Commission given 30 days to probe nude ear-squat video scandal
Eddie Chua
KUALA LUMPUR: The Prime Minister's Office named a five- member independent commission to investigate the nude ear-squat video clip scandal, giving it only 30 days to complete four tasks.
A statement from the office last evening named former Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah as commission head, reprising his role as head of the Royal Commission on the Police Force. The others are former MCA deputy president Tan Sri Lim Ah Lek, Wanita Umno legal bureau head Datuk Kamilia Ibrahim, former Bar Council chairman Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari and Datuk Hamzah Md Rus, who will be commission secretary.
All of them had also served on the Royal Commission. Their appointments, with royal assent, took effect from yesterday.
Their tasks are:
- To ascertain whether the woman featured in the video clip doing ear squats in the nude was one of five women from China who were caught and detained by police.
- To investigate the procedure in conducting a body search on the woman in the video clip.
- To ascertain whether there was impropriety in the conduct of body search on the woman and
- To investigate the standard operating procedure (SOP) and rules and regulations on the conduct of body search of police detainees and to recommend amendments or changes to the SOP or rules on such matters.
The 30-day deadline reflects the urgency with which the government is treating this headline-grabbing incident which caused China to lodge a protest note with Malaysia.
Because of earlier news reports that stated that the woman in the video clip is fair-skinned and believed to be a Chinese national, the scandal has made headlines in newspapers in China and Hongkong and carried around the world.
The scandal erupted last Thursday when Seputeh MP Teresa Kok showed an MMS video clip at the Parliament lobby to two ministers and other MP.
The publication of the pictures from the video clip shocked the nation and drew an outcry from the public and civil rights groups which questioned the humiliating procedure.
The police drew criticism unto itself when Deputy Inspector General of Police Datuk Seri Musa Hassan reportedly said they were after the person who took the video clip with his handphone and not the policewoman who had instructed the woman to do the ear squat.
The policewoman was featured standing arms akimbo in front of the woman doing the squats.
Reports so far have been inconsistent. Some have since carried sources reports that the woman is a local, with one even suggesting she is a Malay.
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