This is very interesting.
Najib’s bully boys in uniform have threatened to clamp down on the Kita Lawan rally, in support of jailed Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Noor Rashid Ibrahim, has warned rally goers of tough action, claiming the gathering is “sedition-laced” and “unlawful”.
For any assembly to be ‘unlawful’, people have to use ‘criminal force’, as provided for in the Penal Code.
Why is the deputy police chief preempting the use of criminal force by members of the public?
Or could this signal a covert plan or a hidden agenda, with the police being aware of agent provocateurs put in place to instigate rally-goers?
Time and again, there have been speculations that when previous rallies got messy, it was the presence of some initiators who played a big hand in disrupting peaceful gatherings.
Video footages have shown that the public have always been on the receiving end of excessive force by the police who used water cannons, teargas and physical highhandedness to drive out protesters.
Deputy IGP has also said that “If they gather for illegal intentions, such as to force and threaten the government to do something, it is wrong.”
Besides pledging support for Anwar, the protest is to send a very strong signal to UMNO and Barisan Nasional that the rakyat are fed up with the current government, the 1MDB scandal, weakening ringgit, rising prices of essential goods and many other pressing issues that Najib and his cabinet are incapable of handling.
The rally is about the rakyat demanding that their rights are met, their money is not siphoned off by cronies of the ruling elite, their wings are not clipped by preventive laws. In short the protest is to demand that the government works for the people and not to enrich itself.
No one is out there, braving possible abuse by the police force, to threaten the government. It’s high time the police understood the right of the people to assemble and voice out their dissatisfaction with the government.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged to open up the democratic space in the country, specifically by doing away with preventive laws.
But he cleverly bulldozed the Peaceful Assembly Act in Parliament. And now the Sedition Act, which he also promised to revoke, is being used to nab Opposition politicians, academics, cartoonists, protesters who take to the streets demanding justice and just about anyone whom Najib thinks will rattle his weak government even further.
The Court of Appeal, in April last year, ruled that Malaysians have a right to assembly, and went further to state that the provisions in the Peaceful Assembly Act were unconstitutional.
So, I urge the police to not interrupt today’s gathering and to be non-partisan in carrying out their duties.
Public gatherings are not a crime.