Lim Kit Siang : 163 Arrests Made by Police Over Peaceful Protests

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should stop the current police madness, end the debilitating Perak crisis and unite Malaysians to face the world’s worst economic crisis in a century with Malaysia in official recession this year as the country’s GDP is expected to be in contraction of between one and 2 per cent.

The almost daily reports of current police madness, with the arrest of 21 persons in Ipoh yesterday for involvement in a peaceful hunger strike in protest against the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak has taken gross abuses of police power to a new height.

At a time when the police should be going all-out to combat the endemic crime wave in the country to make Malaysians, tourists and investors safe, a fundamental prerequisite of the nation’s international competitiveness, the police are shocking Malaysians with one outrage after another in launching indiscriminate arrests against peaceful non-violent protestors for wearing black, singing birthday song, taking part in candlelight vigils and trespass of DAP hqrs by conducting a police raid without a search warrant, first time in DAP’s 43-year history and never allowed to be done by the first five Prime Ministers in the country.

Last Sunday, Najib spoke out publicly against the three-day hunger-strike planned in Ipoh to be led by legitimate Perak Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin and lawful Speaker, V. Sivakumar to demand the dissolution of the Perak State Assembly and the holding of state-wide general elections to return the mandate to Perakians to choose the state government they want.

However, was Najib’s public disapproval for the hunger strike in Ipoh the signal and “greenlight” for the latest police madness in Ipoh with indiscriminate arrest of peaceful protestors as if “fasting” and not wanting to eat have become a new crime in Malaysia!

The Police will never be able to convince Malaysians and investors that they are professional and world-class so long as they continue to be more “efficient” in dealing with peaceful civic-minded protestors than criminals, whether robbers, rapists, snatch-thiefs or snatch-thief killers, and the criminal Mat Rempit elements.

Already some 163 arrests had been made nation-wide by the police over peaceful protests at the unethical, undemocratic and unconstitutional power grab in Perak.

This is the time when Najib should give full and total attention to the economy and the conditions to enhance Malaysia’s international competitiveness and to stop playing political games as in Perak which have the far-reaching repercussions of undermining Malaysia’s international competitiveness with the credibility, integrity and legitimacy of one key national institution after another facing unprecedented crisis of confidence.