devious17,
umno/bn/whoever-shit is chicken shit about defeat, I guess. They know that they f-ed up big time and there's no turning back. many have expressed their shite-ness about them so they're going down. I wonder if 100,000 malaysians were to gather at merdeka square, how are the authorities going to catch all of them. use bombs? Check this news out.
Extracted from MSN news.
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Agence France-Presse - 11/9/2007 5:50 AM
Malaysia criticised for threats against rally
Human Rights Watch on Friday called on Malaysian authorities to allow a weekend political rally to proceed after police warned it would be broken up and participants arrested.
With national elections expected to be called early next year, opposition groups have organised a mass rally in Kuala Lumpur's Independence Square Saturday calling for "clean and fair" polls.
However, police chief Musa Hassan told the state Bernama news agency that there was a risk of rioting and property destruction at the event, which organisers hope could attract tens of thousands of people.
"The police fear that there are irresponsible groups and undesirable elements who will take the opportunity to create disorder through provocations which would eventually lead to street demonstrations and rioting," he said.
Musa said that about 4,000 police would deploy to disperse the crowd and roadblocks would be set up around the venue.
"Members of the public found in the area to attend the gathering are committing an offence and legal action will be taken against them," he said.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned the threats and said it made a mockery of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's reform ambitions.
"The grounds for refusing the rally are nonsense," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"If Malaysia wants to count itself a democracy, it can begin by upholding constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. The way the system works now, only the ruling coalition can get its messages out."
Human Rights Watch said that Malaysian elections have been sullied by vote-buying, the use of public resources by the ruling parties and other underhand tactics, as well as accusations of bias against the Election Commission.
"The government should not be afraid to allow Malaysians to raise very basic issues about the fundamental right to vote," Adams said.
Former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim will address the rally, in which the three main opposition parties are taking part, along with civil society groups.
Anwar was heir apparent to former premier Mahathir Mohamad until his sacking in 1998, when he was jailed for six years for sodomy and corruption.
The sodomy conviction was later overturned but the corruption verdict stands, barring him from standing for public office until April 2008.
Protests are rare in Malaysia, and the last major rallies were seen in 1998 during the "Reformasi" or "Reform" movement which erupted after Anwar's sacking. They were suppressed by police with water cannons and mass arrests.
