I wonder how I missed reporting this. Anyway, the New Straits Times reported that 10 of the 11 suspected gamblers who had their heads shaved during lock-up will no longer file suit against the police. This, of course, comes after they announced their intention to sue the police and the government for RM 1 million a few days back.

Apparently, “…the group did not want the action of a few police officers to tarnish the image of the entire police force…” and were “…pleased with the outcome of the meeting as we were able to explain what happened on the night of our arrest and express our dissatisfaction.”

RM 1 million is the magic number this time as the 11 men who had their heads shaved while in police custody will sue the government and police for exactly that much money. Not surprisingly, the lawyers that will take the case of the 11 men are DAP lawyers, with DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng saying that:

It is an illegal practice (to shave a detainee bald) as the Lock-Up Rules do not provide for it. I have been detained before and never have they shaved my head bald.

Hopefully, gambling rules pertaining to mahjong will also be made clear as this case progresses as it seems unfortunate that, “Now nobody in our village dares to touch mahjong and all the elderly folk have to pass the time drinking tea and having no fun.”

So, the forced balding we saw with the 11 men recently is not standard practice in any state, except Selangor it seems. In the New Sunday Times today, police chiefs from a wide range of districts around Malaysia publicly stated that hair is trimmed only when necessary (and even trimming is said to be rare), while shaving is almost unheard of.

So, what does this say of Kajang police chief Assistant Commissioner Mohd Noor Hakim Kassim when he said that their act of shaving the heads of detainees “…was a normal practice under the Lock-ups Procedure Act…”? Is this another clear-cut case of discrimination and human rights violations? From the information we have now, I’d say so.

More importantly, I wonder how many more of these cases will be exposed to the public as victims become emboldened to share the truth, as a result of the public exposure and governmental response we are seeing on this case (as we saw earlier with the nude squats issue).

That is exactly what happened when 11 men - including 10 senior citizens - “…were arrested during a mahjong session here on the second day of Chinese New Year.” With the nude squats issue out of the way, we now have forced balding as another “normal practice“ conducted by police on detainees.

But we might see an early resolution to this. Our PM has after all taken quick action:

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has ordered the police to investigate whether the action by the Kajang officers to shave bald 10 senior citizens caught playing mahjong was done according to procedures.

So, all that remains is the fact that the men suffered the degradation and humiliation of having their heads shaved (and therefore being “…presumed guilty..” before they were even tried) - even though everyone is supposedly “…innocent until proven guilty.”