Police violence – a damper?

2 May 2012 | Let’s Get Together | Posted by Ong Kar Jin

Loyar Burok

This is one of the definitions given by Urban Dictionary (yes I know, what a load of nonsense, but bear with me):

Police [ puh-less], noun The guys you run away from.

e.g. SHIT, IT’S THE POLICE, RUN!

Usually Urban Dictionary doesn’t quite give the most accurate of definitions, but this one seemed pretty damn accurate on Saturday. Well, most of you would have had your own experiences, but I needed to vent my frustration ( since I don’t have anybody to beat up), so here I am writing an article which probably only three people will read (one of them a cyber police officer, perhaps).

I’d just like to clarify some things before I move on. Firstly, I am in no way against the police themselves as a force, but rather am opposed to their conduct. In fact, I owe a lot to them, and have friends who have policemen as dads. Secondly, this article is based on my experiences, so please don’t tell me I’m spewing nonsense (I’m talking to YOU, cyber police officer lurking in a dark room).

Okay, moving on.

Police organisation

It was about 1.30 p.m. at Masjid Negara. The solat had begun, and people were starting to pour into the mosque. There was a huge crowd of police (most of whom looked very young) on my side of the road – about five hundred of them – and you could that some wanted to follow the crowd into the mosque (for prayer or for the shade, I don’t know). They had been standing there for about half an hour by now, and some began to sit down. A Bersih supporter joked they were staging their own Duduk Bantah, haha!

The day was maddeningly hot. I thought I was dying from the heat, when suddenly I noticed this huge movement on the right flank of the police formation. They were mobilising! The crackdown had begun! I stood up on the steel railing at the side of the road trying to get a glimpse, oh poor vertically-challenged me. And there they were, about twenty to thirty policemen, surrounding this elderly pak cik. All of them were reaching into their pockets, grabbing his hand…

To give him money for drinks.

Bet I caught you there, eh? Okay anyway, a friend of mine decided to belanja the policemen. “The police are our friends, remember that!”, he said. So we bought like ten cups of sirap and orange juice, and the police officers shared them out. They were a bit reluctant to accept it at first, but judging by the way they devoured the drinks I suppose they were pretty parched. We then begun a conversation with them.

I asked one if he knew how many policemen were present. I hazarded a figure of 3000. He just shook his head, saying there were many more than that. A little bit more snooping revealed that they were all from different contingents – some from Johor, Selangor, Perak, and even from Penang. No wonder the other protests were so peaceful, all the police were in KL!

I even found out that a few of them, by their own confession, were “dari negara asing” ( from a foreign country). I was pretty puzzled, but they seemed tight-lipped about this and so I didn’t press further. Overall they were quite friendly;  joking around and jabbing each other, they reminded me of schoolkids teasing each other about “girlfriends”. Several protesters even shared cigarettes with them.

About twenty minutes later, prayers ended. Some policemen had stood in solemn silence the whole way. I talked to them a bit more, and one of them asked me why I had turned up. I told him about election fraud. We had a bit of a discussion, and he concluded: “You ada pandangan you, saya ada pandangan sendiri lah.” ( You have your opinions, and I have my own views)

There were lots of helicopters overhead, and even these funny men on parachutes with giant fans strapped to their back (para-gliders). Most were probably FRU air surveillance. Very nice. I joked that, for the next Bersih, we should hijack those parachute things and land in Dataran Merdeka, bypassing all the barbed wire. Heh.

In any case, I found the police mobilisation in shutting down roads to bevery impressive. It definitely revealed the extent to which the government had made preparations for Bersih.

Police “professionalism”

Many festivities followed. This mood continued at my side of Masjid Jamek (I had moved, as Masjid Negara got boring), until about 3pm or so. Then all hell started breaking loose.

 Tear gas was everywhere. Without warning, police started shooting at us. It was like having cili padi rubbed into your eyes, and a whole chunk of wasabi shoved down your throat and up your nose. For those of you who didn’t go gatal to experience tear gas, I would not recommend you attempt to reenact my description. I had a towel wet by water from a pak cik, a mask from an uncle, and salt from a little adik – the clothes of the true Malaysia.

Police fired tear gas indiscriminately. Their tactics were obviously to box us in, not to fan us out. I was getting tired from all the running and gas, and thought of just resting. Then a grandma who must have been in her 70s tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Let’s go!”  I sure didn’t feel tired after that.

We ran back and forth, back and forth. Some protestors started hurling insults at the police, who responded likewise. The police shouted, “ Come la! Come la! If you’re so brave, come and hit us la!”

Though certainly the police were provoked, this was certainly unacceptable as they are to be moral guardians and upholders of peace and law. Instead of managing the situation, they fostered aggession. At one point, I was wandering off and got manhandled by a policeman who shouted at me “Pergi! Pergi! You jangan kacau di sini!” and pushed me back into the fray.

If this were some first world country – and yes, I am saying Malaysia is a third world country – the police officer would probably have just barred my way and politely but firmly said “Sir, this is a restricted area, please leave for your own safety”.

What ever happened to our Malaysian police motto of “TEGAS, ADIL DAN BERHEMAH”?

Excessive force

Things gradually died down from there, as being true Malaysians, my friends and I just had to go for a makan session. So we went to Restoran Ali, although it was less packed than the nasi briyani stall next to it. The food there was not that great, to say the least. The maggi goreng was rather bland, and they had run out of most other foods (in hindsight, I think he got it mixed up with Restoran Ali Maju).

Anyway, in case you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with the police, we were eating away when a group of people in yellow shirts came running over shouting “Baju! Baju! Baju!”. I didn’t quite understand what they were shouting about until this young Chinese guy came over to our table and explained that the police were arresting everybody in yellow. We quickly put on our jackets, a quick ‘I told you it’d come in handy!’ whipped out to my friends in the process. One guy who had heard the brief exchange took off his shirt, while some others either didn’t bother or didn’t hear.

Ten seconds later, a dozen police officers came running over, holding batons and shouting their heads off. They pulled the noticeable yellow shirt wearers out of the mamaks, and the guy who took off his shirt wasn’t spared either ( I mean who on earth walks around, eating dinner half-naked in public?). The police started beating them up, kicking them around. I was tempted to stand up and cry foul, but a tiny voice in my head whispered to me about the importance of continuing the Ong family line and the futility of it all. So I just kept eating.

The police shouted while hitting them, saying “You berani lawan polis, you tau tak dua orang polis sudah mati!” (You dare fight the police, do you know that two police officers have died!) The newspapers make no mention of this, so I assume these were baseless rumours.

Such a rumour could only have come from police themselves, or from the top. If it was from the former, they should have verified the claim through their clearly well-organised communication network. If it was from the top, then it is obviously to stir up emotion and make things worse. Either way, it revealed the excessive force and gangster-ish spirit of our police officers: you hurt one of us, we have the right to hurt you; taking the law into their own hands when they of all people should know that a criminal must be tried by a court.

These vigilantes were obviously not of the Spiderman type, but rather indiscriminately vented their anger on innocent protestors who did not resist arrest.

After they left, I heaved a sigh of relief. Afraid that they might come again and this time check under my jacket, I dumped my Bersih T-shirt into the nearest dumpster. What an ironic end.

I was trying to get back home then, but to no avail. Most of the roads and trains were closed. So I was walking along St. Johns when a group of people came running and shouting how the police were now arresting practically everyone still on the streets. My friends and I dived into St. Johns Cathedral (well, it was as good a time as any to start feeling religious!) and hid there for an hour or so.

Aftermath

I’d like to end my account of Bersih and the police with an analogy: If we are shot by a gun (or, if you prefer, a tear gas canister), do we blame the gun or the person wielding the gun? If we are angry about the police, do we blame the police or those who direct the police?

I leave that judgment up to you. But what I do know is that after the day’s events, I have changed. I remember the first moment the tear gas hit – I shed tears, but they were not just tears from the tear gas, but tears from my heart. Something inside me had died. But recalling the Yellow River that day (we could have given the real river some competition!), something new also grew, and is still growing inside me.

I call it hope. And I hope it grows inside you, too.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 11:18 pm and is filed under
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Should we still believe in peaceful protests?

 — Ksatriya

The Malaysian Insider

May 02, 2012

MAY 2 — It is so tempting, isn’t it?

To throw up our hands and declare that this will never work. To say that’s it and throw in the towel. To lose faith completely in our fellow Malaysians and retreat into a corner, declaring that ideals can never trump human flaws.

The myth of the peaceful protest, busted?

I spent the last two days being in and out of depression. It descended on me the minute I heard of violence perpetrated by protestors at Bersih 3.0. Suddenly, my belief in the cause and the Malaysian people seemed to crumble. After all our noble intentions, are we nothing more than a mob? Yesterday, some first-hand accounts began to appear. Some of the political leaders had incited the crowd to breach the cordon, they said. The crowd surged forth. The police had no choice but to defend themselves with wave after wave of tear gas. They had to mop up the streets of violent and unruly protestors. Things were broken, cars were overturned. The myth of the peaceful protest was finally busted.

