KUCHING North City Hall (DBKU) has told DAP that it will not make any changes “for the time being” to its policy of monolingual road signs.

“We will stick to the national language,” Kuching North mayor Junaidi Reduan said when asked by DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) Kuching for the road signs to be bilingual, Malay and Chinese.

He said the DBKU commission, which met the same day Dapsy Kuching chief Ting Ying Ying submitted the letter, decided to stick to the current policy.

DAP leaders, including Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen, were called by the police last Friday over a report that the party youth had vandalised several road signs in Kuching as part of a political stunt.

The vandals had added the Chinese versions beneath the original name on road signs in the touristic, historical part of the city, which are in predominantly Chinese neighbourhoods.

Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department, in charge of DBKU, Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi said the action could cause racial tensions.

DAP insists bilingual road signs predate the formation of Malaysia and that they had “also come across (a) directive” by late chief minister Adenan Satem in 2015 for their reinstatement.

Junaidi said he was not aware of such a directive.

“I am (only) aware of the written policy.”

The mall at the centre of the controversy, which boasts a 170-year history dating back to when Indian textile merchants opened shops along the street, and the adjacent old court complex will now be watched round the clock by 26 strategically positioned closed-circuit television cameras.

Wee Hong Seng, chairman of the India Street pedestrian mall committee, said the CCTV was important policing tool to deter criminals and aid law enforcement agencies.

This surveillance by camera is the first of its kind in Sarawak and forms part of the state’s digital transformation. – August 27, 2020.