Women's safety remark causes uproar in House

An MP’s claim that women no longer felt safe in the country caused a war of words to break out between backbenchers and opposition MPs in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) (right), when debating the Supplementary Supply Bill 2012 at the committee stage for the Home Ministry (KDN), claimed that women’s fears about their safety contradicted the statistics on crime reduction under the National Key Result Areas.

This led to Rahman Dahlan (BN-Kota Belud) to retort that this was only a perception and did not reflect the views of the majority of women.

He chided her for making sweeping statements and reminded her not to accuse the government of having failed to bring down the crime rate as the statistics did not lie.

Rahman’s reply caused Tian Chua (PKR-Batu) to get into the act to defend her although deputy speaker Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told him not to interject.

Things only got worse with Dr Mohamed Shahrum Osman (BN-Lipis) joining the fray and asking Tian Chua to migrate to another country if the latter thought Malaysia was not a safe place.

The ruckus continued until Deputy Home Minister Abu Seman Yusop winded up debate in which he said that Malaysia had been acknowledged as one of the safest countries in the world by international bodies.

The Bill seeking an additional allocation of RM13.8 billion for operating expenditure was passed by the Dewan.

- Bernama