The Kuala Lumpur Traveler

I had wanted to comment on the recent Budget 2008 announced by Pak Lah but what happened in Batu Buruk deserved urgent posting here.

If I remember correctly, police violence towards the public was never heard off until Anwar Ibrahim were sacked by Mahathir Mohamed in September 1998. The sacking of the charismatic leader had sparked off massive street demonstration by his supporters. It was at this time that the police force, especially FRUs, were heavily deployed to disperse crowds that had caused major headache to the BN Government led by Mahathir. I still remember, water canons, FRUs, uniformed and plainclothes policemen were the order of the day in Kuala Lumpur city back then. Many Malaysians who took part to protest against the BN-led government and Mahathir the Prime Minister then, were treated very badly by the police force. That was the beginning of the brutality of the FRUs and the police against Malaysians exercising their rights.

After the September 1998 sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, opposition parties never had good relationship with the police force throughout Malaysia especially when applying for permits for their political rallies. In many occasions, permits that were approved had been cancelled in the last minutes causing much problems to both the organizers and the public wanting to attend the rallies. In many other cases, the applications for permits were just not approved by the police, citing security concerns as the reasons.

And for those times the opposition parties had gone ahead to hold the political gathering, regardless of whether the permits were approved or not, there have been many clashes between the police and the supporters of the opposition political parties. The stories that came out from both parties were always contradictory. The police said they were forced to act because the supporters had caused problems and at times were causing harm to the police personnel. The opposition parties on the other hand had maintained their claims that the police were provocated by its own agents to give bad images to the opposition parties.

The opposition parties also claimed that all their political gatherings are peaceful, except when there were police presence to disturb the events.

Ironically, in all these clashes between the police and the supporters of political parties, the police and FRUs had only used batons and water canons to disperse the crowds. So when I read about the Malaysiakini report about the shooting of live bullets by the police force at Batu Buruk Kuala Terengganu, I am of course very concern. Was it necessary to use live bullets to dispers a crowd attending a gathering organize by BERSIH to promote fair election?

I have read many reports about police forces dispersing crowds around the worlds and the worst they had ever used, as far as I know, were rubber bullets, but never live bullets.

I hope full, fair and transparent investigations will be carried out by an independent royal commission to ascertain what really had happened. Whatever the outcome, I still believe the police should not be allowed to use live bullet even for self defence when dispersing the crowds. For god sake, they are already fully armed with shields, batons and water canons…. as if the public were there to fight them.

The future of the rights to hold public gathering in Malaysia, which is clearly spelt out in the Constitution, looks bleak as long as Malaysia in under the current BN-led Government, where oppesions of all kinds are used against the opposition parties. Democracy is live in Malaysia? You decide.

Excerpts from Malaysiakini report:

Opposition parties PAS and PKR are claiming that the police used unprecedented violence - including firing live bullets - to disperse a ceramah in Pantai Batu Buruk, Terengganu, late last night.

Party sources told malaysiakini that two individuals have been seriously injured as a result of being shot.

Terengganu police chief Ayub Yaakob, in a specially arranged press conference this afternoon, confirmed that one live bullet was fired by one of his officers.

Ayub said the officer, who is from the Federal Reserve Unit, was set upon by a group of men in the vicinity of the ceramah.

“At about 11.45pm last night, the officer Azmi Hussein, 29, was doing his duty near the Permai Inn car park when he was surrounded by 20 men who proceeded to threaten and assault him,” Ayub was reported as saying by Bernama.

He said that the FRU personnel was pushed to the ground and attacked by the crowd, leaving the FRU officer with no choice but to draw his weapon and fire a shot to defend himself.

Ayub said that the crowd dispersed soon after the shot was fired, allowing the FRU personnel to escape from the area.

The state police chief added that as a result of the single shot, two men from the group were hurt - one in his shoulder and another in his neck.

They are currently undergoing treatment at the Kuala Terengganu Hospital.

Four police personnel were also injured after being attacked by the crowd, claimed Ayub.

However, several eyewitnesses told malaysiakini that more than one shot was fired at the crowd last night.

They also claimed that several members of the public also suffered injuries as a result of police violence. At least 23 opposition supporters have been arrested.

[tags]Batu Buruk, police, FRU, Bersih, Terengganu, election[/tags]