Rally organisers defiant despite arrests of Maria Chin and activist Mandeep Singh in a police raid
Maria Chin Abdullah
KUALA LUMPUR: Police arrested Bersih 5 leader Maria Chin Abdullah and a leading Bersih activist, Mandeep Singh, in a raid on the group’s office yesterday afternoon
Bersih, in a statement through Twitter, said police and Companies Commission officials took part in the raid and seized 10 computers, two mobile phones, and documents related to their bank account and payroll from the office in Petaling Jaya at about 3pm.
Chin was arrested under Section 124C of the Penal Code, a law prohibiting acts that “threaten parliamentary democracy, while Singh was arrested on suspicion of violating an anti-rioting law.
Police said they planned to hold the pair at least overnight, possibly longer. Despite the raid and the detention of Chin and Mandeep, Bersih 5 organisers remained defiant, vowing to go ahead with today’s nationwide rally against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak over the 1MDB imbroglio.
“The rally will definitely go ahead. There is no turning back,” Bersih steering committee member Jay Jay Denis said yesterday.
Bersih 5 is the second mass protest against 1MDB in 15 months. The previous rally drew tens of thousands of Bersih yellow shirt supporters to two days of peaceful protests here and other locations in August last year to demand Najib’s removal over the scandal.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Society chairwoman Ambiga Sreenevasan, Bersih’s former chief, said in a text message that the demonstrations would go on despite the arrests. “I think we will have a larger turnout because of them,” she said.
Bersih, along with several other groups, is being investigated after reports that it received funds from Open Society Foundations, an organisation linked to business tycoon George Soros.
In a radio address yesterday, Najib dismissed Bersih as a ‘deceitful’ tool of the opposition seeking ‘to unseat a democratically-elected government’.
Today’s protest marks the finale of a seven-week Bersih campaign to highlight the scandal across the country and to prevent it from being swept under the rug by the government. Tensions have soared ahead of today’s rally due to threats by Datuk Seri Jamal Yunos, the leader of the ‘Red Shirts’ to mobilise its supporters and block Bersih from gathering.