Bar considering lawsuit against police

The Star (Used by permission)

KUALA LUMPUR: The Bar Council is mulling over whether a civil suit should be filed against the police over the treatment of protesters during the Bersih 3.0 rally.

They may also call for an inquiry by Suhakam over allegations of police brutality.

“We will engage with the police. We have spoken to (City CID chief Senior Asst Comm Datuk Ku Chin Wah) that we need to sit down and talk and he was quite receptive to that,” its president Lim Chee Wee told a press conference yesterday.

Releasing the interim report of the Malaysian Bar’s observation of Saturday’s rally, Lim said the instances of police brutality as well as arbitrary use of water cannon and tear gas were a lot more rampant than during the Bersih 2.0 demonstration last year.

“The use of force by the police, without any obvious provocation or cause, was disproportionate and excessive.

“We need a police transformation programme.

“The Prime Minister may be sincere in his reforms but his agencies are not catching up,” Lim said.

He declined to comment on allegations that Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and PKR deputy president Azmin Ali had provoked the crowd into breaking through police barriers, saying that it “required further investigation”.

“But even if you breach the outer barriers, does it justify firing tear gas into the crowd?” Lim asked.

Bersih 2.0 steering committee said in a statement yesterday that it had not broken its promise of a peaceful gathering as the reported acts of violence only occurred after the tear gas was fired.

The police, it said, had failed to ensure peace after firing the water cannons and tear gas.

“In advanced democracies where the freedom to assemble is respected, both the organisers and the state have equal responsibility to ensure peace and security.

“Yet in this case, the state imposed the entire burden on Bersih 2.0. We discharged that burden fully and Bersih 2.0 had full control until the tear gas was fired.

“Once that happened, the burden shifted to the police to handle the situation they had created. The responsibility became theirs,” the statement said.

While stressing that they did not condone the breaching of the barricades at Dataran Merdeka, the committee questioned whether it was an “excuse for the disproportionate and excessive use of force by the police”.

“The breach at the barricades came after Bersih had declared the rally a success and had given instructions to the crowd to disperse,” it said.