Or was it?

I hardly slept last night. I was in front of the computer until the early hours of the morning, poring over news reports, videos, pictures. Trying to make sense of the events that had dealt such a powerful blow to my faith. Then it dawned on me.

There were 250,000 plus peaceful protestors on the streets yesterday. Let that sink in. Two hundred and fifty thousand people, just like you and me. With jobs and hobbies and bills. And that was just in KL. There were scores of protestors at other locations all over Malaysia and all over the world. The Bersih banner was held aloft on top of a mountain. It was proudly displayed under the sea. It was held aloft in KL, in Penang, in Ipoh, in JB, in Kuching, in KK, in London, in Hong Kong, in Japan, in Australia, in the US, in Canada — at over 70 locations all over the world.

All peaceful, save for one. KL.

People had begun gathering 12 hours earlier in KL. You’ve seen the reports. People started pouring in on the night of the 27th. But no property was damaged in that time. No policemen were attacked in the hours leading to Bersih. There were thousands of Malaysians already near Dataran before Bersih even started. They could have breached the cordon if they wanted to, really. They did not.

A team of independent observers called the protestors ‘peaceful’ and ‘exemplary’. Read the story here.

Nor did any violence occur at 2pm, the official starting time for Bersih’s Duduk Bantah. I was there from 11am. There were thousands of people at the rallying points leading to Dataran Merdeka. No incidences of violence. People were laughing, talking, singing songs. Some exceptional young men and women were walking around with trash bags, cleaning up after other protestors. Even cleaning up trash that was there before we had started to gather. The atmosphere was festive. The camaraderie was infectious. We were Malaysians. And we were there to build a better Malaysia. Peacefully.

So what the hell happened at 3pm?

We’d spent the day in a jovial, celebratory mood. Resting with friends in the shade, I remember telling one of them that maybe the police had taken Bersih 2.0 as a lesson. Then we smelled the tear gas.

It is quite telling on the Malaysian government, I think, that a crowd of young, mostly middle-class people at a peaceful protest immediately recognised the smell of tear gas. But I digress.

At first the acid stench of tear gas was bearable. We could see the clouds of smoke in the distance. The crowd began slowly walking away. And then the canisters were fired into the crowd and all hell broke loose.

You might imagine a scene of utter chaos. Every man for himself, people stepping and clamouring over each other to reach safety, to hell with their fellow man. For a second, this was my fear.

Then the crowd proved me wrong.

Our skin stung from the chemicals, our eyes watered in pain, our breathing laboured and difficult. We had nowhere to go. People were everywhere, running, screaming, dragging their friends and family behind them.

But voices began punctuating the panic.

“Stay calm! Don’t run! Help the people beside you!” they called in both Malay and English. There were shouts in Chinese and Tamil as well, though I could not discern what they were saying.

I threw my voice in. “Sabar! Jangan panik! Makan garam! Basuh muka! Jalan! Jangan lari!” I screamed over and over, to know one in particular. A young Malay man with Unit Amal did the same, repeating the call for calm over and over in Malay.

Then the crush and pull of the crowd began to slow. People looked at us and slowed their pace. They ate the salt and washed their faces. They offered what they had to the people around them regardless of race. I saw young men and women with faces red from the pain. But they bit their lips and started looking around, helping the people around them.

A single, shining bud of hope sprang forth in my heart. “This,” my brain screamed in elation “is my Malaysia!”

People were angry, though. They were angry at the authorities for their heavy-handed tactics. What did we do to deserve this? As we tried to disperse, we were caged in, exits blocked, people forced to suffer the full effect of the burning tear gas. Isn’t the whole point of that vile fume to disperse people? Why kettle us into confined spaces and flay us with wave after wave of that noxious stuff?

Later on I read a tweet that I felt perfectly explained the situation. “They didn’t want us to disperse. They wanted us to suffer.” **

Even then, there was no violence. There was pent up anger, but no violence. We dispersed however we could. We helped whomever we could along the way. At 4pm, we made our way home.

So should we still believe in the cause? Should we still believe in peaceful protests?

I’m not going to spend any time here pointing fingers or assigning blame. There will be more than enough of that in the next few days. Accusations will fly from both sides, fantastic theories will be put forth, condemnation will spew freely from the ground. Once the dust has settled, the truth will finally emerge triumphant, bloody but never beaten. Until then, I would like to appeal to all my friends here, stay calm. Stay rational. Be patient. Let the facts emerge. Have faith in your fellow Malaysians. If we lose that, we have nothing.

Nobody said this was going to be easy. We didn’t really think we could breeze through this without having to face the tough questions, did we? Face them we must.

Can we let the action of a few undermine our noble cause? Should we tear ourselves apart pointing fingers and assigning blame, whilst our democracy and votes continue to be stolen from right under our noses? Should we descend once again into apathy and inaction because things didn’t go exactly as we planned them?

There will be some difficult questions we’ll have to answer. There are going to be obstacles and challenges. There will be room for improvement and growing pains. We must face and solve them all rationally. We will have to slog through the mud before we reach our goal. But reach it we shall

There’s a line from a movie I like to quote all the time. The movie itself is cheesy, the line, however, is not.

“Success will test a man’s mettle as surely as the strongest adversary.”

Please excuse the gender specific reference. As I said, the movie’s a little cheesy. That single line of dialogue, however, is genius. It is both true and timely. We have seen some success, now it will test us to see if we are truly worthy of reaching our ultimate goal.

We cannot fail.

We must see this through, despite all obstacles and tribulations.

Stay united. Keep the belief alive. Trust your fellow Malaysians. Fight on for our worthy cause.

We will succeed.

PS In case you’re wondering, yes, an Australian Senator was in fact present at Bersih 3.0 and he was tear-gassed too. He was part of an international fact-finding mission on the electoral process in Malaysia. The team has stated that they have grave concerns about the electoral process and Election Commission. Watch the press conference here

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 12:31 am and is filed under
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US report: Press in M’sia ‘not free’

By
Patrick Lee
 | May 3, 2012

Free Malaysia Today

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has been found to be one of the worst countries in Asia when it comes to press freedom.

According to the US-based human rights think-tank Freedom House’s “Freedom of the Press 2012” report, Malaysia’s was ranked 31st out of 40 countries in the Asia-Pacific region where media freedom was concerned.

With a score of 63, this put it just above countries like Singapore (32nd), Brunei (35th) and Vietnam (36th), marking it with the “Not Free” status.

Countries with higher scores are less free, and considered authoritarian, while countries with lower scores are seen as more free.

Malaysia was even ranked lower than its troubled neighbours in Asean, such as Indonesia (22nd), the Philippines (21st) and Thailand (28th).

From a worldwide perspective, Malaysia was ranked at 144th out of a list of 196 countries, sharing its position with Cambodia, Jordan, Madagascar and Pakistan.

Freedom House’s ratings come as no surprise, with the government seemingly clamping down on Malaysian media despite promises of liberalisation and reform.

Even though Parliament passed amendments to the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984, media agencies in the country are still at the mercy of the Home Minister, even if they can challenge the government if their printing licences are revoked.

It is expected that the recent assault of journalists during the Bersih 3.0 demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday may devalue Malaysia’s worldwide standing further.

According to the survey, the ratings were divided into three categories:

a) Legal: Which looks into government-imposed media regulations and restrictions on media workers, and how free journalist groups are allowed to operate.

b) Political: Political control over the content of news media, such as editorial independence, harrassment, assaults and other threats.

c) Economics: Matters such as transparency and strucutre of media onwership, withholding of advertising and other factors.

The survey added that the ratings not only looked at how individual governments treated news groups, but also how media agencies reacted in “testing boundaries” and “restrictive environments”.

The impact of non-state (or non-government) groups were also a factor in deciding press freedom rankings.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 3:39 pm and is filed under
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Viva Malaysia!

By
JE Niuh
 | May 02, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 — Where do I start? How about when I saw the protesters surge towards me as the tear gas canisters fell! It was a sight to see: a sea of humanity coming towards you as you’re pinned against a lamp post and a drinks van in front of CIMB Bank about 50m from the barricade. I did not join in the mêlée and was able to usher the masses past me and remind them to stay calm and move away from the area in an orderly fashion.

Exactly when the s*** hit the fan, I do not know. But what riled me up was how a supposed peaceful mass gathering with a noble cause quickly turned ugly and violent. I guess it was wishful thinking of me thinking that this act of civil disobedience would end up uneventfully! I should have known that some anarchists amongst us would not let this pass without a physical fight with the authorities. After all that was and always will be their raison d’etre —to create chaos when there is none! But there I still was. In the sweltering midday heat with thousands others because we wanted to be there, to send out a clear and unambiguous signal to the powers that be that we will no longer be cowed and controlled and play by “their” rules.

