Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Asia/STIStory_175494.html
Nov 10, 2007
M’sia police turn water cannon on protesters
KUALA LUMPUR - POLICE in the Malaysian capital used water cannon and fired tear gas shells on Saturday to break up crowds gathering for a banned opposition rally to demand changes to the country’s electoral system.
Hundreds of policemen, including riot police with shields and batons, guarded Kuala Lumpur’s landmark Merdeka (Independence) Square, where tens of thousands of people had planned to gather in one of Malaysia’s biggest anti-government rallies since 1998.
‘Police sprayed water cannons twice to disperse a crowd of about 500 protesters chanting slogans,’ said a Reuters witness who watched the incident outside a mosque guarded by about 50 riot police, while helicopters hovered overhead.
Nearby, another group of around 500 protesters, chiefly teenagers wearing yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan 'Bersih", or ‘Clean’ in Malay, marched in heavy rain towards the city’s colonial-era railway station.
They chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is greatest) and 'Reformasi", a reform demand that was the war chant of 1998 opposition protests, while waving banners reading ‘Save Malaysia’ and ‘Election Commission, stop your tricks’.
Groups of demonstrators converged on the palace of Malaysia’s king, where opposition leaders handed a list of electoral reform demands to a representative of the country’s head of state.
Policemen in the crowd said it numbered less than 10,000, but organisers put the figure at 30,000.
Opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim said he was happy with the turnout, despite the government’s condemnation of the protest.
‘It is a good signal that Malaysians want freedom and democracy and want free and fair elections,’ the former deputy prime minister told reporters.
‘Now we have no option but to appeal to his majesty,’ Datuk Seri Anwar said after he and several opposition colleagues, including Mr Hadi Awang of the hardline Islamist Parti Islam-se Malaysia and Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party, submitted their list.
‘The people’s right’
‘This is the people’s right, to assemble and air their grievances,’ said Mr Mohamadiah Sohod, 33, a government worker from the southern Johor state, who was upset because police had refused to issue a permit for the rally.
‘Today they are putting too many restrictions on the people. We want a fair and free election,’ he told Reuters.
‘The rules now are unjust and in favour of the ruling party.’ Police detained about a dozen protesters and effectively shut down the city centre, using barricades on main roads to halt cars and turn away protesters, witnesses said.
‘We will not hesitate to take action against those who defied our orders,’ state news agency Bernama quoted city police chief Zul Hasnan Najib as saying before the demonstration began.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said on Friday the government would not tolerate street protests. ‘They are challenging the patience of the people who want the country to be peaceful and stable,’ he said.
The protest was one of Malaysia’s biggest since unprecedented anti-government demonstrations in 1998 that led to Datuk Seri Anwar’s arrest and jailing.
The rally was organised by Bersih, a loose coalition of 26 opposition parties and non-government groups that is pushing for reforms to the electoral process it says favours Datuk Seri Abdullah’s ruling coalition.
Datuk Seri Abdullah won a record victory in a 2004 election, and is widely expected to call snap polls in early 2008.
Two people were seriously injured in September when police opened fire to disperse rioters at a Bersih rally in the northeastern state of Terengganu. – REUTERS
