GMI nets big crowd, defers memo to King
A sense of nostalgia must have hit hardened street protesters when some 10,000 demonstrators gathered near the Sogo shopping centre in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman calling for the abolishment of the Internal Security Act (ISA).
After all, the venue was a favourite haunt for weekend demonstrators following the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister back in 1998.
Now, more than 10 years on, the chants of reformasi once again reverberated off the Sogo building and adjacent Pertama complex, this time in urging the government to repeal the draconian preventive law ISA.
Bolstered with the triumphant turnout, protest organiser Syed Ibrahim Syed Nor, read aloud the "People's declaration against the ISA", which he said represents views from the diverse Malaysian public.
"Repeal the law. It does not need to be reviewed. Many are still being held without trial under the ISA. Free them all, because this violates human rights... we urge the King to take action," said Syed Ibrahim, who heads the Abolish the ISA Movement (GMI) coalition.
His brief speech was part of the memorandum which was to be handed to the King today but strategic police deployment along the route to the palace made this task unachievable.
Syed Ibrahim's group however had a backup plan - instead of heading south towards the palace, they marched in the opposite direction away from the cops to continue their rally, deferring their decision to hand over the memorandum to the King to another day.
The police, for their part, had been busy in stopping the crowd from heading towards the palace.
Since early morning, they made random arrests - anyone wearing anything remotely resembling an opposition party T-shirt would be arrested, some right after stepping of a bus or a train.
Got crowd, no memo
The police also managed to cordon the crowd from moving anywhere in the direction of the palace, but only to be outwitted by the protesters by continously changing routes.
Throughout the day - the rally started at 2pm from various points - the police came with all guns blazing to smoke out the protesters with a barrage of tear gas and water cannons.
One group of protesters who had gathered at Sogo, and later bolstered by a big crowd from Masjid Jamek, were chased along the parallel streets of the busy Jalan Raja Laut and Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman.
Many a times, these protesters tried to avoid arrests by dodging into back alleys, only to be met by a volley of tear gas from the other side.
It was a battle of attrition and in the end, when this crowd regrouped one last time near the PAS headquarters in the Chow Kit area, two water-cannon trucks made a rather short work of some 5,000 protesters who then just thinned out.
One water cannon truck went as far as chasing a handful of protesters for about 200 meters until it reached the end of Jalan Raja Laut.
Similarly, another group of protesters also faced rounds of tear gas and water cannons at under the Jalan Kuching flyover near Bank Rakyat-Bank Negara.
In all, conservative estimates put the number of protesters at 20,000, including groups that rallied in other parts of the city, but were unable to join the Sogo group.
The number was significantly high especially when the police had mounted numerous roadblocks, some as far away as in Kemaman, Terengganu to deter would-be protesters from entering the city centre.
Though the action was thick with the GMI crowd, claims of a parallel rally by a pro-ISA group led by Majlis Permuafakatan Ummah (Pewaris) fizzled out.
The group claimed that a counter-rally would be held with the participation of a host of intimidating silat practitioners unless GMI backed down.
In the end, a lone representative from Pewaris managed to hand its memorandum to the guard at the palace without much fuss from the large contingent of police stationed there.