And that is the fundamentality of what we as citizens of this country and perhaps humanity crave for. Our freedom to be where we want to be, when we want it to be, without restrictions being placed on us. This self awareness, self awakening is what we need to encourage ourselves and others who are perhaps still “slumbering” amidst the mismanagement of this great country of ours by the government of the day. We must realise that we are the ones who put the government in power and we have the right and ability to remove them through a clean and fair electoral process, if they misbehave. Unfortunately this process is currently in disrepute, hence the purpose of this latest round of mass protest.

But will the current executive take heed of this “message” and reform itself voluntarily? My gut says NO because when you have had a taste of absolute power for so long, distinguishing what is right from wrong becomes blurred. That is the nature of the beast, the human condition in all of us, me included. However, we must never let that be an excuse to allow the current sorry state of affairs continue unabated. There has to be checks and balances to ensure, nay, demand that the government works for the people and not against it. And we are, and should be, that check and balance. Because we want freedom back in every aspect of our lives, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom of choice and most of all freedom from tyranny and injustice. And THIS is where it all starts… in the sweltering midday heat with thousands others who want the same thing.

Viva Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 12:57 pm and is filed under
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We are a confused nation, aren’t we?

—  Abdul Haleem Abdul Rahiman

The Malaysian Insider

May 03, 2012

MAY 3 — While the dust yet to settle on Bersih 3.0 the nation seems so drunk. So lost and so confused.

The best news today surely about Nayati Shamelin Moodliar who was released after been kidnapped for almost a week.

This young boy was released after an undisclosed amount of cash ransom was paid to the abductors.  During the press conference Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Mohmad Salleh have said the following; “The family decided to pay the ransom. The demand was made immediately after the kidnapping. Police are still investigating the case under the Kidnapping Act, and if found guilty, the suspects will receive the death sentence,”

Why is he talking about if found guilty the suspects will be hanged. Have you found the suspects? Arrest them and charge them and then tell us what punishment they will face. After all on many cases before this the only thing you guys found was dead bodies or innocents children.

More on our famous police force. The KL city police released photo shots of 49 suspects who were responsible for the mayhem and violence on Bersih 3.0. Good. Arrest them investigate them and charge them.

Based on the report in TMI Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Mohmad Salleh told a press conference today the 49 persons were being investigated for various crimes under the Penal Code related to unlawful assembly and disobeying police orders.

When asked if any policemen have been listed as suspects he said there were no numbers yet but said it was not an issue as there are “no problems tracing” members of the force.

“Where is the proof? Show us. These are only allegations which must have proof,” he said when asked repeatedly about various allegations of police brutality.

I am sure Mohamed Salleh never heard what YouTube is. He must be the kind who use his PC for Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook alone. He must be using the kind of Smartphone which does not support social media applications. And surely he does not read anything but Utusan Malaysia. Are you confused? I am.

Another big story of the day is Malaysian Airlines and Air Asia share swap deal which now will be reversed.

Let’s not get into details and confuse ourselves even more with corporate jargons and acronym soup. We are already high on acronyms.

We even can publish a book with all the acronyms that been feed to us on daily basis by our government.

We must be the most confused nation to have a such a high profile deal and roll back less than a year? Such a crucial business decision was made and announced without considering or involving all the stakeholders? I know our Ministers are famous for flip flop but we sunk so low now that even public listed companies which at once considered as national treasure taking the stakeholders for a ride.

What is wrong with us?

I am little dumbfounded with all this noise about Astro censoring the foreign content. I am like – what you don’t know that? How long you have been watching Astro? From day one Astro have been censoring all the content. I mean ALL. Your AXN, BBC, Disney, SUN TV, CNN, Celestial and what not.

All this turn-around channels are censored for mainly two reasons. The first reason is to remove all the foreign advertisements and second reason is to remove all so called unsuitable parts of the content.

Unsuitable to whom you might ask? The answer is –it is unsuitable to the gullible Malaysians who always need the big brother to tell us what to watch and what to hear. (also what to read and wear). You might ask who decide this and that is unsuitable for us to watch, hear, read and so forth. We have almost a long list for that namely KDN, LPF, MCMC, and PDRM and so on and so forth.

In fact I will not be surprised if the list is as long as the list of banned books in Malaysia. While amazed me more is – the content provider themselves seems surprised. What? You didn’t notice your broadcast has been tampered all this while? Are you joking? I am not naïve to buy that. Astro in business for more than 15 years now and you are telling me you never knew Astro do chop job on your content?

Talking about censorship I am even more confused.

Yesterday, Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, the information, communication and culture minister defended Astro’s chop job over BBC’s Bersih 3.0 coverage. He was quoted by TMI that he was stressing that the satellite pay television provider should be given credit for showing only the “best parts” of last Saturday’s protest for electoral reforms.

The irony is his ministry must have also recognised that on the same day almost all the mainstream media (press) were publishing porn acts of an opposition figure. Some even went to the extent of providing URLs of the sites which hosts those porn clips. Tell me if you are not  confused.

We have BBC news censored based on local regulations for the sake of national interest but on the other hand mainstream media giving out porn clips URs. Since we are already talking about mainstream press publications – NST might be facing legal suit from Australian Senator for misreporting a three year old speech by him and effectively painting him as anti-Islam.

Forget about misreporting or twisting of the facts. The bizarre is – he was here as an international observer – he spoke his mind – and now we are bashing him as anti-Islam. What has Islam or anti-Islam got to do here?

When you lose the ground to the sensible mass – worry not – there sre always race and religion cards to play with. This is almost a SOP for mainstream media. Just like the SOP of confiscating media personnel’s cameras as what our Home Minister said.

When the whole nation seems like in the royal circus – I was utterly shocked to read a young family of five commits suicide due to financial difficulties. How tragic it can be for a couple who are in early thirties and with three kids (the youngest one is 4 years old) deciding to commit suicide.

There must be something horribly wrong with our system despite all this economic transformation – minimum wage – better FDI better GDP and so on. I am confused.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 11:48 pm and is filed under
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When people fill the streets

By
StanCH Lee

When a cause is righteous, there is no need to pay for people to show up.

You do not have to bring entertainment. You do not need a million dollar stage.

You don’t need the glitz nor the glamour.

No need for shock and awe publicity that costs tens of millions.

No need for “you help me I help you”.

Heck, you do not even need to put food in front of them.

Just stand on the right side of history and everyone will want to be there.

They will weather the storm. They will brave the water cannons.They will walk through the gauntlet of police and FRU brutality.

They will stare into the face of state intimidation. Beat them, they will come right up again. Kick them and they will hunker down even more. Gas them and they will be even more fired up. They will come. In the hundreds. In the thousands.

From near and from far.The young. And the old. They will bring their friends. They will bring their children.

They will even bring their pets.

Be very afraid, you people at the top .The people are watching you.

They know what you have been up to.You cannot hide behind the mass media propaganda anymore.

It is as clear as day the daylight robbery happening right before us.You have been robbing us of our money.

And now you are robbing us of our rights.And still you think we don’t know?

You have been getting away with it for so long that you don’t even feel the need to be discreet anymore.

You have been found out and you have been found wanting.

It is all over the internet. It is on everyone’s lips.

No amount of million dollar Public Relations cover-up can wipe your slate clean.

You have been stained by the things that you do. For money, for power. Is there nothing that you won’t do? As the days drag on towards your end, you grow more desperate. You get more irrational.

Is that fear that is gripping you? Is that why you send out your minions to attack the people? The very people who allow you the privilege of your positions?

We, the people have had enough.

That is why we are pouring out our emotions . We are filling the streets. In Malaysia and all over the world.

Do the right thing and we will be with you all the way. Through hell and high water. We will stand by your side.

And the only right thing to do now is to go peacefully into the night.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 11:28 am and is filed under
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Worth every moment

By Ravindran Paramsothy

The Malaysian Insider

May 03, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, May 3 — I had such an eventful day on April 28! My day started at 9am when my group of friends arrived at my house. The Bersih group comprised four women and I (which begs the question, what happened to all the guys). We decided to drive to Kampung Attap and park at Geeta’s office but there was a roadblock on Jalan Bangsar/Travers. We had no choice but to drive towards Jalan Tun Razak. We decided since my friend Jayanthi was a member of the Royal Selangor Club that we just try our luck and proceed to it. Ahhh! There was another roadblock leading to Jalan Parlimen. The girls although in bright yellow T-shirt convinced the policeman to let us thru and we decided not to push our luck and parked our car at the Lake Club. It took us about 20 minutes to walk to the Royal Selangor Club which had a very strong police presence. Since we were hungry we thought we could have nasi lemak at the club but were politely turned away by the police because of the colour of our attire, apparently yellow is no longer in fashion.

