'Beng Hock is our hero'

By Jeff Ooi,

An impromtu call attracted more than 3,000 people to the Kelana Jaya stadium this afternoon, or what ought to be a lazy Sunday. It was a two-hour gathering to mark the political murder of Teoh Beng Hock in the MACC Selangor HQ.

It wasn't about the death of a Chinese Malaysian.

Rather, it was about the death of an Anak Malaysia, as evident from the diverse demographics of the crowd, and the speakers who offered their eulogies.

“How can a bright young man walk into MACC office as a witness, only to return as a dead body?” Kit Siang asked the crowd.

Kit reiterated the party's demand for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to be formed to investigate Teo's death, and he wanted Umno, MCA and Gerakan to support the call.

He also asked for the cabinet to take responsibility and demanded that MACC chief commissioner Ahmad Said Hamdan should resign or be sacked over Teoh’s death.

Emphatically, Kit dismissed the suggestion by the two Umno-owned Malay papers that said that Pakatan Rakyat was trying to undermine Malay-led institutions.

“MACC is not a Malay institution, it is a Malaysian institution,” Kit declared to roaring applause of the crowd.

“Beng Hock is our hero,” Datuk Husam Musa, a member of PAS’s central working committee, declared to the stadium crowd. “There is no doubt that Beng Hock was murdered.”

All pictures by Paul Choo, LensaMalaysia

Photographer Paul Choo and I will drive to Alor Gajah, again, to join the mourning masses and attend Teo's funeral tomorrow morning.

You are our Malaysians' Malaysia hero. You will not die in vain.

I was quoted in three separate press statements -- here (in Malacca), here (in Kuala Lumpur) and here (in Malacca).