Beer festival is about minority rights, not politics

MCA: Opposition should apologise to cops after arrest of ‘bombmaker’

Hello: Opposition figures who cast doubt on the credibility of the police over the cancellation of the Better Beer Festival 2017 should apologise now that people who allegedly plotted to bomb the event have been arrested, said MCA publicity chief Chai Kim Sen.

MCA, don’t you realise that the police’s duty is to keep the peace and protect the people? Even if there is evidence of terrorism being plotted, the police should be going after the terrorists and prevent any act of terrorism from happening.

If every time legitimate functions are to be stopped from being held because of spurious or real rumours of terrorism, then we are giving in to the terrorists and the police are evading their duty as peacekeepers and protectors of the people.

FellowMalaysian: If MCA felt so strongly that having the Better Beer Festival will expose the crowd from becoming targets for militant attack and that cancelling the event was for ‘the sake of protecting lives and properties and to ensure peace and stability’, a noble cause indeed, why did it take them this long to bring out their concern and warn the public earlier?

Shouldn’t MCA’s Chai trumpet his wise opinion right when the organisers were proposing these events at their respective venues?

If there was truly some real threats arising from Islamic State militants, no one knows other than the police as they have kept the public in the dark after issuing warnings of such dangerous armed men lurking near beer spots.

So MCA’s display of concern for public safety and ‘I told you so’ remark comes a trifle too late after the event has been cancelled due to Royal Malaysian Police’s (PDRM’s) intervention.

Drngsc: It is the police’s job to protect us. The police cannot insist that we all live in a fenced new village to be safe. They must be able to handle all emergencies.

Please do not tell me that a novice bombmaker can scare the whole country? MCA, grow up. Life must go on. And the police must do their work to protect the country.

Léon Moch: Chai misses the point altogether. Even if the bombmaker had been successful, the authorities should never allow this to become an excuse to punish the victims by banning events under threat.

If Chai agrees with such bans, then he must also agree when the time comes to ban churches, temples and even mosques because terrorists have threatened these places of worship before.

VP Biden: Chai forgets the other places the bombmaker allegedly planned to attack:

“The police said they have apprehended a teenager who allegedly designed a bomb that was meant to be used in an attack on the Better Beer Festival 2017, entertainment outlets and non-Muslim places of worship.”

If I remember correctly, the police did not close entertainment outlets and non-Muslim places of worship. Again, misplaced priorities by the running dogs.

Gaji Buta: MCA, the beer festival is not about politics. It is about minority rights and whether authorities are there to protect their way of life. If I am not mistaken, this is what your role in BN is supposed to be.

In Spain, we can see the general population demonstrating against the government for arresting some of the Catalonian independence leaders, even though these people do not agree with the independence movement, but purely because the government seem to have abused their power to arrest these leaders.

What is right is right, and should not change based on who you vote for, or who you represent.

Vgeorgemy: MCA, do you support the cancellation of a trade show in Europe displaying palm oil products because of the opposition from the extremist environmentalists and health activists in the name of protecting environment and health of Europeans?

We are with our law enforcement agencies in security matters as it is common to receive such threats against minority interest in our country.

They are capable to protect us from these threats and there is no need to politicise the security issues.

Vision2020: This is just an afterthought excuse by MCA to cover their weakened political power in the BN coalition, knowing very well that it should be the job of the PDRM and armed forces to stop terrorist threats at all times, irrespective of whether there is beer festival or Thaipusam.

Even without any of those festivals, there is still terrorist threat since Malaysia has become a breeding ground for Islamic extremism and it has started to manifest blatantly like hate speeches from Zamihan Mat Zin of Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), fear-mongering strategy from PAS using religion as political tool and Umno sanctioning bigoted religious speeches, and those boldly criticising our sultans as our symbol of upholding Islam as a tolerable and respectable religion of the rakyat, for the rakyat and by the rakyat .

Yap Yok Foo: The MCA must be so simple-minded that they will accept whatever spin that fits the “official line”. The veracity of whatever the police in its self-serving statement will never be tested.

In the name of security, so many sins have been committed and we have gullible MCA swallowing all this, hook, line and sinker.

The police said they were working to track down three suspects. Nothing much was heard about this after that.

The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. Over the past one year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now.

These comments are compiled to reflect the views of Malaysiakini subscribers on matters of public interest. Malaysiakini does not intend to represent these views as fact.