Police crackdown on rally in Kuala Lumpur once
again earns international criticism for government
Protesters
demanding reform of Malaysia’s election laws proved Saturday that they could
draw an even bigger crowd than they did in July 2011, with attendance estimated
by police at 25,000 and by Bersih at 250,000. Take your pick.
Both
sides were claiming propaganda victory in the aftermath. Bersih 3.0, the
150-member coalition of NGOs for free and fair elections, said they had
accomplished their goal of drawing massive numbers of protesters to the center
of Kuala Lumpur in defiance of the ban on assembly in the historic Independence
Square. Government officials said the police had acted responsibly in
attempting to control the crowd only to have firebrands charge police lines and
overturn a police car. More than 60 protesters were injured along with 11
police, authorities said.
In any
case, the event focuses the spotlight on claims that the government, led by
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, has refused to accede to Bersih’s
recommendations to reform the electoral process. Those recommendations included
cleansing the electoral rolls, reforms of absentee voting, the use of indelible
ink to mark voters’ fingers after voting to thwart repeat voting, a minimum
campaign period of 21 days, and fair access to the media – a proposal almost
impossible to fulfill, since the three major political parties own all the
major mainstream news outlets, all of which have been reporting negatively on
the plans for the protest.
Bersih
has complained that only the indelible ink recommendation was accepted. Bersih
also complained that the government pushed through a 3 a.m. measure in
parliament to remove the right of candidates or their representatives to
observe voter registrations on election day so that opposition leaders would be
unable to spot phantom voters, and removed a requirement that all printed
materials bear the name of the printer and publisher from campaign materials.
“The
government will likely point to the late confrontation and violence as
protester-instigated and try to blame them for the need to use a bit of force,”
said a longtime western observer. “I doubt that view will get much public
traction, however. The government will also say they used great restraint,
which was true up until the end. We'll know better when arrests and body counts
of injured, etc. are known.”
For
starters, it appeared that the government had miscalculated by banning the
rally in the first place. Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein earlier on
had said the rally hadn’t “gained much traction,” and that it wasn’t a security
threat. However, hardliners apparently won out, with the Kuala Lumpur city
government banning the event only to have protesters show up from all over the
country.
In the
end it also appeared that police hadn’t learned the lessons from Bersih 2.0,
the July 2011 rally in which 1,600 people were arrested and many more were
beaten and brutalized, earning international condemnation for authorities.
Certainly,
once again the international press appeared to be firmly on the side of the
protesters, with news reports pretty much uniformly leading with police
unleashing “tear gas and chemical-laced water Saturday at thousands of
demonstrators who demanded fair rules for national elections expected soon.”
Although
Bersih leaders acknowledged they had lost control of the crowd when the rally
ended and a group described as “a few hundred” attempted to push past police
barriers to enter the square, clearly seeking to provoke and be arrested in an
attempt to win sympathy, it appeared that once again police had overreacted,
beating, tear-gassing and dousing those left with chemical laced water from
water cannons.
Certainly
if the demonstrators were seeking to provoke the police, they got their wish.
Both the local and international press including the television network Al
Jazeera were filled with pictures of police battering demonstrators with tear
gas, beating and kicking them and dragging them away. Some 488 protesters were
arrested. News photographers complained that they were arrested and that their
cameras were confiscated and emptied when they tried to film the violence.
Leaving
aside the violence that marred the episode, “I think it shows that the Bersih
movement is still on the rise and can pull more and more people into political
action,” said the western observer. “Groups were going into the fray knowing
that the government and police had announced that it was banned in advance and
that they could be arrested. The demonstrators were clearly not cowed or afraid
of the authorities. So that plus the sizeable turnout probably means a
‘victory’ for protesters.”
Also
the crowd was mixed ethnically, contradicting pro-government assertions that
the backbone was made up of minorities, primarily Chinese. With opposition
leader Anwar Ibrahim, the Democratic Action Party and Parti Islam se-Malaysia,
or PAS playing a bigger role, the confrontation had a more clearly opposition
flavor than the demonstration that took place in July 2011.
“The
opposition proved once again that they can mobilize and organize a very large
multi-racial crowd,” said another observer. “Bersih 3.0 was an impressive
achievement.”
At
stake for both sides is the upper hand in national elections expected to be
called in June, with parliament probably being dissolved sometime in May, as
the Barisan Nasional, or national governing coalition, squares off against the
Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition led by Anwar. Wong Chin Huat, a university
professor and member of the Bersih steering committee, told Asia Sentinel the
organization intends to keep pressure on the Election Commission for political
reform.
“We
will continue the momentum from of the rally, we will press for international
observers, we will continue our demands for free and fair elections,” Wong
said. “We want the public to be aware, to express their objections, and put
more pressure on the Election Commission over their questionable political
reforms.”
Wong
said Bersih had made its point clearly to the thousands of protesters,
instructing them not to foment violence, only to have a small group surge into police
barriers surrounding the square. The police, he said, overreacted. He himself
was beaten and had his glasses knocked off well after the protest had ended as
he was walking back from a meeting, he charged. He saw many others being beaten
and mistreated as well, he said, with as many as 30 policemen “using a
protester like a football.”
Asia
Sentinel
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