastic increase in crime, after a series of robbery and gang-rape cases occurring mainly along the highway and near petrol stations in Johor over the last two months. In response, the police have deployed hundreds of personnel to the state and made dozens of arrests

Lim had described Johor, Klang Valley and Penang as 'black areas' and called for the government to come up with action plans to curb crime.