| Home > South-East Asia >> Malaysia | |
PSM becomes Bersih rally police target now
Malaysia Kini - June 24, 2011
According to its secretary general S Arutchelvan, about 50 police personnel descended on PSM members who had congregated in Nusajaya, Johor today for the party's Udahlah tu...Bersaralah (Enough, Retire Now) campaign which kicked off today.
Contacted this afternoon, Arutchelvan said that the team of around 50 PSM members was stopped from distributing their campaign leaflets at about 9.30am.
He added that with police threatening to arrest them for sedition if they did, they also cited the Bersih 2.0 rally as a reason to stop the campaigners.
"At first they were talking about Bersih and how it was the Inspector General of Police's order but (the leaflets) have nothing to do with Bersih," he said, admitting,however, that PSM is also using its campaign to promote the rally.
He added that when PSM showed the police the leaflets urging people to change the government which has a 'poor track record', the police claimed that they were seditious.
"The leaflets state that after 54 years of BN rule, corruption has gone up, racial tension has gone up and the gap between the rich and the poor has widened, so we ask people to change the government.
"We don't challenge the sultan or incite racial riots so I don't see anything seditious there," he said.
Report lodged against OCPD
In response to the police threat to arrest them, Arutchelvan lodged a police report against Nusajaya OCPD Supt Abd Aziz Ahmad for not being neutral. "He was acting like a politician," he said.
Arutchelvan added that there have been no complaints so far from campaigners in Perak, although the group in Arau, Perlis, was asked to go to the police station for questioning before released.
"In fact, we still have four police vehicles trailing us now, and we are told that more police personnel are waiting for us at our next destination in Simpang Renggam (Johor)," he said.
The Udahlah tu...Bersaralah focuses on small towns across Peninsular Malaysia, with campaigners going on a road show from June 24 to 26 to expose the BN's track record.
See also:
 |