KUALA LUMPUR: Several non-governmental organisation (NGO) leaders staged a peaceful protest at the Bukit Aman police headquarters here against a proposal to deploy the armed forces during public rallies.
The proposal was made by Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan on Wednesday and has received opposition from various groups, including the Bar Council.
Police officers were heavily stationed around the Bukit Aman entrance (via Lake Gardens) on Saturday morning, prior to the protest, barring the entrance to unauthorised vehicles. Light Strike Force personnel were also seen patrolling the area.
Teluk Intan MP M. Manogaran, who led the group, called on Musa in a memorandum to immediately issue a statement confirming and declaring that the military would not be called upon to stifle peaceful assemblies.
The memorandum further urged the IGP to make a public apology for "threats made by him" to the people's fundamental freedom.
"The IGP should also assure all Malaysians that they are free to exercise their rights under Article 10 of the Federal Constitution without interference from police.
"Malaysians should be assured also that henceforth the police will not act in unison with the Government in order to stifle legitimate dissent," he read from the memorandum.
The memorandum was received by Bukit Aman public relations officer Chief Inspector Abdul Razak Abdul Majid.
Police Watch and Human Rights Committee member N. Surendren said that short of a huge calamity, the army should not be roped in to assist the police.
PAUL CHOO
Star Online
05/07/08
1 comment:
It is interesting that using the police and military to stifle freedom of dissent has been brought up again. Actually, Malaysia has been through this before. After the 1969 race riots, they set aside parliament and set up the National Operations Council (NOC) headed by Tun Abdul Razak, the Second Prime Minister of Malaysia. The NOC was emergency rule and rule by decree. After some time it occurred to the Malay leaders and military people that if parliament is not swiftly restored, then they are going to have problems. It occurred to the Malaysian military people that if the NOC continues the emergency and rule by decree and deprive the Chinese Malaysians of a political participation, then pretty soon some of the Chinese in Malaysia would slip into the jungles and team up with the communist under Chin Peng. Furthermore, China would find it irresistible to help the Chinese in Malaysia because blood is thicker than water. This realization obviously made the military people in Malaysia nervous. So, Tun Abdul Razak (Second Prime Minister) was persuaded to act. Tun Abdul Razak immediately boarded an airplane and flew to China (Beijing) to shake hands with Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China (Beijing). To the surprise of everybody Tun Abdul Razak actually recognized the Peoples Republic of China as a sovereign independent nation. He returned to Malaysia, put together the Barisan Nasional from the Alliance Party, lifted emergency, called for fresh elections, and restored parliamentary democracy. Yes, Malaysia has been through this before.
If the military people want to do it again with emergency rule, then, well, then, I don’t know. We will wait and see. If the military people do it again, then they will get little support from all the major powers in the world. None of the major powers, namely the USA, EU, Russia, China and India would be supportive of a military take over of Malaysia. A military takeover of Malaysia must be justifiable in the eyes of USA, EU, Russia, China and India.
Malaysia’s best bet would be a multi-party political system, one person one vote, and an independent judiciary.
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