The police force has received the baseball equivalent of three strikes for their performance in 2007, according to Suaram in their annual report released today in Kuala Lumpur.

The human rights watchdog highlighted three factors which impact human rights - failure of institution, clampdown on public assembly and the impunity with which figures of authorities have acted - all of which were present in the police force.

suaram report 2007 190608The 2007 Annual Report on Civil and Political Rights revealed corruption, violent clampdowns of protesters and a failure to respond adequately to cases of individuals dying under police custody.

Leading the list of clampdown on public assembly was the violent crackdown of last November's Bersih and Hindraf rallies.

"Imposing roadblocks to prevent the gathering of people and spraying chemical-laced water and tear gases to disperse the crowd inflicts fear of the police force and is a serious human rights violation.

"In many cases there were reports of people being punched and injured by police violence," said documentation and monitoring coordinator John Liu who read out highlights of the report.

In alluding to failure of institution, he pointed to the 11 who died while under police custody in 2007.

Lack of professionalism

Further failures were apparent in the corruption investigation of both the inspector-general of police (IGP) Musa Hassan and the commercial crime investigation department director Ramli Yusuff in July and October 2007.

The Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) cleared Musa, however Ramli - the third-highest ranking policeman - has been charged for corruption.

"These corruption cases not only reflect the lack of professionalism in the force but also points out the failure of ACA," added Suaram executive director Yap Swee Seng.

The impunity with which the police as authority figures have acted was reflected by the shooting of two unarmed civilian in Batu Buruk, Terengganu, the report added.

The policemen got away "scot-free" but the seriously injured civilians were charged with allegedly causing injury to policemen, it further said.

There were nine police shootings in 2007 as reported by the media. "These cases show that the Malaysian police force do have tendencies to be trigger-happy," added Liu.

Police gone soft?

When asked about the relatively benign behaviour of the police at two recent fuel hike protests - one by Protes in Kampung Baru and the other by PAS last Friday - Yap answered: "I think the previous rallies have forced the police to behave more neutrally and professionally especially when it comes to abuse of power.

We can only hope that that it is a sign of them recognising the problems in the police force and start recognising the right of assembly."

Asked if this was a new trend in police conduct, he replied: "We can only hope. This is why we need the Independent Police Complaints Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

"It places a mechanism within the system against arbitrary abuse of power in the police force.

"With the IPCMC we will not hang at the discretion of the officer in charge of police district (OCPD) in charge at that particular time," added Yap.

This annual report will be distributed to NGOs, international and regional organisations and foreign embassies.

As human rights organisations have assiduously producing annual reports, Malaysiakini asked Liu what impact the Suaram's report will have on the government.

"We will no doubt circulate this report to the government agencies as well.

"But we look at it this way, when we conduct our lobbying work, we need these facts and figures to give us an edge, to prove that these cases really do happen, they have taken place and are not merely accusations," he stressed.

"We need proof to substantiate calls for reforms," he said.