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Malaysian Police Use Tear Gas, Detain 61 At Protests
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 (News Agencies) - Malaysian police have arrested 61 people, ranging from hardened opposition activists to middle-class Chinese housewives after a weekend of protests against government policies.
Police fired tear gas and water cannon Sunday to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters gathered outside a court in the northern state of Kedah.
It was the third protest in four days by supporters of the National Justice Party (Keadilan) and allied parties.
In a separate incident Sunday in Kuala Lumpur, police hauled 45 people, including 11 women, marching to oppose the closure of a 70-year-old Chinese-language school.
In each case protesters were accused of ignoring controversial curbs on public gatherings, under which police can declare any gathering of more than four people illegal.
A newly formed human rights commission is to conduct a study on whether the rules should be relaxed to allow peaceful demonstrations.
Illegal assembly is punishable by up to one year in jail, a fine or both, although relatively few people have in practice been jailed for this offence.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said street protests staged by opposition parties were "undemocratic" and would not resolve problems.
"There are [other] ways to do it. They are represented in parliament and many of their representatives can register their objections," he was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency.
In the Kedah incident, some 500 people turned up at a magistrates' court to support nine opposition figures charged with rioting during a November by-election in Lunas constituency in Kedah, the Bernama news agency said.
Of the nine, six are from Keadilan, which is headed by the wife of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, and three from the allied Parti Islam SeMalaysia.
It said the crowd turned unruly while the hearing went on, forcing police to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse them.
Mohamad Ezam Mohamad Noor, youth chief of Keadilan and one of the nine on trial, said it was a peaceful assembly and slammed what he called harsh action by police.
Police also fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a rally in Kedah late Wednesday. They abstained from any action during a Saturday protest in Kuala Lumpur over the appointment of former attorney general Mokhtar Abdullah as a judge to the country's highest court.
Eight people were arrested Saturday but all later released on bail.
Ezam said seven people including two women were arrested outside the court Sunday for illegal assembly but all have been freed on bail. Another supporter at the police station was later hauled in for questioning.
"We regret the police's high-handedness in handling this matter," he said. He has lodged a complaint with police over the matter and against one officer for allegedly trying to hit him with a walkie-talkie.
In the other incident, more than 100 supporters and parents joined in an 18-kilometer (10.8 mile) walk from the city center to the Damansara suburb to protest the closure of a Chinese school.
They wore T-shirts saying "Save Damansara School," event organizer David Ma said.
But police later arrested 45 people for illegal assembly, said Ma, who is an official of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP). They have all been freed on bail.
DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang in a statement criticized the "high-handed" police actions, saying it was "most extraordinary" as the walkers were in pairs and did not assemble illegally.
Scores of parents and their supporters have protested against the closure of the school in Damansara. Authorities say the school is located dangerously near a main highway and lacks proper facilities.
The government has transferred most of the children to another school until a replacement is built in two years.
Chinese-language education is a sensitive subject in multiracial Malaysia. Some ministers and newspapers have accused the opposition of making political capital out of the issue.
But protesters say the number of Chinese-language schools nationwide is falling and there was no need to close the original Damansara institution.
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