Corrupted policemen in Malaysia

End of December, I blogged about the guy beaten and robbed by beloved, Malaysian policemen and stated that I was a victim before. Not that I was beaten up (thank God) but that I had a bad experience.

Early this year, after buying burger with my Australian Born Chinese girl cousin near the SS2 bomba, I was stopped at the police road block.

This road block near the bomba has been there for awhile and every once in awhile to check for god knows what. They are exceptionally MORE hardworking during festive occasions like Chinese New Year (obviously hoping to get some dough through bribes). Usually, I would reverse and take the small lane to detour around the useless police block but that day, I was lazy to reverse and detour and just drove towards the road black. Of course, I was irked when he asked for my driving license and IC but I had no choice but to give it to him.

He, then asked me for my cousin's which I thought was odd 'cos usually they only ask for the driver's and not the passenger's. I told the dodgy-fatass-mustache-sleazy-looking-policeman she's from overseas and that they don't have IC's in their country like ours but they have driving license which serves as a form of identification for them. He didn't even understand driving license. Idiot. I had to translate to malay - 'lesen memandu'. Go back to school man.

I tell you, he really was fat! And this is my theory- it's usually the fat policemen with moustache that takes bribe. Where else the rookies (pre-corruption noobs that are still new to the force) are the thin, clean shaven ones. So when the rookie learns the rope and start taking bribes, he'll evolve to be the typical fat, mustache, corrupted policeman.

This was roughly how the conversation went...

(The policeman only spoke in Malay, hence, this is translated to English)

Asshole: Drive to the side of the road.

(I was livid for being stopped and for no valid reason! Ready to start war with the asshole, I pulled to the entrance of the bomba.)

Me: What is the reason you're stopping me? She has identification. What have we done?

Asshole: Don't you know why? It's in the news of illegal migrants overstaying their time. Do you know it is an offence not to carry an IC?

Me: Where is it said? Shown? In the newspaper? In school? No where says that.

Asshole: Do you know that it's considered a crime and that I can put you in lokap (Malay for lock up)?

(This is when I got even more annoyed and was starting to really boil. I was ready to fight war with this fat lousy excuse for a policeman.)

Me: A crime? What crime? People out there are robbing people, snatch thieves are everywhere, hurting people and they're not caught and jailed where else, innocent me has done nothing wrong and you want to put me in jail??!

Gave him the incredulous-you're-an-asshole look.

He asked for my cousin's passport and I said it was with her mother and her mother was at my house. Why would she want to carry it around when there are so many snatch thieves? Then, I told myself to calm down 'cos basically, he can do anything and get away, knowing how Malaysia's law enforcement is like. So, I looked at him, and he looked at me. Really a nincompoop!

So I asked if we can leave.

Asshole: So how now? Macam mana?

I've heard this phrase before... and it's usually uttered when they want bribe that they say this. To me, I think he was really stupid. If he really wanted to solve this, if he was genuine about the identification, he could say, 'go home, get the passport and come back' or he could follow us back for it BUT I wasn't going to offer to do that.

Then it hit me- I was alone with my girl cousin. She's younger than me and we were in my Edward- proton saga. Two girls who look young and probably easy to be intimidated, maybe they decided to try their luck in forcing us to pay bribe for no crime at all.

Me: So, macam mana?

And again, I look at him, he looked at me. I acted blur and clueless, refusing to do or say anything further whilst waiting to see what he's going to do next but I was ready to dial for my mother and tell her what's going on 'cos there is no way I am letting them take my cousin and me anywhere. The 5 year ago me would have cowered but the 'worldly, now me' knows better than to let people take advantage of me or try to intimidate me!

Asshole mumble mumble. The he said we could go but next time bring out IC or passport or something or it could be he was saying that we should bring the passport back for him to verify.

I just say ok and drove off.

Really pissed me off. Any encounter with policemen in Malaysia seems to be negative. Imagine if I was taken to jail and hypothetically beaten up like the Chinese businessman. HERE is an update on what has happened since December 24.

Google and you will find out many cases of people in custody and even not, being beaten up by the policemen. One can only shake their head and wonder how is that going to plug brain drain and lure people back to Malaysia.

Read my other experience with stupid, idiotic, corrupted -and 100% of the time- Malay policemen.