Cranky Thoughts & Muses

Geeeee … it just bothers me so much about the rally that’s gonna take place tomorrow and the deployment of ARMY - friggin ridiculous man … if you would read this (nope, nothing about the rally, rather about the idea of deployment of army)

Again, where is our citizen rights??? Deploying the ARMY to fight us for a rally?

MalaysiaKini.com
Kelana Jaya rally: Full steam ahead
5 July 2008
Andrew Ong

Despite the heavy military build-up around the Petaling Jaya area, Coalition Against Inflation (Protes) are adamant that the rally in the Kelana Jaya stadium will proceed as planned.

Protes coordinator Dr Hatta Ramli said the programme, which would see musical and artistic performances in between political speeches, would start at 10am until midnight.

“Everything is on as planned,” said Hatta, when contacted today.

Hatta confirmed that as of this evening, the final touches are being put into place at the 50,000 capacity stadium which would be used to protest against the sharp rise in fuel prices last month.

However, current political turmoil involving PKR de facto leader Anwar is bound to crop up in the speeches and it has yet to be determined when the embattled leader would speak during the rally.

Anwar had previously announced that he would use the full-day rally tomorrow as part of his nationwide roadshow to defend himself against sodomy allegations made by former aide Saiful Bukhary Azlan.

He is also expected to touch on the shocking statutory declaration made by private investigator P Balasubramaniam which linked Deputy Premier Najib Abdul Razak to the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Since morning, there were reports of army trucks stationed in various parts of Petaling Jaya, including the Kelana Jaya police station, near the stadium.

‘We cooperated with police’

Police sources said that unlike the Hindraf and Bersih rallies in November last year, the police would rely on the army for “assistance” instead of police personnel from neighbouring states.

However Inspector General of Police Musa Hassan said the recent joint exercise conducted by the police and the armed forces was a normal exercise in accordance with the public order manual.

As such, he said, it should not be misconstrued as a threat to stifle peaceful assemblies.

Musa said the exercise was merely to test the preparedness of both forces and to overcome any shortcomings in case they needed to be deployed to maintain public order.

He said it was the responsibility of the police and the armed forces to protect and safeguard the citizen and the country from any threat.

“The public should not be unduly worried about the exercise except those who are out to create trouble,” he said in a statement.

Public intimidation

federal territory round table retrieat 170408 tian chua

However Batu MP Tian Chua said military presence in the area was unnecessary as it would intimidate the public and discourage them from attending the event.

“I must stress that Protes has been very cooperative… they even accepted police advice to move the event to a stadium. So I don’t see why they need to intimidate people (with the military),” he added.

Previously, Protes sought to hold the rally at the Padang Timur field near Amcorp Mall but the venue was changed at the eleventh hour following announcement by the police that the military was joining them in a public security exercise this weekend.

In a related development, five NGOs today held a peaceful assembly in front of the federal police headquarters at Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur, against the use of the military in handling public assemblies.

In a memorandum addressed to police chief Musa Hassan, the groups demanded, among other matters, that the police respect citizen rights to assemble and that the military should not be called in to stifle peaceful public assemblies.

The political situation in Malaysia has gone too far. Neither wanna back off. Do you foresee possible assassination if things turned ugly? Guess not very likely *shrug* But well … we’ll never knew!

So, possible riot in KL tomorrow?

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