KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — Lawyers representing Putrajaya today sought to pin the blame on the previous leadership of polls watchdog Bersih for the violence that broke out during a rally for electoral reform in April 2012, suggesting that it did not put in safeguards against disorder at the event.
Two of the Bersih’s former steering committee members, Dr S. P. Subramaniam and Dr Farouk Musa, were repeatedly asked in the High Court today if they took all precautionary measures to ensure the rally they organised would be peaceful.
While both the respondents did not state if the Bersih steering committee at the time had drawn up a security plan for the rally, they disagreed with suggestions that the issue was never taken into consideration when planning the rally.
“Do you agree if I put it to you that the organisers had failed to ensure the rally proceeded without any violence?” Federal counsel Nurul Ainy Yahya asked during today’s hearing of Putrajaya’s civil suit.
“We were peaceful until the police fired teargas,” Subramaniam, the first to testify, replied.
The federal counsel proceeded to point out that Subramaniam had left the scene where the violence purportedly took place, suggesting that he had abandoned his duty as one of the rally’s organisers to ensure the demonstration went on peacefully.
But Subramaniam insisted that the responsibility should have been shouldered by the police as well.
“It should have been a joint responsibility,” he told the court.
The same line of questioning was later posed to Farouk, who was then Bersih’s chief medical coordinator.
This time federal counsel Shaiful Azman suggested that Bersih had never discussed about security safeguards in the organising meetings prior to the rally.
Farouk disagreed.
“In any developed democracy, it is the police that should facilitate a peaceful assembly,” he continued.
In its civil suit against Bersih 2.0, Putrajaya is claiming compensation for general damages with interest, as well as a declaration that the group breached Section 6(2)(g) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, which states that organisers must “ensure that the assembly will not endanger health or cause damage to property or the environment”.
The plaintiff is arguing that Bersih 2.0 had failed to keep its pledge for a smooth rally and should be held accountable for the violence that resulted in the injury of several police officers and destruction of public property.
Bersih leaders, past and present, maintain that Putrajaya should be held responsible for the violence.
Chaos reigned on the streets of Kuala Lumpur for over four hours after 3pm on April 28 when police fired tear gas and water cannons and chased protesters down the streets of the capital to disperse what had initially started out as a peaceful protest calling for free and fair elections.
Protestors claimed the violence was ignited by police provocation while the government alleged there were elements in Bersih that tried to hijack the rally to overthrow the government through violence.
The hearing continues tomorrow.
