Police brutality in Malaysia and how I almost got arrested; a thread!

This happened during the last SEA Games. PDRM were doing a city-wide “clean up”, which essentially meant dragging foreign workers and immigrants off the street and arresting them if they couldn’t present their papers on the spot. This was on a Sunday near Masjid Jamek. It was not

just labourers but white collar workers who were there with their young children. The way the police were dragging them and being so rough, was completely unnecessary. My mom and I were walking and we noticed it was mostly just Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians being arrested.

Then, they arrest a black man and let me affirm that 1. he was not resisting arrest, 2. he was not instigating the police and 3. he was not given the chance to present his papers. The police kneed him, dragged his body on the ground while he begged them to stop.

I acted before I thought. I didn’t even realise I was recording the whole incident before the cops started pointing at me. Mind you, I was just a 17-year-old girl with a smartphone. They saw this as a threat.

Obviously, I notice and quickly walked away, trying to get into Kamdar. One cop in a PDRM vest and three others in fully armed (I don’t know if they were loaded) in black tactical gear followed me in and surrounded me. Who wouldn’t be scared. Vest starts talking to me and I

kept quiet.

“Tak faham Melayu ke, you? Apasal you orang nak menyibuk?”

And tries to snatch my phone away from me and that’s when I’m fuelled with dumb overconfidence. I start screaming my head off, demanding that I was in a public space, not interrupting their work and had

every right to record. Vest grabs me by my shoulder and tries to take my phone away again.

“Nanti you masuk lokap baru you tahu”

At which point, my mon unfreezes from her shock and defeatedly tells me to just give him my phone. And then, here’s what really takes the cake.

When I refused to key in my password, and rightfully so, one of the men in the tactical gear, cocks his goddamn assault rifle at me. Vest guy goes on to say that he could and world arrest me. At this point, I was just terrified. I gave in and he deleted all the photos, and even

opened my WhatsApp and Instagram despite me saying I hadn’t sent them to anyone.

When my mom and I asked for their badge numbers, they refused to give it to us.

I’d like to add that my mom and I were pretty much clad top to bottom in branded clothes, we spoke English the whole

time but this Malay cop saw an India keling.

Next time you ask me why I hate Malaysian police, know that besides the rampant corruption within PDRM and how Malaysian police are tasked with silencing people, I’m adding racial profiling and police brutality to the charge.