Penang Watch

SB doing their dirty work to intimidate residents.SB when the cemera is zomming in on them!Give us a good smile lah-SB(Spoilt Brats)!Another `shy' SB?Kg Buah Pala elders spoke their tales of sell out by the local rep and state government.

About 50 police personnel turned up at Kg Buah Pala tonite to stop residents there from screening the independent film `Gadoh' produced by KOMAS/Big Pictures. The film is a good production on ethnic relations-a much needed creative work to explore the thorny issues of ethnic conflicts in Malaysia. Without considering the merit of the work-other than not considering the freedom of the residents to watch their own favourite film, the police turned up at 8.oopm to ask the organiser to stop screening the film said to be shown without a police permit. However the police who turned up did not want to address other cases of violation of the laws of permit eg the UMNO rally at KOMTAR after Mar 8th general elections. The selectivity of the police showed clearly their partisanship in enforcing the laws. Such police are simply the lap dogs of their boss-not in service of the people who pay their wages. The standoff extended till 11.00pm before the residents and the police dispersed. Other than 1 paper who bother to turn up no one else bother to cover the event-something which is strange given that the residents had been given till Aug 2 to move out or face the bull dozers. The residents said they expect the bull dozers to turn up at their door steps on Aug 3rd.No state government reps bother to turn up-prefering to look the other ways when their policies fail to protect the people who voted them into office.There was 1 asistant to aprevious State Exco(Danny Law) who turned up to have a chat and then left the residents to their own devices.

It was a sad evening as the village elders turned up to tell their tales of dissappointment with the new state government. They were told that the local Assemblyman Rayer promised to keep the village if they were to vote him in. However after the election the new state government signed away the ownership of the land to a developer-who now want to kick the residents off their land of a century of occupation.  The CM try to claim ignorance as the Land office allegedly processed everything. The CM's CAT policy is severely challenged: where is the Accountability in the signing away of the land? 

There are many evictions happening in Penang eg along Jln Perak and also in Butterworth, where there are hectic developments. Without a coherent policy to balance development and housing rights & state's heritage, there will be more conflict in Penang.The `new' state government may not bring any happiness to the people if they continue the eviction policy as before. 

With so many police in plain cloth around they started to take photos to intimidate the residents. These are some photos of shy SBs when they are at the other end of the cameras. 

Ong BK