Friday, June 26, 2009

Murdered Justice

I see our government, I meant to say our judicial system has turned blind. I know Lady Justice is blindfolded, holding a balance, but that does not mean that the judges sitting high up in the courts should wear a blindfold as well. From the various state-controlled news source here, I only see the demonising of David's family, or the dead himself. However, from the Jakarta Post, I read with shock and disgust the covered-up portion of the story that never came up in the 154th media.

From Jakarta Post
The case of David Hartanto Wijaya, an Indonesian student who died at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in March, is entering a crucial stage, but the family continues to suspect an unfair process.

David’s family filed a request in April to the Singaporean coroner court to consider the case as a murder, challenging conclusions made by the NTU and Singaporean police that David had committed suicide. Only if the coroner court finds it was not suicide will the case be forwarded to the criminal court. However, David’s family has felt that they still received unequal treatment throughout the process. The case has just entered the third phase of the court process, with more new witnesses to be presented by the NTU and the family.

Hartono Wijaya, David’s father, said the NTU had already presented 22 witnesses, with four more to be presented soon.
“But so far we were only given opportunities to present four witnesses, out of nine names we have submitted,” Hartono said on the telephone from Singapore.

“Our request that David’s laptop and digital hard disk be returned to the family was also denied. And we just found out that the judge never received the family’s request until today,” he said Wednesday after one of the court’s sessions.
Wednesday saw the coroner court receive testimonies from four witnesses brought forward by David’s family.
“One of them is his brother, the other three are his friends. But they are not eyewitnesses. They were all witnesses to David’s life as a brother, as a friend,” Hartono said.

The family had tried to find eyewitnesses from the university but everyone had remained tight-lipped, he said.
Hartono said the President of NTU Su Guan Ning had told the family that the university had a witness who saw David attempt to slit his wrist before he jumped from a building in the university.
“But when we asked to meet the person? The NTU rejected us.”

The NTU alleged David had attempted to kill Chan Kap Luk, David’s professor, just before David committed suicide.
Indonesian lawyer O. C. Kaligis, an advisor to the family, said the Singapore’s coroner court process turned out to analyze the possibility whether there had been a murder attempt on Professor Chan Kap Luk.

“What we see is that the court only focused on how David Hartanto Wijaya tried to murder the professor,” Kaligis said.

“From the start there has never been an analysis on the cause of David’s death.”

The pictures that show his deep wounds were never exhibited, said the lawyer who advocated the family pro bono.
Horrendously graphic pictures of David’s corpse showed he did not commit suicide. The pictures had been analyzed by Indonesian forensic experts Djaja Surya Atmadja and Evi Untoro, and they said any forensic doctor around the world would see from the forensic report that David’s body had defense wounds.

“It was absolutely not a suicide.”

Iwan Piliang, a blogger who has been accompanying the family since the beginning, said that they would bring forward two forensic experts from Indonesia who had analyzed David’s body from the Singaporean doctors’ forensic report and pictures of his body, “including a digital forensic expert who is the one and only expert in Indonesia.”


Judge for yourself.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The babies in pictures

After the gong teck, many relatives who attended the ritual struck some lottery. The unit number of the paper house came out in the starter. I, too, rubbed off $250 from the pool. My heartfelt thank you to all my ancestors. They've contributed to my savings to the Panasonic LX-3 which I am happily playing with now.

Not forgetting the babies, here are some pictures. Look how big baby blackberries are now.

From top: Lion Bear; Lion Bear; Polar Bear; Baby Blackberry




Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Gong Teck Completed

As a small addenda to my previous post on a loving mother observed during the gong teck, I would like to add another act of mother-son love. At the morning of day 2 of the ritual, I approached the table filled with packets of foodstuff that my uncles and aunties have bought for the whole community of relatives as breakfast. I saw a plastic bag from Mac Donald's, but there are only sugar and salt and pepper. Selfish, I thought someone was. How could anyone eat breakfast from Mac alone and left the packaging there for me to be envious of. Later, after finishing some Chwee Kueh, I move to the altar to see that my grandparents' and other late relatives' spaces are in order. I saw, at the very end of the table, a cup from Mac Donald's and it immediately dawned on me the origin of that plastic bag. I'm sure my late cousin would enjoy that cuppa from his loving mother.

p.s. Globalisation: An African selling his tribal stuff (in his traditional costume) on a pushcart in Vivocity, at the same time, eating an American burger.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

功德的多個面孔

Today marks the official start of my grandfather's two-day gong teck, which is essentially a ritual to accumulate merits to contribute to the good afterlife of our deceased relatives. However, what I witnessed is nothing less than a kaleidoscope.

功德 as an event of extravagance...
Fans, lights and water were switched on almost non-stop.

功德 as a stock take of live relatives...
A gathering in disguised. I saw many relatives, some whom I do not even recognise.

功德 as a stock take of the dead...
All the dead lined up at the very centre of attraction. I can clearly see who are those who left us.

功德... as a sorrowful story of a mum who lost her son...
I vividly remembered this auntie used to have a son and a daughter. Both of them resemble their mother. Cute-looking and adorable. Today, I saw the son's picture in black and white, which means, he is dead. I asked my uncle what took his life, and it was leukemia. I was saddened. I felt sad for the mother and at the same time I felt immense respect for her, for her strength to carry on with life.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Screwed

In the news yesterday, Malaysian government claims that they had eyes on Mas Selemat (the escapee from Singapore's Whitley Road Detention Centre) the moment he enters Malaysian territorial. And they maintain that they kept it that way so that they would get information on the network Selamat is exposed to. Singapore's Home Ministry insisted that it was a 'joint operation' between the 2 countries that led to the re-capture of Selamat.

The details are useless as far as this space is concerned. I just realised something.

Case 1:
If Malaysia had eyes-on all the time and Singapore is part of the 'joint operation', then our Home Ministry had sacrificed the citizens involved in the search for countless days and nights.

Case 2:
If Singapore is ignorance of Malaysia's eyes-on Selamat. Then we could be involved in a hatred epic. It's just like your neighbour knows the burglar is breaking into your house and does nothing about it.

Either way, it doesn't sound very nice, does it?

Monday, June 1, 2009

Over the weekend




Of the 4 Blackberries, only 3 are left. One possibly got chased away by the group because he is a male. In the animal kingdom, males have their own territory. To be born a male in the family, is, in my opinion, quite a sad case.