There was already a huge crowd in front of Dataran Merdeka which sadly had a ring of barbed wire around it! Made our way slowly to Central Market and waited for Ambiga to come. The crowd was made up of my fellow Malaysians — huge crowds of Malays, Chinese and Indians and you realise Barisan’s 1 Malaysia was only a slogan and here in Bersih was the true Malaysia that I have forgotten! Our ethnic differences did not matter, but the cause did. How we were tricked by Umno, the MCA and MIC who basically kept dividing us to retain their voting base. According to Malaysiakini we were more than 100,000-strong and Bersih said it was 150,000, it felt like it! We were jammed like sardines as we made our walk, the crowd was so thick that the people in front would inform you of a platform in front because you could not see it! To next day the usual Barisan-controlled media would state 5,000 had turned up!

It was amazing, the diversity of people, young college students, white collar, blue collar, the rich with their laptop, iPads, the elderly — it was heartening to see people in wheelchairs in attendance. It was peaceful but at about 3.15pm the police wanted the crowd to disperse and that’s when the trouble started. They started to rain the protesters with tear gas and pandemonium broke loose! We felt the effect of the tear gas immediately. It starts with the irritation of your eyes, then your skin and the burning sensation of your nose and throat and the smell. The crowd started moving away and more tear gas was fired and because of all the barricades, you are basically locked in. We decided to walk back to the Lake Club but you cannot move further up as there were fresh volleys of tear gas. How do expect people to disperse if you trap them in by firing tear gas from all angles. The good soul of Malaysians was apparent, people sharing salt and asking about your well-being.

We decided that walking back was not a good option and hailed a taxi who wanted RM40 for the ride to the Lake Club. We paid the sum but felt sorry for those who had to rely on mass transport to get back home.

Now the big question: was it worth it and the answer is a resounding “Yes”. It’s a feeling you have to experience, the atmosphere, the sound, the smell and the camaraderie. It is a feeling hard to explain like being in the eye of a storm, everything around you is not safe but you felt safe in the group and most importantly, you make a stand on something you believe in and it’s worth fighting for. Thank you Ambiga!

Will I do it again? In the blink of the eye. The thought of showing my middle finger to Najib and his Cabinet especially Hishamuddin is too alluring!

Finally to my wife Aruna and friends who joined me on my quest, thank you so much for allowing me to experience one of my childhood dreams — the effects of being tear gassed! I am 51 and I finally experienced it. For that alone you have my eternal love!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 May 2012, 1:32 pm and is filed under
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A response to Chandra Muzaffar’s lambasting of Bersih

by Dr Lim Teck Ghee

Friday, 04 May 2012

CPI Writings

Friends have asked me what prompted the extraordinary hatchet job that Dr Chandra Muzaffar attempted on the Bersih 3.0 movement and its leaders in his recent article misleadingly titled ‘Bersih and the Quest for Human Rights’ published in various media.

What was in the article that could be of academic or scholarly value to warrant any close reading? Those attracted by the title may have expected an article on how the quest for human rights in Malaysia may have taken on fresh urgency given the police manhandling of the demonstrators and media, and the many instances of violation of democratic rights.

In the internet and mainstream media, the issue of police brutality has become the main focus and memory of demonstrators and the Malaysian public. That could have been a topic that Dr Chandra – in defending the status quo – could have brought fresh insights from a human rights perspective.

However, he chose not to do so. Instead he churned out a propagandistic piece praising the political reforms undertaken as well as aimed at demonizing the Bersih leaders and its supporters from the opposition.

His reminder about the “degree of integrity in the electoral process” and the fact that there is no electoral process in the world that is totally free of blemish is quite a turn-around. The Chandra of old that I remember was lucid, scathing and critical of the lopsided electoral playing field in favour of the Barisan Nasional and the formidable array of dirty tricks, including mal-apportionment and gerrymandering, it used to win elections.

This includes control of the mainstream mass media that is now unsurprisingly keen to publish any piece that Dr Chandra provides – certainly a far cry from past practice when he was with Aliran or the opposition.

In my numerous conversations with him during the 16 years that we were friends and colleagues at Universiti Sains Malaysia, we talked and shared similar views of the unfair and un-free electoral process and also of BN’s manipulation of the system that enabled it to hold on to power indefinitely.

Today, Dr Chandra seems to have changed his view on the ruling party and many issues in the country, including that of the state of civil liberties. According to him, “[I]t is an irrefutable fact that through these legislative reforms [Peaceful Assembly Act, ISA repeal, etc] the space and scope for the expression and articulation of human rights has been expanded and enhanced as never before.”

That “irrefutable fact”, as Dr Chandra terms it, is not irrefutable. It needs the passage of time and confirmation from the ground to ascertain what has been gained and whether the reforms are substantive or simply cosmetic to pre-empt regime change. Sweeping or grandstanding statements such as the one above made by him are premature and smack of political partisanship.

Should Dr Chandra, after conducting rigorous social science research – publish the results of his work confirming this “irrefutable fact”, it may perhaps help convince sceptics that there has been “far reaching changes to political and civil liberties.”

In the meantime, his pronouncements on the changes in the country are less convincing and less thoughtful than the one below, which could have come from the pen of the Chandra of old.

Excerpts from Muaz Omar: ‘Claiming back our freedom’ (The Malaysian Insider, 3 May 2012)

As the nation and its people developed and progressed, Umno has dragged its feet, not wanting to accept that the social and political fabric has changed.

They are trapped in their old ways continuing their archaic doctrine of oppression, rampant corruption and abuse of power as well as propagating religious and racial tensions.

Half-hearted and watered-down transformation policies by Prime Minister Najib Razak failed to diminish the desire of Malaysians for a better deal.

The people are not impressed by the lack of political will.

This resulted in the resounding success of Bersih 3.0 on April 28 in Kuala Lumpur and 80 other cities around the world.

Hundreds of thousands, mostly young, of all races attended the gathering in Kuala Lumpur peacefully until the riot police took action.

Ordinary Malaysians were beaten up and tear-gassed. Even local and foreign media personnel were manhandled, some with their equipment destroyed and confiscated.

This black mark on Malaysian democracy reaffirms concerns that Najib lacks the desire or the will to reform.

His much-touted Peaceful Assembly Act did not provide any democratic civil rights to the people but is used to forcefully maintain the hegemony of his own party.

In short, Najib continues to engage in repressive and authoritarian tactics of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The tenacity as well as desire of Malaysians for substantive change was evident during the rally.

As Najib and Umno-BN leaders try to downplay and dismiss this demand by shifting blame and pointing fingers, Pakatan Rakyat needs to listen closely to Malaysians and not misread or take for granted their desire for change.

The people swarmed the capital with the intent of claiming back their freedom; they are tired, they are fed-up, and they are angry.

My final problem with Dr Chandra’s article is its unprecedented attack on some of the Bersih and opposition activists as “frauds and hypocrites without any sincere commitment to freedom and democracy.” According to him, “[t]hrough their politics of deceit and duplicity, they continue to manipulate mass sentiments for their own diabolical agenda.” These are strong accusations, going beyond even what the BN leaders have said.

Who are these people that he describes as frauds and hypocrites? It is unethical to hide under the cover of generalization in making these allegations.

Besides the requirement of naming them, Dr Chandra should realize that as a social scientist he must provide evidence to prove his argument that they are frauds and hypocrites. What actions have they engaged in to deserve such demonizing from a senior social scientist holding the esteemed position of Noordin Sopiee Professor of Global Studies?

Has he conducted any interviews with the Bersih leaders to get them to explain their positions? Or has he found them guilty without bothering to speak to them?

Is this the view of key independent respondents such as those who took part in the rallies? Or is this the view of the larger population? Or perhaps is it the view of some of the BN leaders?

These and a myriad of other questions need to be answered by Dr Chandra. Otherwise he will be seen as another BN mouthpiece out to score cheap points and using the cloak of academic position to bolster his politically biased opinion.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 3:48 pm and is filed under
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Bersih 3.0: A celebration of political maturity

— Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

May 04, 2012

MAY 4 — The battle for freedom must be won over and over again.

I am sure there will be a Bersih 4.0 if the legitimate demands of a people craving for political meaning are not met. Why should the Election Commission resist demands to clean the electoral list? Why should the government deny electoral reforms? Why should the Malaysian people be denied the right to insist elections are only for Malaysian people? Why should we not demand the exclusion of phantom voters and aliens from our electoral list? Admitting Bangladeshis, Myanmars, Nepalis and other illegals and giving them instant MYkads because they can support a fearful government is treasonous!

We are denied because this government fears the judgment of its own people. It has certainly shown it fears its own people. Otherwise what kind of government that has shown it was willing to unleash the repressive instruments on its own people?

I almost fell off the chair when someone uttered the unthinkable — that Bersih 3.0 would serve only to whip up Malay nationalism. Because of Bersih 3.0, Malays will gravitate towards Umno?

A total of 3.7 million of them abandoned Umno in 2008 and the majority will stay there. Once black, they will never go back to the red side. Umno is in the red on so many fronts — good governance, integrity, clear vision, quality leadership, etc, etc, the list never ends. The Umno doctor said it well — Umno is full of crap and half-past six pretenders. So why should the majority of Malays ever want to go back to Umno?

