News and events

So you may recall that some months back I did a post about a corrupt customs official who fell to his death from the third story of the anti-corruption building - it was (is) largely assumed (known) that it was either murder or suicide.

However:

DSP Sharul Othman Mansor, who was recalled to the witness stand Friday, told the inquest into the death of the Selangor Customs assistant director that, in his professional opinion, Ahmad Sarbaini fell while trying to climb out the window on the third floor of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) building here on April 6.

He said this when questioned by MACC lawyer Datuk Seri Muhamad Shafee Abdullah.

Muhamad Shafee: So this means that it was not a suicide.

DSP Sharul: Yes.

Muhamad Shafee: And this would also mean that it was not a homicide?

DSP Sharul: Based on my analysis of the evidence, yes, I agree with you.

DSP Sharul had testified earlier this month that Ahmad Sarbaini had fallen some 10m to his death while trying to jump from the said window on to nearby roof "which looks near when you're standing at the window".

The roof, however, is actually about three metres from the window.

Right.

This is a stretch even for Malaysia - I can barely believe they actually printed this.

But Malaysia has been making other headlines here as well. Last Saturday saw some major protests that did attract some international attention:

For those of you who missed this, Malaysia is in the most technical sense a democracy, yet the same political party has run Malaysia since independence - so pushing 60 years. Opposition parties have done increasingly well in recent elections - and there have also been accusations (lots of them) that the current government isn't playing fair in elections, corruption etc. - which is of course largely true.

So a lot of opposition groups got together, formed an organization called Bersih 2.0 (Bersih means 'clean' in Bahasa Malay) and decided to hold a protest.

The government freaked, said the protest would be illegal; Bersih said fine, give us a place to have the protest (a stadium); government says OK; Bersih applies and is rejected because the group is then deemed to be illegal.

So protests go as planned, about 20,000 well-behaved protesters turn up, police fire tear gas and set off water cannons.

Not your average day in Malaysia certainly. All in all the protests were certainly a success; the protesters behaved; the police didn't and there has been much discussion about how the protests successfully brought together a wide cross-section of Malaysian society and did wonders for race relations etc.

And one final piece of rather disconcerting news. The state of Kedah here in Malaysia has ordered the closure of all evening entertainment outlets throughout Ramadan to curb immoral behaviour. Not only is this ridiculous (and has at least caused a lot of controversy and uproar) but potentially catastrophic for businesses - this has been decided with about two weeks notice! It's also redundant because it's illegal for Muslims to drink anyway.