MCA, Gerakan and MIC Ministers should stop tomorrow’s announcement of the composition of Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Teoh Beng Hock’s death so as not to jeopardize any effort to ask the Cabinet on Wednesday to widen the scope of the RCI to zero in on Teoh’s death.
Cabinet Ministers, whether from Umno, MCA, Gerakan and MIC cannot be unaware that the Cabinet decision last Wednesday to refuse to set up a RCI to probe the causes of Teoh’s death had been greeted with consternation and condemnation, together with calls for a Cabinet review to expand the scope of the RCI into the MACC’s interrogation methods to include the causes of Teoh’s death.
The Cabinet decision to have an inquest headed by a magistrate is just not acceptable to the majority of Malaysians who want a completely independent inquiry into Teoh’s death which could command public confidence.
Ministers, especially from MCA and Gerakan, who had visited the Teoh family during Teoh’s funeral wake in Alor Gajah and publicly pledged to get the Cabinet to set up a RCI into Teoh’s death, would be seriously remiss in their duties if they do not ask the Cabinet on Wednesday to review and expand the scope of the RCI to include inquiry into the causes of Teoh’s death.
MCA Ministers, its President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and Vice President Datuk Liow Tiong Lai, and the Gerakan President, Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon had disappointed the Teoh family and the larger Malaysian public once already in failing to get the Cabinet to set up a RCI into Teoh’s death.
They should not be guilty of disappointing the Teoh family and the Malaysian public a second time by failing to ask the Cabinet to widen the scope of the RCI to zero in on the causes of Teoh’s death.
However, if the members of the RCI are announced tomorrow, then it is tantamount to a second failure by these Ministers to get the Cabinet to do what is right for the family and the Malaysian people.
(Speech 2 at the lunch of Perak DAP MPs and State Assembly members at MP Steamboat Restaurant, Ipoh on Sunday, 26th July 2009 at 2 pm)
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