Foreigners In Uniform

The slap that was heard around the world

Police Operations Director Lau Peet Meng is one in favour of recruiting foreigners for the Singapore Police Force (SPF). From what he says, it appears that permanent residents can currently be (and probably are already) recruited to police Singaporeans, "what kind of numbers, as an organisation and as a society, we are prepared to take in...  is something that still needs to be further deliberated on”.

Perhaps Lau should also consider what kind of foreign talent will be wearing the blue uniform. We could end up with these types of law enforcers gainfully employed at their respective domicile countries:

Rashid Rangiris, the Philippines Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer who roughhoused a female Chinese national at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on May 5. Jiang Huixiang was barred entry into the country because she was allegedly teaching in the Philippines without required papers. A cell phone video making the internet circuit shows her being dragged along the floor by the immigration official. Next, the official is filmed shoving her with brutal force and slapping her several times before pushing her into a nearby room and out of the camera's field of view.

Ibrahim Latif, the police chief of Acheh, Indonesia, who is insisting on caning the 25-year-old widow gang raped by a group of 8 overzealous vigilantes enforcing the Shari‘a religious bylaw on sexual relations. Accusing her of adultery, the vigilantes beat up her 40-year-old partner, indulged in their own wanton lust by having their way with her, and then doused the two with sewage before turning them over to the police.

Manila is standing by their immigration officer and plans to file assault charges against the Chinese national. Indonesian Shari‘a police in Langsa plans to go ahead with the public flogging for adultery, and take care of the rapists separately in a criminal court, but not according to Shari‘a penal code.

Do we really need to integrate these bewildering administrations of justice into our legal system? The BI employee may be a good fit in the prison system, with his skill set of making the sure his victim is out of camera range before dishing out the heavy treatment. Which could explain the lack of CCTV footage of Dinesh Raman's final moments. But Lau can't be seriously thinking of implementing Shari‘a law when he said, "We need, to some extent, some sensitivity to understand our foreign population. The danger is if it’s (purely Singaporean), you will lose touch with the people you’re policing." Bringing in the foreigners is bad enough, do we have to ship in their variants of policing methods?