Justice for Teoh Beng Hock

Justice must be done and be seen to be done. Malaysia deserves no less.

There are time and place for righteous outrage, this is one of them. Tyranny does not happen simply because of tyrants, it happen when citizens turns a blind-eye to injustice, feel too embarassed to stand-up for one's brethren or cynically dismiss "politics" as somebody else's business. Tyranny feeds on neglect and indifference. Now is not to time to keep feeding it.

Nothing happenned overnight, these are the consequences to decades of corruption that has been feeding on public indifference and "not wanting to cause trouble". Notice the warnings not to "politicise" his death, as if his political affiliations made him less Malaysian and less worthy of protection and justice. I reject that. Politics is a civic duty of each and every citizen and justice is a dignity that fellow human beings safeguard for one another. Malaysians must stand up for the kind of nation they deserve otherwise it is no one's fault but their own.

The Malaysian-in-the-streets have been putting up with corruption, abuse of power, injustice, unfairness, lies and intimidation. ALL of us are Teoh Beng Hock because if things does not change anyone can be Teoh Beng Hock.

I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King who once said that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice...."

I welcome suggestions of legal and practical ways how we can all put our hands together to bend that arc to justice.

My condolences to his family, friends and compatriots.