Stop Bersih crackdown, Bar Council tells Putrajaya

Volunteers who were arrested at the Bersih secretariat office in Petaling Jaya today can be seen seated inside a locked police truck. Picture by Jack Ooi

KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 The Bar Council demanded today that the Najib administration stop its pre-emptive strikes against possible supporters of electoral reform group Bersih 2.0 ten days before its planned rally in the capital.

Council president Lim Chee Wee said he was alarmed by Putrajayas wanton, unjustified and wholly disproportionate crackdown this week on freedom of movement, speech and assembly, including nabbing individuals on flimsy excuses such as the clothes they were wearing.

Most alarming has been the arrest and remand for seven days of a group of individuals (including two juveniles in their teens) in Penang, who are now being investigated under section 122 of the Penal Code for allegedly waging war against the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, he highlighted.

The unreasonable and unwarranted use of this provision, which provides for potentially severe penalties, and the length of the detention period reflect the governments determination to clamp down on the citizenrys right to express their viewpoints peaceably and to intimidate anyone wishing to exercise that right, he added.

Under the law, whoever tries to collect men, arms or ammunition, or otherwise prepares to wage war ... against the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong or any of the Rulers or Yang di-Pertua Negeri or abets the waging or the preparation of such war, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term not exceeding twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine.

The lawyer repeated the Bar Councils call to the police to allow the demonstrators to continue their campaigning for their July 9 rallies in peace and to also h! elp them to keep the public order and peace.