An unconscious Safwan Alang being taken to Slim River hospital in critical condition. Twitter photo by Solidariti Mahasiswa
Student leader Mohd Safwan Alang was critically injured after being attacked and assaulted in a police lockup after being arrested at a New Year’s Eve student rally for academic freedom, held at University Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Tanjung Malim last night.
Details of the attack were not immediately available. On-the-scene reports sent via Twitter messages said Safwan had lost consciousness after the attack and had initially been taken to Tanjung Malim hospital. Parti Socialis Malaysia said Safwan had been seriously assaulted by police while at the police lockup, and was in critical condition. He had been transferred to Slim River hospital.
Parti Socialis also said another person had received stitches in Tanjung Malim hospital for his injuries
From inside Tanjung Malim police station, student activist Adam Adli posted a message on Twitter that Safwan was punched twice in the face and was being assaulted in the police station.
A blog posting at Malaysia Flip Flop said:
UMNO thugs beat up student Safwan at UPSI over a protest on AUKU. First we have the pig incident (rumour that it was placed there by UMNO members) in Johore mosque to end the year 2011. Then the start of 2012, UMNO members beat up a Malay student. UMNO is so desperate to create trouble so that there will not be an election this year. These photos, taken on a cameraphone, were posted by Solidariti Mahasiswa, an umbrella organisation of student bodies campaigning for academic freedom, university autonomy and the repeal of the Universities and University Colleges Act.
Police were assaulting those students in the lockup while other students waiting outside Tanjung Malim police station were being intimidated by the police, according to a message on the party’s official Twitter account.
Mohd Safwan is president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of Malaya and also heads the BEBAS coalition for academic freedom. He was an organiser of the 16-hour New Year’s rally outside the university, planned as a “sit-in” from midnight to 5pm today. Police used force to break up the rally, according to students and Parti Socialis Malaysia on Twitter. Between nine and 16 students were arrested, they said in Twitter messages. Among those arrested were Adam Adli, Saifuddin Shafi Muhammad and Hilman Idham, said Parti Socialis.
Safwan was one of the organisers of a large protest march of about 500 university students through Kuala Lumpur on Dec 17 in which they delivered a memorandum to the Human Rights Commission and to deputy education minister Saifuddin Abdullah demanding the repeal of the UUCA.
It was during this march that Adam Adli became the centre of public attention and the subject of threats afte he briefly lowered an Umno banner bearing the image of party leader Najib Tun Razak, and hoisting in its place a banner in support of academic freedom. He was to have been a main speaker at the rally, which was also meant to be a show of support for his action. Adam has been issued a disciplinary letter by the university and asked to show cause why he should not be expelled.
He had also attacked outside federal police headquarters apparently by a policeman and had also received death threats. Subsequently a group of Umno Youth members in Petaling Jaya Utara made a video in which they made threats against university students.
Saifuddin is secretary of Jingga 13, an anti-corruption pressure group under Parti Keadilan Rakyat, which has been leading the campaign of exposures on alleged corruption in the National Feedlot Corporation, involving the family of cabinet minister Sharizat Jalil. The group has also piled up pressure against Islamic affairs minister Jamil Khir Baharom, over an Auditor-General’s report that zakat funds were used to pay his legal expenses in a court case.
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