KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — The police should stop arresting Pakatan Rakyat leaders and activists over #KitaLawan rally as they were politically-motivated, the coalition’s youth leaders said today.

In a joint statement, PKR’s Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, PAS’ Suhaizan Kayat and DAP’s Teo Kok Seong condemned the police for violating their constitutional rights to a peaceful assembly.

“We felt our arrest and detention as well as the activists’ were violating our rights in the Federal Constitution which allows any citizens to assemble peacefully,” the PR youth chiefs said. .

“All of us are arrested under Section 9(5) of Peaceful Assembly Act and Section 143 of Penal Code, it looks like the laws were being used according to some orders to threaten and bully us,” they added, claiming the Act was being manipulated by the police to quell dissent and to satisfy the needs of certain “political masters.”

They did not name who the alleged “political masters” were in the statement.

Teo was arrested and remanded over the weekend for his involvement in the #KitaLawan rally earlier this month.

Previously, Nik Nazmi was arrested and remanded for three days for similar involvement.

Activists Adam Adli and Mandeep Singh were arrested during the weekly #KitaLawan rally in front of the Sogo shopping mall last Friday.

The arrest is Adam’s second over the rallies, and brings the number of people detained over the peaceful demonstrations to seven.

Others also arrested include PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli, Jingga 13’s Fariz Musa, and Adam.

The latter two were arrested over a previous rally.

On March 7, thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur in support of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who was handed a five-year jail sentence last month for allegedly sodomising his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in 2008.

Police previously issued a warning that the rally, headlined as #KitaLawan, was unlawful, as its organisers had failed to follow the conditions laid out in the Peaceful Assembly Act.