KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 ― Protesters’ demands for the removal of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and complaints against corruption and the prime minister’s daughter’s wedding ceremony were among reasons given by the police when seeking to remand arrested protesters, lawyer N. Surendran revealed today.
The PKR vice-president who acted as one of the lawyers for activist Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, DAP’s Anthony Loke, PSM secretary-general and PAS central committee member Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli, ridiculed the reasons that were the basis of the police’s application to remand the quartet today.
“Some of the things that they raised during this application, the investigations were under Section 143 and the Sedition Act and some of the issues or grounds that were raised by the police goes to show the way the police have been abusing their power,” he told reporters.
Section 143 of the Penal Code prescribes the punishment for those found guilty of being a member of an unlawful assembly with a jail term of up to six month, or a fine, or both.
The Sedition Act criminalises speech with “seditious tendencies” including those which could “bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against” the government or incite “feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races”.
Loke, who is also the Seremban MP, said he is unaware of what he said yesterday’s rally that was considered seditious, and pointed out with incredulity that the police did not appear to know either.
“Even the police did not know what I said was seditious because when the magistrate asked the [investigating officer], he said they have not completed watching the videos.
“So how can they say what I said was seditious when they have not even reviewed what I said?” he said.
The federal lawmaker labelled the investigation as “ridiculous” and “intimidation”, claiming that he was told last night to surrender or be arrested at home.
The DAP national organising secretary said he had then went to the police station to avoid being arrested during the wee hours in the morning, which could upset his family.
Loke also said the police could have take his and Arutchelvan’s statements’ last night, but instead kept them overnight at the police station for no reason.
Despite being released today, they were then ordered to return to Dang Wangi where they surrendered last night, where police investigators will finally record their statements.
Loke also said the investigating officer mentioned the words being investigated include “Hidup Hidup, Hidup Rakyat, Bantah Bantah, Bantah GST (Long live the people, reject GST)”.
“I want to ask the police, when (did) Hidup Rakyat and Bantah GST become seditious words,” he said, followed by cheers and applause by some 30 people who waited outside the Jinjang police lock-up until they were released.
It is understood that activist Hishamuddin Rais, PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli, and PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang were arrested today when they were called in to give their statements.
The rally by civil society movement #KitaLawan kicked off shortly after 2.30pm yesterday from several meeting points in KL and drew a reported crowd of nearly 10,000 participants to the streets of the capital.
There were no report of injuries or casualties arising from the rally, that is said to have progressed peacefully in a march by a sea of thousands of Malaysians clothed in red and black.
