Kuala Lumpur Mayor Ahmad Fuad Ismail HAS defended his decision not
to allow the Bersih 3.0 rally to take place at Dataran Merdeka,
reiterating that his actions were backed by law and that alternative
venues had been offered to the organiser.
“So
I have the law to back me. You must understand, otherwise the whole
thing would be very disrupted if people can’t follow the law. Why don’t
you (Bersih organisers) want to follow the law?
“I have already given them the alternative… you can actually go there
and sit inside,” he told a press conference at the Kuala Lumpur City
Hall (DBKL) headquarters today.
Fuad was responding to questions from reporters whether DBKL should
have allowed the rally on April 28 to take place and avoid the violence
that occurred.
Without responding directly to the question, he said: “I have with me the law; I have with me alternatives.”
He was referring to the Dataran Merdeka By-laws and the Peaceful
Assembly Act, as well as to several stadiums around Kuala Lumpur that
were offered as alternative venues for the rally.
DBKL,
he said, had suffered losses amounting to RM300,000 during the rally on
April 28, covering damage to the landscaping, the cost of hiring
additional human resources and removal of eight tonnes of garbage off
the streets.
“They say it’s Bersih. Actually it’s not bersih (clean), it’s kotor (dirty). The roads were all dirty,” Ahmad Fuad quipped.
Asked whether DBKL would take legal action against Bersih, the
coalition for clean and fair elections which had organised the rally, he
said this remains to be seen.
However, DBKL has lodged a police report on the losses suffered, he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment