IPOH, May 27 — Continuing Pakatan Rakyat's (PR) condemnation of the police, Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin says that the spate of arrests linked to the Perak crisis has dwarfed the infamous Operasi Lalang in 1987.
Yesterday, a total of 21 people including eight PR elected representatives were detained in relation to PR's hunger strike. This number added to a total which the former mentri besar says has hit 157.
Under then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 106 people were hauled in under Ops Lalang. At the time, this was probably the second largest swoop in Malaysian history after that of the May 13, 1969 racial riots.
However, the detentions related to the Feb 5 putsch by Barisan Nasional (BN) has mostly occurred randomly during various gatherings which the authorities deemed illegal.
Nizar said today that "it is a dark hour for those seeking freedom and justice".
"It is worse than Ops Lalang," he said, adding that around the world, hunger strikes are natural actions by freedom fighters protected by the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights.
At yesterday morning's launch of the three-day hunger strike, PR leaders slammed police action which, they claimed, was not independent and served the interests of the ruling BN coalition.
At a night ceramah, Perak DAP chief Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has brought "the darkest hour for Malaysia which now exists in a state of lawlessness".
He claimed the arrests, specifically those made yesterday, were unlawful and filed police reports against the wrongful detentions.
"Instead of keeping law and order, the police are causing disorder," he said of their persistence in disrupting peaceful gatherings instead of concentrating on more serious crimes.
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