DAP in pre-emptive strike over Bersih 3.0 video

Just hours before the Home Ministry is scheduled to release its version of Bersih 3.0 rally footage, the DAP has launched its videoon the April 28 street protest in Kuala Lumpur.

Focusing on police brutality, the 15-minute edited video, entitled‘Bersih 3.0 Semangat Bersih, Harapan Negara’ (Bersih 3.0 Clean Spirit, Hope of the Nation), has Malay subtitles and a narrative.

National publicity secretary Tony Pua, who screened the video at a press conference at DAP headquarters this morning, said the footage proves that the rally was a peaceful and joyous one until the police got involved.

“There was no reason why the police should have acted in such an aggressive fashion against unarmed Malaysians,” he said.

The video, Pua said, also exposes the prime minister’s “clear-cut discrepancy and hypocrisy” on the rally for clean and fair elections.

To back this, the footage has a clip of Najib Abdul Razak pledging publicly in Kuching, Sarawak, on April 27, that the government would protect the safety of the demonstrators even to the extent of providing them with mineral water and food if they are thirsty and hungry.

During the rally, however, chemical-laced water and tear gas were fired at protestors on the fringes of Dataran Merdeka, while many were allegedly beaten up by police personnel.

The DAP attempted to justify the reaction of the protesters in overturning a police car by showing that the car had crashed into a crowd, and by arguing that the protesters had thought that people were caught under the vehicle.

The footage makes the claim that several protesters had protected the cop in the car from being attacked by fellow-protesters.

Asked why the video fails to show the breach of the barricades at Dataran Merdeka, Pua said this is an issue subject to debate.

He also said the claim that PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and deputy president Azmin Ali had given hand signals to supporters to lift the barricades, has yet to be proven.

“Even if the protesters breached the barricade, that does not justify the violence against those who did not (do so). Why should the police go all the way to (the) Sogo (department store) to beat up protesters?” he asked.