Murugan Rajoo, 36, was born without legs. On Jan 4, he was detained by the Selayang Municipal Council for over an hour, and forced to urinate in his pants.
Sequence of events: Mr. Murugan (front row in light blue shirt with hands raised) is a petty trader without a license who claims he first applied for one about 3 years ago. On Jan 4, his motorcyle-stall was confiscated by Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) officers, leaving Mr. Murugan stranded by the roadside.
Later that day, he went to reclaim his motorcycle from the MPS Rawang branch. There, he was confined by enforcement officers for an hour, and when he wanted to use the bathroom, the officers allegedly made fun of his lack of legs and refused to show him where the bathroom was, forcing him to urinate in his pants publicly.
The inhumane suffering and humiliation did not end there.
A number of civil society groups representing the differently able organised a group of 30 individuals to protest this cruel insult to even the most basic human dignity at the MPS headquarters, and prepared a memorandum for council president, Yang Dipertua Zainal Abidin Azim.
When they arrive, the group and its wheelchair bound participants were told they could meet the president, but that he refused to come down and see them; they would have to come up to the 9th floor to see him :|
I don’t know what kind of facilities they have over there, but have you ever seen any building (esp. government ones) that would be easy for a group of at least 10 wheelchair-bound individuals and their attendants to navigate?
I’ve listed out all the reports and blog posts below. If you read them and watch the Malaysiakini video, you can see how pride and arrogance featured into this tiff with the council president.
In addition to the Yang Dipertua’s stupid excuses like ‘oh, it was a public space downstairs and we didn’t want to disturb others,’ he also said things like ‘hey, it’s not like I invited them, *they* want to come see *me*, so they can jolly well haul their handicapped butts up here.’
Let’s take the worse case scenario. Let’s say the building was in fact wheelchair accessible; let’s say the protestors were a bunch of annoying activists who just like to bitch at the government and were just as arrogant in refusing to go up; let’s say having a meeting downstairs would have created unbearable inconveniences for Selayang residents at the building, causing the fragile Selayang local government to collapse into utter chaos; let’s say Mr. Murugan’s case was just an exaggerated incident of incontinence.
Let’s say all that and ask ourselves, with all that differently abled people have to endure and struggle through every single day, was it still really so much to ask a civil servant (ie, servant of civil society) the good Yang Dipertua for - to take the elevator down on his two good legs and listen to them? Is it?
How much of an arrogant, heartless, vain, cocky, cruel, blinded-by-pride politician do you have to be to refuse such a simple gesture of human decency?
*remembers vows to keep this blog from descending into name calling*
There are some good reports on this incident both in the media and in blogs, etc. Take the time to check it out.
Malaysiakini: article, and video (which features Zainal Abidin in the [healthy, yet rotten] flesh)
The Malay Mail: original article, and follow-up on Mr. Murugan possibly getting his license
Berita Harian: good article, and Zainal Abidin’s denial
The Star (the most timid of all the papers that carried the story) : article, and damage control
*
Also, this got coverage in some interesting blogs:
Weblog Orang Kelainan Upaya
Petpositive - Activist Anthony Thanasayan’s blog
The blog of a (former?) Selayang councilor - P Kamalanathan
Disabled News Flash
Tags: Civics, Government Negligence, Impunity, Local Government by Nathaniel Tan
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