What can Umno offer — another half a century of pillaging and subjecting the nation to ruinous policies? RM1.3 trillion spirited out of this country and almost RM30 billion each year of ill-gotten monies smuggled out of this country?

The Malays who have crossed the Rubicon in ‘08 have tasted a better life after Umno. There’s not only life after Umno, but a better life without Umno.

Will the Malays suddenly drop dead once Umno is evicted from power? If we do, then that is clear proof that Umno has failed to cultivate and produce rugged and robust Malays. If we do, Umno has shown that it has only been able to produce a society of wimps. If we do, it is clear proof that Umno has failed the Malays.

Then there is this Umno leader — they call him the president who’s struggling to inspire us with a clear vision. We don’t want a grand vision, all we wanted was a clear vision. Instead he has only come out with a Campbell’s alphabet soup of strangely arranged letters. Does he inspire confidence? He can only bribe and pay his way through, incapable of inspiring Malays to new heights.

Not true, unless the Umno xenophobic propaganda machine makes out the marchers of Bersih 3.0 as non-Malays wanting to overthrow a Malay regime. Here is the thing: if the entire population of Malaysia is composed of Malays, there will still be a Bersih-like march and protest. Then it will be a clash between the oppressive ultra-right-wing conservative-cum-feudal clique versus the disenfranchised and marginalised Malay proletariat, tired of the enslaving and exploitative and corrupt regime.

Bersih 3.0 has struck unimaginable terror in the Umno Plutarch and corporate potentates. There is a sense of nervousness, increasingly and dreadfully alarming that has forced corporate chieftains to regularise their business interests. 1MDB buys over Ananda Krishnan’s power-generation business at an astronomical price tag, obviously the price tag has been Umno-nised. The corporate potentate then sells off a sizeable portion of his oil and gas business (Bumi Armada). Other corporate chieftains are doing the same on the quiet side. Big businesses are deserting Umno and the Umno fools are rushing in where angels fear to tread.

We must not fall into the Umno trap of pigeonholing Bersih as a clash between the Malaysian people of different races. It was resoundingly not. Bersih 3.0 was a celebration of political maturity of the Malaysian people of all races. Each are committed as stakeholders to ensure a good nation is passed on to the next generation. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 4:07 pm and is filed under
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Bersih 3.0 is even  greater public relations disaster for Najib than Bersih 2.0 – with damage growing in magnitude and impact when all the horror stories of police rampage of violence and brutality are told

As I said after the Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9 last year, there were many casualties especially the police, the mainstream media and the election commission but the biggest loser of all was undoubtedly the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

This is even more the case with the Bersih 3.0 “sit-in” last Saturday on April 28 as Bersih 3.0 is an even greater public relations disaster for Najib than Bersih 2.0 – with the damage growing in magnitude and impact when all the horror stories of police rampage of violence and brutality on that day are told where hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who came to Kuala Lumpur in peace were not allowed to disperse in peace.

No reasonable and thinking Malaysian would buy Najib’s blame yesterday alleging that Bersih 3.0 organisers were responsible for last Saturday’s violence, in particular the police rampage of violence and brutality against peaceful protestors and media representatives.

The excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of police force, whether firing of tear gas and chemically-laced water cannon or downright police violence and brutality, cannot be justified by any breach of the Dataran Merdeka barricades last Saturday.

A critic of the government’s gross mishandling of Bersih 2.0 rally for free and fair elections in July last year  had urged the Najib administration to discard its “Cold War” mindset and to modernize its concepts to address internal security and national issues.

But this “Cold War” mentality seemed to be very dominant in the gross mishandling of Bersih 3.0 “sit-in” after 3 pm last Saturday.

The Najib administration must again be reminded that the “enemy” is  no longer armed communists battling a jungle war but a civilian movement consisting of politically awakened middle class that is wired to the global community and moved by fully legitimate issues based on the Malaysian Constitution such as free and fair elections; human rights of freedom of assembly and association; integrity, good, clean and incorruptible governance!

With regard to the government’s gross mishandling of the Bersih 2.0 rally, Najib was able to pause, backtrack and salvage the situation before more damage is done – resulting in his Malaysia Day speech on September 16 on Political Transformation with a raft of promised reforms on democratic freedoms and human rights.

Is Najib capable of piercing through the fog of self-serving propaganda by his advisers to realise  that Bersih 3.0 is an even greater disaster for him than Bersih 2.0, creating the “ugliest day in media history in Malaysia” with reporters and photographers protesting on World Press Freedom Day yesterday wearing black with yellow ribbon and police professionalism suffering its worst “black eye” in history with the  police rampage of violence and brutality against peaceful protestors and media representatives?

Does Najib realise for instance that the  Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who had earlier said that Bersih 3.0 was “no security threat” as it had “no traction” and who was very fast in praising “police restraint and professionalism” despite the worst case of  police rampage of violence and brutality, cannot inspire public confidence that there would be a no holds-barred public inquiry into the Bersih 3.0 violence and brutality regardless of the victims – whether the police, journalists or peaceful protestors?

Can Najib pause, backtrack and salvage the situation before more damage is done to his administration and the country’s international image from an even more disastrous mishandling of Bersih 3.0 “sit-in” than the Bersih 2.0 rally last July?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 11:26 am and is filed under
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BN-owned media’s shameless whitewash

CL Tang

May 1, 2012

Malaysiakini

Three days after Bersih 3.0, Malaysian hermits who lives in caves, who have never heard of the Internet and who only read the mainstream newspapers would probably have the impression that it was the police force who were protesting and ended up physically assaulted by angry civilians.

Despite clear evidence of police brutality available on YouTube, hundreds of personal testimonies by victims and personal witnesses, and pictures of appalling injuries spread all over the Internet, the BN-owned media shamelessly whitewashed the government-sanctioned atrocities against its own people.

Despite hundreds if not thousands of Bersih participants, most of whom were already dispersing, being beaten and chased like criminals by baton-wielding police and ending up with injuries, these crimes were not reported.

Despite thousands of the ordinary rakyat suffering beatings from the authorities, the mainstream media chose to highlight one single case of an injured police personnel.

Despite scores of journalists and media personnel being abused by the police, their cameras and memory cards confiscated, The Star, instead of coming to the defence of its colleagues and upholding the media’s right to cover events without fear of reprisals from the authorities, it chose to showcase one single reporter’s story of being roughed up by the protesters.

So much for BN’s so-called greater freedom for the media via the Printing Presses and Publications Act amendments.

Contrast the shameless twisting of the events from the Malaysian media with an excerpt from Business Times, Singapore (April 30, 2012):

“Why shoot tear gas without sufficient warning? And would not a round or two have been sufficient to start dispersing the mass of people …? The manner in which the rally was dispersed in the presence of many elderly, children and even the wheelchair-bound….”

I can hardly believe that the day would come when we rely on a Singapore newspaper to come to the defence of peace-loving Malaysians who took part in a largely peaceful rally.

I reserved the harshest criticism for The Star. Whereas the Utusan and its lot have long dropped any pretext of not being a partisan paper, what with its severely biased editorials and even at times blatant lies, The Star tries to masquerade itself as a paper that still upholds journalistic integrity and balanced reporting.

The Star buries its underlying BN-bias stance in its long-winded editorials and reports that contains just a touch of the truth before ending it with at times subtle, at times direct BN-friendly conclusions, that is not supported by the facts but merely opinions of the writer.

But what can we expect when The Star is ultimately owned by MCA, which has to avoid antagonizing Umno?

If Dr Chua Soi Lek, or any of the MCA leaders, had bothered coming to Bersih 3.0 and looked at a most beautiful Malaysian scene – where hundreds of old Chinese uncles and aunties who would ordinarily be practicing “tai-chi” in the parks; young teenagers who rose at 6am for the first time in years on a Saturday; parents who believes in Confucian values and always telling their children to respect authority but brought the entire family; came together to fight a cause they passionately believe in, I think they would realise that come the next GE, if it was carried out fairly, MCA, and its counterparts, would be wiped out.

But don’t fret, Chua Soi Lek and pals, there are always jobs available at The Star.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 10:22 am and is filed under
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BN’s Dirtaran Merdeka

Dean Johns | May 1, 2012

Malaysiakini

BN’s attempt to thwart the Bersih 3.0 rally by transforming the people’s Dataran into its own ‘Dirtaran’ with razor wire, barricades and battalions of police was a monstrous mockery of the meaning of Merdeka.

And this was the clearest sign yet of how terrified the regime is that clean and fair elections would spell an end to its corrupt and kotor rule of the country.

Yet Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his accomplices in crime and grime are still spouting all their usual filthy lies.

Najib attempted to justify the government’s obtaining a court order to ban protestors from Dataran Merdeka by claiming that there were “secret plans for a long-term occupation” of the area, and adding that “aside from its being a historical and iconic site in the context of the country’s independence, we dispute the motives of the organisers because there were quarters who would use it for political purposes.”

