KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28 ― Malaysia’s Catholic churches are provoking attack from the police by offering to shelter Bersih 4 participants should the rally turn ugly, pro-Umno portal MyKMU.net said today.
In an article that carried no byline, the portal said the churches did not offer such protection before, and are doing it now only to play up religious card in the run up to the Sarawak state elections.
“In Sarawak, Christian adherents are nearly the majority there and these sort of issues are quick to touch their sensitivities, although yours truly is informed that they are members of a different denomination,” said the portal.
It is unsure what the writer meant by that, as Catholicism is among the major Christian denominations in Sarawak, alongside established Protestant churches like the Anglicans and Methodists and evangelical churches such as the Sidang Injil Borneo.
“Afterwards, would it not be easy to say that the police and Barisan Nasional government had disturbed their houses of worship, and subsequently freedom of worship? It can be a hot issue in the elections,” it added.
The portal also drew comparisons with a previous Bersih 2.0 rally in 2011, when the police fired tear gas and water cannons into the compound of the Tung Shin Hospital, and claimed the issue was played up by a pro-opposition doctor working there.
An investigation by the Health Ministry in October 2011 had concluded that riot police broke their own standard operating procedures while dispersing Bersih 2.0 rally demonstrators who had sought refuge at the Tung Shin Hospital.
Three Catholic churches have offered refuge for Bersih 4. They are: St John’s Cathedral in Bukit Nanas, St Anthony’s Church in Pudu, and the Church of Our Lady of Fatima in Brickfields.
Bersih 2.0’s latest rally, dubbed Bersih 4, will take place this weekend in Kuala Lumpur, Kuching in Sarawak, Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, and several other cities worldwide.
The five demands of the rally are clean elections; clean government; right to dissent; strengthening parliamentary democracy and saving the economy.
