Redirect funds allocated to the police special branch for investigating political parties to combating crime in the country instead, the BN government was urged by the PKR today.

NONE Police spending on investigations against political parties was 2.8 times more than that spent on crime investigations, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and the party's Investment and Trade Bureau chairperson Wong Chen told a press conference.

"The special branch produced 382,000 reports on political activities of the citizens and carried out 351,000 security clearance checks in 2010.

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"All in, the special branch produced 733,000 reports on the citizens - or about 4.3 percent of the Malaysian adult population. In contrast, the criminal investigations department opened 212,000 files on crime - or less than 30 percent of the total activities of the special branch," Wong said.

NONE "We call upon the government to redirect 90 percent of the special branch activities toward fighting crime. If the government cannot commit to this, then the rakyat must end BN's rule in the coming election for the sake of a safer Malaysia," Wan Azizah said.

She chastised the government for its focus on crime statistics and for spying on the citizens, instead of putting more effort into tackling crime. Criminals, she added, had of late become more desperate and daring.

"Most likely, I am being investigated, and every journalist in this room is also being investigated!" Wong (right ) added.

Wan Azizah also urged the government to stop making Malaysia a police state and to focus instead on investigating crime.

azlan The government, she declared, should immediately stop using the police to enforce a police state in the country and instead let the police do their job of fighting crime.

"If the government cannot commit to this, then the rakyat must, for the sake of a safer Malaysia, end the rule of Barisan Nasional in the coming election," she said.

Wan Aziz said this in reference to increased incidents of violent crimes in recent days, and cited the break-in at the home of former Malacca chief minister Rahim Tamby Chik, theft from four ATMs in Wangsa Maju and the kidnapping of a Singaporean family in Johor Baru as worryuing examples.

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