A planned candlelight vigil at the iconic Dataran Merdeka tomorrow by the Abolish ISA Movement (GMI) has been declared illegal by the police today.

The police warned the public to stay away from the event, which is being organised to show solidarity for Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees and their family members.

Police also announced that there would be check points and road closures in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow in a bid to foil the event, which the organisers had vowed to proceed despite the ban.

Dang Wangi district police chief Zulkarnain Abdul Rahman (mugshot) said the vigil was deemed illegal because GMI did not apply for a permit to hold the public gathering.

Zulkarnain said the application must be made by filling up a special application form. He said this criteria was made known to GMI during a meeting on Wednesday.

“They refused to fill up the form,” Zulkarnain told Malaysiakini.

'They lost the form'

In an immediate reaction, GMI president Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh said GMI had submitted the necessary forms on Dec 26, 2007.

“We had submitted the necessary documents, but they (police) claimed they lost it and asked us to fill in a second form during the meeting,” said Syed Ibrahim.

He said the ‘second form’ was not submitted as it was the responsibility of the police to locate the original application form.

Syed Ibrahim said GMI aims to push on with the vigil to reaffirm their rights to assemble peacefully as enshrined under Article 10 of the Federal Constitution.

“We stress that this is a peaceful gathering. It’s a vigil. It’s not a march or a rally,” he said, adding that it was too late to tell the supporters not to attend the vigil.

He added that GMI today submitted an appeal against Zulkarnain’s decision to Kuala Lumpur police chief Zulhasnan Najib Baharuddin.

Second attempt

Previously, GMI had attempted to hold the vigil on Dec 22, 2007 but postponed the event to Jan 5 because the police had ruled the vigil illegal.

Following this, GMI submitted an application form for a public gathering on Dec 26 and followed up with a letter on Dec 28.

On Wednesday, Zulkarnain replied to the letter saying that the permit to hold the event was denied, among others, on grounds of national security and that GMI was not a formally registered body. [See letter from police]
Presently, there are about 90 ISA detainees being held at the Kamunting Detention Centre, Perak.

The latest additions to the detention centre are five Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) leaders who were detained on Dec 13, 2007 for national security reasons.