Accusing opponents of playing politics is, of course, a traditional ploy by BN, which itself plays nothing but politics, and dirty politics at that, and indeed routinely progresses beyond the political to the patently, blatantly criminal.

Riding roughshod over both the spirit and letter of electoral legislation to ensure that the ‘democratic’ process is as biased in its own favour as possible.

Electorates are so shamelessly gerrymandered in the government’s favour that, far from being approximately equal in voter numbers as they should be, many are 10 or even 20 times the size of others.

The electoral rolls are so riddled with errors, multiple registrations and mysterious amendments and additions that they’re clearly not worth the paper they’re printed on.

 Massive joke

Speaking of printing, the press and other ‘mainstream’ media are, as pretty well everyone knows by now, nothing but propaganda organs for BN.

And the electoral process itself is so rife with illicit practices ranging from the massive manipulation of postal votes to outright bribery that it’s an absolute joke.

In fact it is arguable that BN has stolen every election it has ever ‘won’, and yet this crooked coalition has also had the arrogance to steal the scales of justice for its symbol and now to occupy Dataran Merdeka as its own.

No wonder, then, that the beneficiaries of such a fraudulent state of affairs are terrified of Bersih.

This non-partisan organisation advocating clean and fair elections attracted so many Malaysians to rally in support of its cause back in July 2011 that the BN government was panicked into promising reforms.

But almost 12 months and a parliamentary select committee later, precious few if any reforms have emerged.

Electorates remain as gruesomely gerrymandered as ever, the electoral rolls remain a disgrace, and the heads of the allegedly ‘independent’ electoral commission have been revealed as members of the dominant party in the BN coalition, Umno.

So it is hardly surprising that, despite Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s dismissal of the Bersih 3.0 rally as having “little traction” with the public, it brought people out to protest in unprecedented numbers, around Malaysia and much of the world.

And entirely to the credit of Bersih 3.0 organisers and the huge crowd in KL, despite BN’s denial of their citizens’ rights to congregate in Dataran Merdeka, they came in peace.

They weren’t permitted to depart in peace, however, as when the crowd was already dispersing the police attacked them with tear gas and water cannons, thus giving BN a pretext for declaring the event dangerously violent.

‘Police were victims’

Despite a wealth of video evidence of police violence against protestors, reporters and photographers, Prime Minister Najib Razak predictably portrayed the police as victims, lamenting that “certain quarters were trying to influence public opinion through the recounting of stories of arrest and police brutality, be they truth or half-truth, on social media and the internet.”

For his part, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein claimed that police seizures of cameras and seizure and memory sticks was “standard operating procedure”, only to have this falsehood flatly contradicted by inspector-general of police Ismail Omar.

Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim (left) described the Bersih rally as “dirty”, claiming that participants “did not show respect for positive and noble values” and that the movement’s leaders “bring hardship to the public, raise conflicting values and do not respect religious principles.”

And former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad declared that Bersih’s covert aim was not a clean and fair election system, but the overthrow of the government.

But as deceitful and self-serving as BN big-wigs were, the ever-servile ‘mainstream’ media easily outdid them, with the New Straits Times departing so far from the truth as to describe the rally as “a day of shame” consisting of “five hours of violence and madness that crippled the city” and resulting in “vandalism and total chaos.”

As to where individual journalists stand, the picture is somewhat confusing. Those working for respectable media like Malaysiakini, which was hit by the usual distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack for the duration of the Bersih 3.0 weekend, were properly outraged by police attacks on them and their colleagues.

But apparently the police also, whether by accident or design, targeted the staff of some traditionally BN-friendly publications, thus earning themselves the ire of the customarily tame National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

In this regard, I was at first elated to see a Malaysiakini story headed “Editors, journalists slam police violence against media”, but then disappointed but far from surprised to see very few, if any, ‘mainstream’ signatories to the online petition it contained.

Thus dashing any hopes that I or any of us might have had that BN’s captive media might be about to clean-up their acts any time soon.

But even these worms will eventually turn, I guess, when sufficient Malaysians are so disgusted by BN’s Dirtaran Merdeka exercise and similar future atrocities that the regime can’t possibly win another election, even with all the corrupt and kotor tricks at its command.

Meanwhile, here’s hidup to Bersih in its fight for clean and fair elections, hidup to clean and fair journalism and its fight for truth, and hidup to the millions of people passionately devoted to reclaiming ownership of the Dataran and the rest of Malaysia in the true spirit of Merdeka.

——————————————————————————–

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’ and ‘1Malaysia.con’.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 12:33 am and is filed under
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Debunking the myth and clearing the path

By RZMay

The Malaysian Insider

May 04, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — We were ordinary Malaysians, professional, non-professional, rich, middle class and poor. On April 28, I found out that the different classes don’t matter, we all felt the tear gas. I was at the Masjid Jamek LRT station when they fired on us, and they closed the LRT station. I was angry at that time, but now I understood that an open LRT station could have caused more danger to us than a closed one. We could have fallen on the tracks; there could have been more injuries, and even death.

We found out on that day that our skin colour and our beliefs don’t matter. Muslims or non-Muslims, Malays, Indians, Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, half-Eurasian half-Malay, quarter-Javanese, quarter-Portuguese, we were all one colour — yellow.

Our fight was for justice, and justice is a universal value that is upheld in every religion and belief. They say that if the polls were rigged, the opposition wouldn’t have won five states. If the polls weren’t rigged, how did BN with only 50.27 per cent of the votes get 63.1 per cent of the parliamentary seats? Why does Putrajaya have 5,000 voters yet Klang has 100,000 voters?

Then you’re going to say that we were hijacked by the opposition. Let me tell you this, we invited everyone, BN and PR, to join us, the rakyat. We are your masters, not the other way around. The only one who got “hijacked” during the gathering were PR leaders because they succumbed to our demand for free and fair elections. And let me give this warning to PR leaders, in any case during the future should you be in power and you rig the elections, we would not hesitate to go back to the streets to demand what is just, because we are your boss.

We were 250,000 on the day itself. For what reason would 0.7 per cent of the country’s population spend their weekend under the hot sun, be forced to buy RM2 non-chilled canned water (shout to the traders: really? RM2?), get tear gassed, beaten up by the police, risk massive stampedes and later accused of being disloyal to the country? Why was that huge number of people willing to do that despite all the odds and pressure? Even free food won’t persuade that many people.

Let’s not be distracted by the few rowdy supporters, real or covert. Those were just red herrings to try and distract us from our demand. We, normal Malaysians, are proud to show our love for this blessed country, and we want this country, our country, to succeed. We condemn the violence from both sides, and you guys can bear witness that we were all peaceful on that day, regardless of what the mainstream media says.

On that day, I was proud to be a Malaysian and I hope you were too. Thank you people for walking with me and let’s make Malaysia our proud home.

Hidup rakyat!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 4:47 pm and is filed under
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Doing the right thing for the right reasons

Zaleha | May 3, 2012

Malaysiakini

For those who think Bersih 3.0 is about Najib Razak, Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir Mohamad, S Ambiga, you’re missing a point.

I am a Malaysian, rightly proud of my country’s achievements in economic and social progress. I am proud that in this unique multi racial Malaysia, peace and harmony can be maintained.

But now I ask myself – have I been hoodwinked all this time? I asked myself these questions:

 •Is my country truly free from hatred, deceit, selfishness and injustice?

 •Is Malaysia today free, clean, refined and proactive?

 •How do we, Malaysians, measure civilised society?

 •Do we measure it by how much we abide by standards of law, behaviour and value systems

 •How much do we value freedom?

 After much reflection, I am inclined to believe that throughout time my values and social beliefs have been built on a mental persuasion drawn up by the ruling elite, that desires only material gains and status.

These people have no conscience in planting seeds of doubt and fear in me so that I no longer recognise the truth and the reality of things. This systematic indoctrination has desensitised me into not exercising my rights as a citizen, so much so that I willingly give up my natural freedom to question the integrity of the ruling elite.

I have been moulded into becoming a dutiful citizen and would gullibly believe my interests will always be protected by my government.

Alas, I have been very naive not to recognise that the ruling elite have created their own legislation according to their own definition of good governance. All laws and policies have been consciously written to sustain their clench of power.

In the growing trend of gutter politics, embarrassing political and corporate scandals, police brutality at peaceful rallies, media censorship and a non-independent judiciary system, I now believe that my government poses a threat to my individual rights and freedom.  If left unchanged, the future of the next generation will be robbed.

I now want to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.

 •I want to exercise my right to change or reform the government through the next election because I want to live in a society that is not afraid to voice dissent.

 •I want the lawmakers to have the political will in effecting democratic reforms that will ensure a just social order.

 •I want the politicians to focus on addressing issues, proactively and not reactively, in a goal oriented manner and always ready to have open and direct dialogue.

 •I want a responsible and independent media to tell me how the government has spent the taxpayers’ money and to alert me of corruption and the ill effects of bad policies.

