A crowd of 2000 who were protesting against the fuel price increase experienced police jetting chemical-laced water on them as they tried to match from Petronas Twin Tower to the Concorde Hotel in Jalan Sultan Ismail, just about 500 metres away. The Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) was involved as well. They charged the crowd who then sought refuge in a nearby building.
It was a hide & seek game – police went off, crowd reassembled, police came, they dispersed. Some shouts of ‘reformasi’ were heard.
The Police have a tendency to be heavy handed with public rallies or protestors, unless of course the protestors are UMNO Youth (or BN) members. Why not let the crowd march peacefully to where they wanted to go, so long as they didn’t vandalise the neighbourhood?
The Malaysian Police should see how the Police of other countries, like Australia, handled protestors. The law officers would actually escort the marching and shouting protestors, sometimes using outriders if necessary. Conflicting road traffic would be held up to allow protestors to march unimpeded.
The basic aim has always been safety for everyone - for the marching protestors, neighbourhood and motorists. Unfortunately in Malaysia, Police treat protestors as the enemies when they actually ought to be looking after them as citizens.
There is of course a reason for this difference – the Malaysian Police have shown themselves to be nothing more than the praetorian guards of the ruling party.
The FRU are conditioned to be crowd bashers.
ReplyDeleteThis is the only task they are trained for .
Getting the chance to smash people without any repercussions legally makes the FRU guys 'licenced to assault' thugs!
They enjoyed beating up unarmed people during the Reformasi days!
Naturally, they are itching to 'buang geram' on anyone they can get their hands and batons plus shoot the jets of asid water through their water cannons!
Reformasi seems to be the in thing today!
Are we gonna see a repetition of the people's power?
The protests now are against the petrol hike.
The government must not be confused as to the reason for this protests!
I've seen the aussie police handling rioters. It's not as hunky dory as you pictured it to be.
ReplyDeleteIt's illegal to have a gathering like that anyway. Police just do what they do, uohold the law. It was getting unruly when people started burning flags.
Chlorine is a chemical, should we blame the govt for poisoning Malaysians? Chemical-laced water is nothing unless you tell us what chemical it is.
Anonymous, you are right in that the Aussie police handled firmly RIOTERS - yes, rioters like those who attacked the Aptet II conference in a KL hotel 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe fuel price hike rally was a PROTEST, not a riot.
Burning flags does not endanger public lives or properties and is not a crime in many western countries despite right wing clamour to legislate it so - John Howard, one of the conservative PMs of Australia has refused to make Aussie flag burning a crime.
I am disappointed you would go to the extent of being argumentative about what chemical-laced water police used for crowd dispersal - I'll leave you to ponder over your argumentative [not argument] query.
The police did not uphold the law - it just wanted to disperse a peacful crowd of Malaysian citizens protesting against a government policy. As I mentioned, the police considers itself more of a praetorian guard for the ruling party than a protector of ordinary citizens.