Profiling -- Reading Between The Lines
Some of my friends are fans of criminal investigation stories on TV. If there are no gory visuals, I would be interested too. After all, a Libran (like me) is always the intellectual type. I actually like watching The Mentalist & Criminal Minds, except that I've given up memorizing TV schedules since high school ( the days of Dynasty & Dallas).
I've just started watching 2 episodes of a Korean series on spies and the national security organization, and the storyline touched on "profiling." That is a term used by investigators, especially those in forensics and the armed forces, to assess the behaviour, social and psychological motives of an individual.
The next morning, I read a piece of breaking news affecting Malaysia's political and legal affairs: the acquittal of Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim from sodomy charges. What is SODOMY? One definition is "Sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation, especially between male persons."
Countless consensual adults in Malaysia do this in private every day, but we don't hear of anybody being charged in court with it -- EXCEPT the OPPOSITION LEADER, the one who is most vocal about reforming and taking over the government!
How does this news connect to the profiling I am talking about?
The profiling I am most interested in is not about Anwar Ibrahim, but about 1 person or a group of persons who had something to comment about it. I'll refer to it again at the end of this blog, AFTER we've gone through excerpts of the case.
From "The Guardian":
This trial was the second time in 14 years that Anwar has faced the courts. Anwar served as both deputy prime minister and finance minister in the incumbent Umno party before falling out with his then premier, Mahathir Mohamad, in 1998.
He was then jailed for six years on sodomy and corruption charges in what was widely seen as a politically motivated prosecution. The sodomy charged was overturned in 2004.
From "The New York Times":
Mr. Anwar then led the opposition to major gains in the 2008 elections, depriving the governing party of a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time since independence in 1957; a few months later he was charged again, this time with sodomizing a former political aide. Mr. Anwar has described the allegation as a “blatant and vicious lie.”
From "The New York Times"
“Anwar was acquitted on a charge that should have never been brought in the first place,” said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch after the trial. “Hopefully this verdict sends a message to the government to put this matter to rest.”
The charge against Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, which is based on an archaic provision of the Penal Code that criminalises consensual sexual relations between adults, should never have been brought. The case has unnecessarily taken up judicial time and public funds.
The Malaysian Bar hopes that the Attorney General would not pursue any appeal, and will instead focus the valuable resources of the Attorney General’s Chambers on more serious crimes.
Lim Chee Wee
President
Malaysian Bar
Now, here is the mind-boggling sentence challenging this arm-chair criminal profiling enthusiast:
From "The New York Times":
The information minister, Rais Yatim, issued a statement saying, “Malaysia has an independent judiciary, and this verdict proves that the government does not hold sway over judges’ decisions.”
My Profiling brain started working as soon as I read it. This is what my profiling brain was thinking; if the judiciary was so fair and independent of any manipulation, why does the information minister, clearly a spokesperson of the government, need to confirm it?
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