 •I want the media to make me see and hear right.

 •I want an independent judiciary system because it is essential to democracy. It manifests freedom, equality and peace.

 •I want a government that stays in touch with citizens to plan for the shape of the nation.

 •Most of all, I want to abide by laws and policies drawn up based on the principles of fearing God and for the goodness of all. The nation’s wealth belongs to its people and must not to be routinely plundered by the privileged politicians, legislators, civil servants, police, judges and corporate thieves.

Why now have I asked myself these questions?

It is because I have witnessed the courage of people from all walks of life, young and old, healthy and the sick marching in solidarity at the peaceful Bersih 3.0 rally.

They chanted in defiance demanding to be rightfully reinstated as masters of the land. They demanded to regain the empowerment of creating government.

No tear gas or spiked water can wash away their rights to choose the protectors and guardians of their land in total freedom and with no fear. The time is right to defend the masters.

You see, Bersih is not about “who”, it is about “how” I want Malaysia to be ruled.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 7:53 am and is filed under
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Joy in seeing spirit of Bersih in so many

A True Malaysian Pastor | Apr 30, 2012

Malaysiakini

After having rested and had time to reflect on Bersih 3.0, I have come to the following conclusions.

Compared to Bersih 2.0

 1.It was so much easier to mobilise my church members to go. Many who regretted not taking part in Bersih 2.0 out of “fear”, managed to overcome the invisible fear barrier and made their physical presence felt.

 2.We were much better prepared physically, spiritually, emotionally and psychologically for Bersih 3.0 compared to 2.0.

 3.As a church we could openly pray about the situation and condition of our beloved nation and where it is heading.

 4.There was obviously more Chinese people present this time around.

 5.More young people were in attendance.

 6.More recording devices were evident.

 7.People came much earlier.

 8.More food stalls were open this time around and did a roaring business eg along Petaling street.

 9.Bersih 3.0 merchandise were freely sold and quickly snapped up.

 10.The LRT station remained open initially, making it easier to reach the various venues.

For Bersih 3.0 :

 1.The turnout was very very impressive and awe inspiring to me. At Bersih 2.0, space was not exactly an issue as one could freely walk around – full but not packed.

At Bersih 3.0 it was sardine-packed – standing room only. Whenever they called people to “duduk-bantah” we all had a good laugh because there was just no space to sit down. The joke was the only way to get more space was if one fainted – then the people around will create space for you.

 2.The good mix of people who turned out – irrespective of race, religion, age were all well represented. I was personally very encouraged to see so many young people participating in Bersih 3.0. This speaks well for the future and hope of our nation – our youths have come of age and are willing to make a stand for the sake of nation building.

To get them up and out on a Saturday walking far distances and standing in the hot sun without fans and airconditioning – that they were willing to do just that is very telling and our leaders need to take note of that. To be fair many brought along their play-toys – smartphones, iPads etc which they put to good use.

 3.The number of smartphones and iPads being held up to record all and sundry that was happening all around them – this did not happen during Bersih 2.0 or was not so evident then.

 4.Many travelled from far away states to attend Bersih 3.0 in KL. In talking to the people around me, tried to see where they were from, I think I encountered people from every state in Malaysia save possibly Perlis.

This is in spite of cancellation of chartered bus services due to the government’s threats and intimidation and many having to travel overnight to attend. Just shows their commitment and dedication to the cause of Bersih 3.0 being mindful that this are simple country folks, possibly uneducated and not among the ‘financially privileged’ class.

 5.Many people came extremely early and where I stood, at the junction of Jalan Tun Perak and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman – it was already packed by about 12 noon, two hours before the scheduled starting time of 2pm.

That to me shows that people are willing to sacrifice if they are convinced of the importance of the cause at hand – clean and fair elections coupled with handling of the Lynas issue are obviously two such causes.

 6.I would also venture to say that many in the crowd were just like me – forgoing lunch or it never even came to mind. Some who brought along biscuits shared what they had with people around and no one asked if it was ‘halal’ or not – all just ate and were satisfied.

 7.We brought along yellow balloons which were freely distributed, blown up and hit into the air. Everyone had great fun hitting the yellow balloons and keeping them in the air – it had an air of festivity and celebration.

 8.Up until the police/FRU starting using their water cannons and releasing their tear gas, it was nice, peaceful but cramped. No one complained and everyone was very tolerant, accommodating and understanding. There was no barrier, fear, apprehension or suspicion of the people standing next to you.

 9.The tear gas this time around had a longer lasting effect than previously – my guess: possibly they changed to a more potent variety or brand.

 10.Again the best of human nature was evident even in the midst of a trying teary situation – sharing of water and salt, looking out for one another, asking people to move on but not to push, making way for the elderly, etc, were once again evident this time around.

Ten Questions to  ask of our government:

 1.Why was the government so protective of Dataran Merdeka – a piece of green field that normally is open to any Ahmad, Ah Kow and Mathu to walk into, take pictures etc?

 2.Why was there a need to get a last minute one-sided court order to protect what is literally a ‘padang’ for a very limited time span?

 3.When the home minister had stated and reiterated that Bersih 3.0 was no threat to security, why was there a need for all the police action?

 4.The home minister has also stated and reiterated that Bersih 3.0 had no “traction with the people”, why did the police go overboard in handling it?

 5.For those who broke through the “barricade” – why not just arrest them (more than enough police personnel around for that purpose) and leave the vast peaceful majority who were not breaking any law along?

 6.Why were some police personnel without name tags and numbers? Is it legal? What is there to hide or fear?

 7.Why were media and press staff doing their lawful duty – prevented, threatened and even set upon by the police?

Cameras smashed, memory cards removed or smashed? And our home minister has the ‘gall’ to state that police were just following their SOP – what utter rubbish.

 8.Why were some LRT stations ordered to close after the tear gas carnage was started? Was it the intention of the police to disperse the people (then you should leave the LRT station open so that people can leave easily and quickly) OR did the police intend to ‘trap’ the people to ‘teach’ them a lesson (if so then you close the LRT stations so people cannot leave easily).

 9.Was it true that the airwaves were purposely jammed so that communication was hindered causing further confusion in the midst of a stressful situation. Are any of the telcos able or willing to clarify this situation. If it was actually done – then it just shows the mentality of those who ordered it.

 10.Why was there a need for the police to literally chase and tear-gas isolated groups of people into the various sidelanes? If the bulk of people have dispersed from the main venue, then just protect your precious turf of grass and let things be.

As a sidenote – I will not be surprised if the grass and greenery in Dataran Merdeka turn brown and die in the coming days, not from the protesters but from the chemically laced water freely dispersed over the field.

This will be poetic justice as testimony to a regime in its death throes, that has lost touch with its own citizens and no longer exist for the sake and welfare of the people in the nation but only to guard and maintain their own position and privileges.

God Bless Malaysia and her Citizens.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 12:47 am and is filed under
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The legitimacy of law

by Zairil Khir Johari

The Malaysian Insider

May 04, 2012

MAY 4 — I don’t know if the government actually noticed, but more than 100,000 people broke the law last Saturday. They did so not only unashamedly, but also proudly and cheerfully.

The Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28 saw what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of Malaysians gathering at six different locations in Kuala Lumpur before marching towards a single destination point — Dataran Merdeka, or as some temporarily-erected signage labelled it, Tel Aviv.

In case the authorities have forgotten, this constitutes a breach of the newly enacted Peaceful Assembly Act which clearly outlaws “street protests”, legally defined as an “open air assembly which begins with a meeting at a specified place and consists of walking in a mass march or rally for the purpose of objecting to or advancing a particular cause or causes.” Which was exactly what a few hundred thousand of us did.

I point this out because for everything that has happened, no one, especially those on the side of authority, seems to have noticed this technicality. If the authorities did, then they certainly didn’t do anything about it. In fact, the Inspector-General of Police himself has claimed that his officers had been instructed to give way to demonstrators.

Am I to understand that our police will now facilitate law-breaking? Perhaps, if one were to grant them the benefit of the doubt, one could say that they were being pragmatic, or understanding, or merely turning a blind eye. Or perhaps it is simply that there was nothing they could reasonably do because the law made no sense in the first place.

In other words, the legitimacy of this particular legislation now comes into question. Here, I think it is important to distinguish between legality and legitimacy. Legitimacy hinges on popular acceptance, while legality rests solely on conformity and observance of the letter of the law. Just because a law exists doesn’t make it legitimate. After all, Hitler’s systematic subjugation of the Jewish people was for all intents and purposes perfectly legal, yet can we accord legitimacy to his actions?

At the end of the day, governments and laws are considered legitimate only if they rest on the consent of the governed and protect basic rights. Thus, while the banning of street protests under the Peaceful Assembly Act may be legal, the fact that it infringes upon a basic right — that of freedom of assembly, which by the way is constitutionally provided for — unfortunately renders it illegitimate, at least in the eyes of the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians last Saturday.

