Disturbed to learn of the merciless execution of Kho Jabing

By Sum Wee Lee
I am very disturbed to learn of the merciless execution by our government, of a Malaysian yesterday despite legal objections doing so and after last minute attempts to scrutinize various doubtful points in the case was flatly dismissed without even obtaining their due processes. What is also particularly abominable not to mention alarming, is the fact the Cabinet broke from accepted traditional norms of our founding fathers for hanging a prisoner only before dawn on Friday mornings and not forgetting that today is Wesak, the day of mercy!
I wonder if this is the idea most Buddhists had when they cast their votes for the People’s Action Party (PAP) last year.
The prosecution and senior civil servants like Bidadri Kausikan who demonstrate that the public service is clearly partisan have also come out in full force to denounce the noble actions of the 2 lawyers who went beyond their course of duty to save a human life. Kausikan have conveniently forgotten (or chooses to do so) that “systematic abuses” of the Court process has been “entrenched” for the elites and invoked several times in the past and present.
Whenever The Late Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong and even Lee Hsien Loong took out high profiled defamation suits against various figures, they are almost always granted whatever they wished for on a summary trial basis. The Judiciary will not bother to take into account, the numerous victories won by PAP, elections after elections might just suggest that the defamation they claim to have ‘suffered’ is indeed questionable. The conscience of the state judges is not even “tinted” by the fact a young blogger who just started out in the workforce is about to be bankrupted by our millionaire Prime Minister with their pronouncement!
How about the countless foreign capitalist insurance agencies who profited immensely from our market while offering “peanuts” in compensation when they infringed on or caused Singaporeans to suffer damages to their health and property? These huge conglomerates utilize large resources to delay Court proceedings through foreign lawyers who practice in our shores such as the “United Legal Alliance” among others. Unable to take the financial pressure sometimes for years coupled with lack of options at law after not qualifying for the non-existent “Legal Aid”, these poor Singaporeans often cave into the demands of these heartless machinery.
Kausikan should look not just at the log in his own eye when casting stones on others but also the “perfect example” of an abuse of Court process in the current case the ruling party’s MP, Murali Pillai is pursuing!
May all beings be well and happy.
(Letter was submitted earlier and published a week later.)