Najib defends cops, calls mass rally an inconvenience

Protestors gassed and hounded all over the streets of KL yesterda. - Picture by Choo Choy May

By Leslie Lau- The Malaysian Insider

Consultant Editor

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 — As Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders demanded the immediate release of hundreds of anti-Internal Security Act activists, including a 16 year-old boy, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak defended police action and dismissed yesterday’s rally as a public inconvenience.

Police used teargas and water cannon to disperse more than 20,000 protesters yesterday and arrested almost 600 people in the biggest demonstration in the country’s capital in almost two years.

The prime minister said that the police had a duty to preserve public order.

The protest could put further pressure on Najib whose popularity is under threat after the mysterious death of DAP political aide Teoh Beng Hock.

Images of riot police turning downtown Kuala Lumpur into a battlezone by chasing and beating unarmed demonstrators will not do much good to a prime minister hoping to project an image of being a reformist.

Bernama quoted Najib as saying today that the government was prepared to provide suitable venues like stadiums for the people to hold peaceful gatherings instead of parading in the streets and inconveniencing others.

Sisters in unity... Female protestors locked in a police truck after being arrested yesterday. - Picture by Choo Choy May

“We can provide them stadiums where they can shout themselves hoarse till dawn, but don’t cause disturbance in the streets,” said Najib.

The prime minister did not however say if he backed the comments made by Law Minister Datuk Nazri Aziz who said yesterday that as long as Barisan Nasional (BN) remained in power the ISA would never be repealed.

Aside from having no permit to hold the rally, the authorities have so far also failed to explain why the police decided to use tear gas and fire water cannon on unarmed civilians including women and children.

Activists and opposition politicians have heavily criticised the police.

The DAP’s Lim Kit Siang suggested the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan should instead “play hardball with murderers, rapists, Ah Longs and gangsters but not with teenagers and peaceful, patriotic advocates for the abolition of ISA”.

“The four-day remand of 16-year-old Faizudin Hamzah who was arrested in yesterday’s anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) for four days is outrageous, deplorable and underlines the biggest human rights problem in Malaysia – that the greatest violators of human rights are often the police and the law enforcement agencies.

It is very clear from yesterday’s proceedings that it was the police and not the peaceful and patriotic advocates for abolition of ISA that provoked breaches of peace and created disorder, precipitated by the indiscriminate police firing of tear gas and chemically-laced water cannon on all and sundry.”

He said there could be no justification for the arrest and another four-day remand for Faizudin or the indiscriminate mass arrest of 589 persons including 44 women and 40 underaged persons in yesterday’s rally.