Malaysian cabbies should be shot, says minister

Calling them traitors, Malaysia’s tourism minister said taxi drivers who were rude to visitors should be “lined up against the wall and shot,” a newspaper reported today.

Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir said taxi drivers who were rude or had cheated tourists in Malaysia had become a “serious problem,” the New Straits Times newspaper reported.

“The government has spent lots of money and put in a lot of effort to attract tourists here,” Kadir was quoted as saying.

“Taxi drivers who behave in this way are traitors to our country and should be lined up against the wall and shot,” he said. “This is the kind of treatment they deserve.”

Kadir was cited as saying he had received letters of complaint from tourists and had been stopped in the street by people who wanted to tell him about the problem.

The minister said the government was considering raising the deposit taxi companies pay to register vehicles if driver standards were not improved, the report said.