Some have continued to insist that we shouldn’t have broken the law, that Bersih 3.0 should not have been held at Dataran Merdeka when alternatives such as Stadium Merdeka had been offered. As justification, they point out the incidents of violence that occurred at the tail-end of what was for the most part a peaceful rally.

Yes, some violence erupted, committed by both sides. But the real question is: why did it even have to come to that? Everything would have gone smooth and fine had the authorities simply allowed us to gather at a public square — something which should not require permission in a country with laws that make sense.

Sometimes, the advancement of justice can only be achieved by breaking laws. After all, if everyone obeyed all laws, even if it made no sense and had no popular legitimacy, then change will never happen.

Such a premise may appear to be self-contradictory. It is in fact a recurring one. This very conundrum was once posed to legendary civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr, who replied in his 1963 treatise, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which states:

One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?”

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

That said, government politicians are right about one thing. Bersih 3.0 had indeed been hijacked. What started off as an event aimed at raising awareness for free and fair elections was by the end hijacked by hundreds of thousands of Malaysians with a variety of causes, from electoral reform to heritage preservation to education and even the environment. Some causes were political, some were not, but what we all had in common was a desire to brave the blaring sun and face the possibility of police action, even if it meant breaking the law, because we were determined to voice out our many frustrations about what is wrong with our country. And any law that prevents people from doing that peacefully has no right to be a law.

As for me, I’ll be damned before I let anyone tell me that I can’t hang out with my friends at our own Independence Square.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 10:09 am and is filed under
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Ugliest day in media history of Malaysia

— Lim Mun Fah

The Malaysian Insider

May 04, 2012

MAY 4 — The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 as World Press Freedom Day in 1991 to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right of freedom of expression.

On this day over the past 19 years, the world’s members of the media had reaffirmed the basic principles of the freedom of the press, expressed their determination in defending the freedom of the press, and even paid the highest respect and remembrance to those who have lost their lives in harness.

In Malaysia, we must use the opportunity to reflect and repeatedly ask ourselves: do we enjoy the freedom of press?

Unfortunately, pressmen were violently treated during the recent Bersih 3.0 rally. Some of them were assaulted and injured, some of them had their cameras snatched and some of them had their photos deleted. That day is undoubtedly the darkest and ugliest day in the media history of Malaysia!

Unfortunately, such an incident infringing on the freedom of the press took place less than a month after the Printing Presses and Publications (Amendment) Bill 2012 was passed in the Dewan Rakyat!

Unfortunately, the incident showing our backsliding freedom of the press happened less than three months after Malaysia was reported to have moved up to 122nd place from 144th place in the Press Freedom Index 2011/2012 compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Unfortunately, the RSF pointed out in the report that although there is an improvement to freedom of the press in Malaysia, they are still not optimistic about it. Sadly, the “prophecy” has actually come true!

Freedom of the press is one of the criteria to test democratic politics. As members of the media, we have to admit that the freedom of the press that we are having in Malaysia today is still has many serious deficiencies. There are still various kinds of laws to suppress the freedom of expression. As a result, the media have been struggling in playing the sacred role of the Fourth Estate to supervise the government, push reforms and promote social progress.

Although freedom of the press in Malaysia has been slightly opened and improved, the openness is limited while the improvement is slow. It is because there are still many so-called taboos that must not be touched, and many so-called sensitive boundaries that must not be crossed over. The Printing Presses and Publications (Amendment) Bill 2012 still retains the provision stating that “a person found to have maliciously published any false news shall be guilty of an offence punishable for jail of three years and/or fine of RM20,000 maximum.”

In other words, media practitioners are still subject to be charged, fined and imprisoned for their publications. We are still being haunted by the fear.

Another worry is, it seems that our freedom of speech has been trampled by “ideologies” and “partisan camps”. The division based on either friend or foe leaves no room for a calm and rational voice, causing confusion in the concept of democracy and freedom, as well as a disorder in behaviour. It is in fact another kind of interference that brings the media a new fear.

Freedom of the press is the cornerstone of a democratic society while public opinion is a force to drive social progress. On World Press Freedom Day, I hope that all from the ruling and alternative coalitions will reflect and work hard together with members of the media. Although we are disappointed today, we must still see a hope for tomorrow! — mysinchew.com

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 10:15 am and is filed under
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Violence against Malaysia

by Zan Azlee

The Malaysian Insider

May 04, 2012

MAY 4 — I waited for almost a week before actually writing or posting anything much about the recent Bersih 3.0 rally in Kuala Lumpur. There were so many emotions, I wanted to make sure that I was calm and coherent before actually commenting on it.

And now that everything seems ever so slightly clearer to me, the one thing that affected me most that Saturday was the violence that occurred.

The day had started early for me and walking all around the city, I felt the almost party-like atmosphere amongst all the Malaysians that had gathered.

Dataran Merdeka, of course, had a heavy police presence. It was cordoned off with metal fencing and even scary-looking barbed wire.

But, as I mentioned, the atmosphere was very festive and I guess the intimidation wasn’t working that well.

When the rally was in full force, I was standing alongside the leaders as they were giving their speeches and encouraging the people to sing.

Once everyone was as close to Dataran Merdeka as possible, I heard the leaders declaring the rally a success and calling for the crowd to disperse.

The crowd didn’t disperse and I made my way behind the barricade and police line with the help of my press tag.

Before I knew it, I heard people shouting and noticed the police running back from the barricade. The protesters had breached the barricade.

The police, of course, went into full riot mode with their helmets and gas masks on, carrying their shields. Tear gas was fired and the water cannons came out.

Here we go, I thought to myself. This wasn’t the first rally I had covered and I knew the drill and for the next hour or so, things weren’t really out of the ordinary.

People were screaming and taunting the police, challenging the authorities, just like at any demonstration and the police went out trying to disperse the large crowd.

From my observations, the police managed to actually successfully keep the crowd away from the Dataran Merdeka area.

But what happened next was something that I had never seen or experienced before. It was when the violence started.

Groups of policemen suddenly started attacking the protesters. They would gang up on individuals and just unleash punches and kicks.

I, along with many other journalists who were there, started shooting these attacks and arrests. Usually, on previous occasions like this, what would happen is that the police would realise the press was there watching and they would stop any aggression.

This happened at Bersih 2.0 in 2011 and there were times when I would run up to where police were roughing up people just so they would stop.

But last Saturday was different. When we journalists started documenting what was happening, we instead ended up on the receiving end of the aggression.

The police started screaming at us in a very hostile way to stop shooting. I had police shoving my camera arms, pulling and pushing me away.

At one point, I was even detained by the police who had accused me of shooting a group of them (around 20, I think) beating up a protester.

I didn’t want my equipment to be confiscated or to be arrested, so I denied shooting any video of the pounding. They let me off the hook with a stern warning.

I was lucky. Many of my other colleagues were assaulted and attacked just for doing their jobs. They were punched and kicked and suffered terrible injuries.

Their equipment was confiscated and many even had their cameras and lenses smashed and destroyed.

I also noticed something very strange. At one point, I saw that all the policemen who were in uniform had removed their Velcro nametags.

They were also moving in droves away from Dataran Merdeka and into the streets and they were just attacking, beating and arresting people.

Since I was witnessing all this and could not shoot anything, I started feeling sick to the stomach and decided to just walk to where I had parked my car and go home.

While I was walking along the sidewalk, I could see these policemen on the streets still going after people and beating them and arresting them.

And as I was walking, I even saw several injured people unconscious on the ground and being picked up by ambulances.

There were many passers-by along the street too and they had stopped to look. Some were shooting with mobile phones. I even heard someone shouting for the police to stop.

A group of men stopped me and asked if I was a member of the press. I said yes and they asked to be interviewed.

I looked over my shoulder to see if there were any policemen close by. But none were since they were too busy doing what they were doing.

The men told me that they had never seen anything like this before. They said it looked like a bunch of cats going wild in the back alleys looking for mice.

They told me that they felt disgusted. One of them even said that he was a retired policeman and he had never done anything of this sort during his career.

Once they were done expressing their feelings, I turned off my camera. Walked into the parking lot where my car was and drove off to go home and hug my daughter.

That Saturday, I had never felt so angry before. Angry because my fellow journalists and I were threatened and assaulted for doing our jobs.

In all my years as a journalist, I have never felt as threatened and intimidated as I did that day. And I am one who has reported in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pattani.

If the police felt like they were justified in what they were doing, why then did they not allow journalists to document it?

That Saturday, I also felt very sad. Sad because I witnessed so many of my fellow Malaysians suffer at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them.

There is so much noise right now in the country.

This side accusing that side of breaching the barricades, and that side accusing this side of not complying with the law.

This side accusing that side of being unjust, and that side accusing this side of not being reasonable.

Like I said, this is all just noise.

I have never begged before. But I am begging now. I am begging that we Malaysians keep our eyes on the ball and do what is best for our country.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 May 2012, 11:30 pm and is filed under
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