From The Edge --What is so wrong about peaceful demonstrations?

What is so wrong about peaceful demonstrations?
Written by By Azam Aris
Tuesday, 05 July 2011 14:19

As a journalist, I like to revisit some of the issues I have written about. I have gone back to quite a few lately, mostly to update myself and the readers to see if things have changed for the better or remain the same. If there haven’t been any improvements and issues have not been resolved amicably, then there hasn’t been any progress and we are not moving forward as a nation.


Back in 2007, there were a lot of “walks”. Lawyers and their supporters went on a “walk of justice” to Putrajaya to seek the setting up of a Royal Commission to look into the VK Lingam tape. Bersih, the coalition for free and fair elections, was on the road to demand reform of the electoral system, while the Hindu Rights Action Force took to the streets to highlight the plight of the Indian community. Many others took to walking that year and some chose to because they had an occasion to celebrate, for example, International Human Rights Day.


All these demonstrations were deemed illegal by the government as they were not issued permits by the police. But let them walk peacefully, I commented, as there are ways to do it without the risk of havoc and civil unrest.


I quoted a New SundayTimes interview with elder statesman Tun Musa Hitam, the former deputy prime minister, who said as a nation celebrating its 50th independence (then), a multiracial Malaysia was more than ready for peaceful assemblies, and agreed that freedom of expression was not just a middle-class idea.


“Peaceful assembly relates to the right to free expression, the right that is given to human beings to express their views … Freedom in a democratic society is quite clear. People do have a right to demonstrate and they must be given the right,” he said.


In the same article, I pointed out that the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) had expressed regret that the government had ignored its repeated calls to repeal the law requiring permits for public assemblies and processions. Former attorney general Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman, who was Suhakam chairman at the time, was quoted by The Star: “In London, you can hold peaceful assemblies and the police are around to prevent public disorder. But here, a group needs a permit even to submit a memorandum.


“The possibility of public disorder should be based on evidence, not speculation or imagination. Unfortunately, a gathering of three is an assembly under Section 27 of the Police Act. The intention is irrelevant. Suhakam wants Section 27 repealed because it goes against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and appears to be inconsistent with the spirit of the Federal Constitution.”


Nearly four years on, this issue about the right to peaceful assembly remains in a muddy quagmire, with no solution in sight. No permits, no rally, no demonstration and no walk. Progress has not been made on how to move forward. There are still no guidelines on how Malaysians can carry out peaceful demonstrations despite the numerous recommendations presented to the government, including proposals by Suhakam, and many effective methods implemented overseas that we can follow.


The right to peaceful demonstration is actually not a complicated matter if the government has the political will. If there were accepted guidelines and rules of assembly, many of the problems today, including parties antagonising each other and bringing up racial issues, could have been avoided.


Instead, the police have made more arrests and questioned Bersih organisers. The Home Ministry has even declared Bersih T-shirts illegal as they are associated with an illegal rally — developments that would not score well for us when it comes to our international human rights ranking.


But Bersih still wants to walk on July 9 — and it wants the police to identify the route — because it feels that since 2007, many flaws have persisted in in the electoral system. The group’s eight demands are reasonable enough, and these include a clean electoral roll, reformation of the postal ballot, use of indelible ink to reduce voter fraud, a minimum 21-day campaign period, free and fair access to media, the strengthening of public institutions to act independently and impartially in upholding the rule of law and democracy, the end of corruption by acting against all allegations of corruption including vote buying and an end to dirty politics.


The Election Commission says it is looking into the demands, but it did not help matters when it admitted to a major error in the electoral roll where six individuals were wrongly registered to the house address belonging to the mother of opposition Gombak MP Azmin Ali.


Malay rights groups Perkasa and Umno Youth also want to walk the same day to present their counter views and express their feelings — some of which have already been expressed in a very aggressive way. The police are perceived as being unfair as arrests have been made against opposition members and Bersih organisers but not against Umno Youth when it demonstrated without a permit in front of the PKR head office and allegedly threatened to burn down the building, ironically, just a few shophouses away from a police station.


Suhakam has maintained its stand and urges the government to allow Bersih 2.0, Perkasa and Umno Youth to exercise their constitutional rights in an orderly and responsible manner. At press time, the police are adamant about stopping the July 9 rally.


So where do we go from here? Let the issue remain unresolved without a workable guideline for many more years to come? Can we continue to deny Malaysians their constitutional rights? Can we become the developed and high-income nation that we aspire to be by limiting what is considered a fundamental right in all developed nations?


The history of the nation’s independence began with Malayans, notably Umno and the Malay pressure groups, demanding that their rights be respected. If not for peaceful street demonstrations, which the British colonial rulers allowed, the Malays would not have defeated the Malayan Union in 1948 — a new British administration that was aimed at further usurping the political power of the Malays and their rulers.
So what is so wrong about peaceful demonstrations today?

Azam Aris is executive editor at The Edge. Comments: feedback@bizedge.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it