End Police Assaults on Peaceful Marches

Aliran condemns the continued detention of 133 people arrested following an unprovoked police assault on a peaceful march and non-violent protest in Kuala Lumpur on the evening of Saturday, 17 October 1998.

Various eyewitnesses have recounted that the march, which involved an estimated 10,000 participants, and which started along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in the afternoon, was not different from a similar march held last Saturday (10 October) which ended peacefully.

Yesterday’s march was orderly, disciplined, and non-confrontational. The participants in the march displayed no violence and no hooligans. They destroyed nothing, looted nothing, and posed no threat to public security and order.

It was no secret, certainly not a conspiracy, that the protesters planned to submit an appeal to His Majesty, the Yang Di Pertuan Agong, to intervene in the present political crisis. Such an open and public submission by a large and concerned group of loyal citizens to His Majesty was an expression of a democratic right.

It was definitely not an unlawful act, except in the eyes of a government that has become increasingly repressive, intolerant of democratic forms of dissent, and contemptuous of the rule of law.

It is shocking that the police, and the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) should have reacted with violence against the protesters. It is all the more shocking that the FRU assault evidently took place just as the protesters were dispersing peacefully.

In this assault, numerous protesters, men and women, were beaten with truncheons, caned with rotans, kicked, injured and bloodied. Of those arrested and brought before the Magistrate, several were directed to be sent for medical treatment.

By now it is clear that Malaysians who are committed to a just and democratic society are no longer cowed by the authorities’ stubborn refusal to permit peaceful gatherings and non-violent forms of dissent.

Malaysians will condemn the FRU assault as ample evidence of the authorities’ use of the police force to vent their frustration on peaceful protesters whose numbers have been growing in recent weeks.

The FRU assault on protesters who were dispersing peacefully, like the beating-up of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim while in detention, is proof of the authorities’ flagrant abuse of power.

It makes a mockery of the government’s claim that it still practises democracy in this country.
 

Aliran demands that:

1. those arrested should be immediately and unconditionally released;
 
2. an independent investigation into the FRU assault of Saturday, 17 October 1998, be conducted;
 
3. those found to be responsible for ordering and/or conducting the assault should be severely punished;
 
4. the Internal Security Act (ISA) be immediately repealed, and,
 
5. all peaceful gatherings and public rallies should be permitted in accordance with the right to freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly as protected by the Constitution of  Malaysia.
 

Aliran Executive Committee
18 October 1998