Comments - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by Alastairreith

Sanyog

Sanyog — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You call that police brutality? You should then see what happens in the Indian subcontinent, Africa and Latin America. The word ‘brutality’ would be redefined in your dictionary. In India, people can be held illegally for weeks, tortured, subjected to unlawful narco and polygraph tests and only when a confession is extracted by hook or crook a formal arrest is made. In the West even murderers are let off if the procedures are not followed to arrest him.

Suryasnata

Suryasnata — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

That’s sad but the silver lining is that the public is outraged and it is already a national issue. In India we have had cases where the police have blinded suspected criminals inside lockups with sharp instruments and poured acid on the empty sockets. Recently a woman committed suicide when she was raped by policemen in a police station where she went to lodge a complaint.

Sasmita

Sasmita — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Instances of police brutality are numerous. There are thousands of cases we have read and heard. What example should we give here? There are murder, rape, beating, insulting and misbehaving of people inside the jail.

It’s all shame on name of law and order.

Jaiyant Cavale

Jaiyant Cavale — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What happens in India is a lot worsethan that. fugitives in India are beaten and sodomized so badly most don’t even make it to the court hearings and die on their way to the court. Now that is what I call Police Brutality

Elias

Elias — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was just watching a Hindi movie “Chameli” and Yashpal Sharma gave a true look into the workings of a true-blue India policeman. In the movie, the cop played by Yashpal Sharma readily hands out justice out to people as he ses fit and the rule book is thrown out of the proverbial window.

For him, I mean the Indian Cop, the world is a place dancing to his his own particular tune of power. He doesn’t know what is brutal. he does not know because he does not need to know. To be an Indian Cop is to answer to no one.

Chintan

Chintan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Police brutality is a sub continent specialty and I do not mean any disrespect to anyone. The only one lucky to be spared are those who manage to be in the good books of the policeman. Casual Violence is another name for Police brutality.

If you want to read more about police brutality in India, I think you should also read report from the PUCL site at PUCL.org which has reports from Bihar, Jharkhand, among b other illustrious places.

Celso Camargo

Celso Camargo — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Police brutality? In Rio, only in this year, 300 got killed by police.

Grace

Grace — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

That pales in comparison with what I know. :)

Bobette

Bobette — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ok so everyone has the worst police in the world i thought it was just bad here in America.

Its like they became cops just so they can abuse people. I realize criminals do wrong but cops doing wrong to them is just as criminal

Bijoy

Bijoy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Police ’brutality and the word ’barbarism’ go hand in hand in an Indian environment. Recently a man in an Assam jail was released almost after 40 years and the horrors of horrors, he was languishing in the jail while he was neither convicted nor any case filed against him. !!!!!

Taylor Flatt

Taylor Flatt — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There seems to be either a lot of people crying wolf and there are also some real cases. But a lot of it seems for public attention and something to put a blame on. I didn’t know that it was as bad around the world as it is here. :|

Bob

Bob — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

While not condoning the grossly excessive actions of these police officers there is more to this than maybe meets the eye. As in many instances in New Zealand Maori consistently ”play the race card”. ”Black and white justice” was spat out by this guy’s parents. The venom rolled off their tongues. It was clearly deep and entrenched.

In New Zealand we are seeing this ”race card” used again and again on issue after issue. I have worked and lived with many fine Maori people - my daughter dated one for many years, our home was open at all times to him. Now, sadly, I find myself reacting to the perpetual bleating of many Maori. Even when they kill their young (increasingly) ”the whites” are blamed for what happened generations ago. Get a life!

It’s time everyone ”coloured AND white” shoulders responsibility. Clearly in this case the Police went far too far and that cannot be excused but equally the deteriorating New Zealand society, is sadly now fed on race issues, which makes a climate where commonsense on both sides of the argument ”goes out the window”.

New Zealand deserves better than seeing a divided society and suggesting that our Police force is riddled with thugs and racists is completely wrong.

Alastair Reith

Alastair Reith — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

-As in many instances in New Zealand Maori consistently ”play the race card”.-

It always amuses me how middle class white people complain about Maoris ”playing the race card”. The fact is that Maoris and Pacifc Islanders are impoverished and oppressed minorities that face discrimination in the workplace, the education system, the courts and just about everywhere else in NZ society. They have every right to speak up when the people that brutalised their son are let off scot-free because their son happens to have brown skin!

-”Black and white justice” was spat out by this guy’s parents. The venom rolled off their tongues. It was clearly deep and entrenched.-

No deeper or more entrenched than poverty, joblessness and social dysfunction in Maori and PI communities. They had every right to feel angry considering the miscarriage of justice they’d just witnessed!

-In New Zealand we are seeing this ”race card” used again and again on issue after issue. I have worked and lived with many fine Maori people - my daughter dated one for many years, our home was open at all times to him. Now, sadly, I find myself reacting to the perpetual bleating of many Maori. Even when they kill their young (increasingly) ”the whites” are blamed for what happened generations ago. Get a life!-

What other specific cases are you referring to? Because in this case it was clearly justified, and I don’t actually know of a great number of other cases where Maori people have ”played the race card”.

The woes of Maori communities are not due to ”laziness” or ”selfishness” or whatever. The problems in Maori communities come as a direct result of the generations of poverty, discrimination, alienation and despair that have been forced on them by the right-wing, capitalist governments that have run this country ever since the Treaty of Waitangi (which was not in any way a progressive treaty based on the peaceful reconciliation of Maori and Pakeha, and the extension of justice and equaloty to all. It was rather a document that legitimised the imperialist takeover of New Zealand by white settlers and justified the subsequent displacement of Maori from their land).

-It’s time everyone ”coloured AND white” shoulders responsibility. Clearly in this case the Police went far too far and that cannot be excused but equally the deteriorating New Zealand society, is sadly now fed on race issues, which makes a climate where commonsense on both sides of the argument ”goes out the window”.-

This specific case is partly a race issue and partly a class issue. It’s unlikely this would have happened to Falwasser if he came from a rich background, and it’s certainly not likely that his attackers would have been found not guilty.

Ultimately the argument needs to be framed in class terms, and you have to work out which class interests are at play, and whose side you’re on. I’m on the side of the working-class and against the capitalist class that exploits it. Where do you stand?

-New Zealand deserves better than seeing a divided society and suggesting that our Police force is riddled with thugs and racists is completely wrong.-

NZ IS a divided society. It’s divided into classes, oppressed and oppressors, exploited and exploiters, just like every other capitalist country in the world. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous.

I doubt the majority of cops are racist, but they are thugs. That’s the role of the police in a capitalist society - to act as the armed thugs of the state, and to protect the interests of the ruling class. Whenever there’s a strike, you don’t see the cops coming down to arrest the bosses for stealing the workers pay/conditions/jobs - instead you see them escorting scabs across the picket line, and arresting any workers they feel they can get away with. That’s the true role of the police in our society.