Malaysian police detained 245 people after firing tear gas and water canon to disperse thousands of people demanding electoral reforms in the biggest political street protest in nearly a decade, police said yesterday.
The detainees were released after providing statements but could later be charged and face up to a year in jail if convicted for taking part in the illegal assembly, a police spokesman said.
"We are still investigating but they have all been freed on bail," said the spokesman, who declined to be named citing policy.
Thousands of people defied a government ban against the rally on Saturday in downtown Kuala Lumpur but were scattered as police fired tear gas and water canon near the Merdeka (Independence) Square where they had gathered.
The crowd, many wearing yellow T-shirts, later regrouped and marched to the royal palace in a procession more than 300m long, shouting "Save Malaysia" and "Long Live the People."
Yellow is the color of Malaysian royalty.
Protesters presented a memorandum to a representative of the king, urging him to intervene to ensure the election system is revamped ahead of general elections widely expected for early next year.
"This is our right. Our rulers are so proud of our democracy but in fact our democracy is worse than Burma, worse than Bangladesh," said Rosli, a 40-year-old government worker. "We just want to correct what is wrong. We just ask for fair elections."
National police chief Musa Hassan was quoted as saying by the Sunday Star newspaper that authorities exercised restraint but were forced to fire tear gas and water cannon after protesters refused to disperse.
He put the crowd size at about 4,000 people, but rally organizers estimated at least 30,000.
It was the biggest political demonstration in Malaysia since supporters of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets for several days in September 1998 to protest his dismissal from the Cabinet and ruling party by then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Anwar subsequently formed the People's Justice Party, one of three opposition parties involved in Saturday's demonstration.
"It is a good signal that Malaysians want freedom and democracy, and they want free and fair elections," he said.
Anwar has called for further street protests until reforms are implemented. But Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak warned the government wouldn't tolerate illegal assembly.
The rally was organized by some 70 non-governmental organizations and opposition parties, which demanded the removal of phantom voters from electoral rolls, a crackdown on government workers using absentee ballots, access to state-controlled media by all political parties, and an end to vote-buying and other kinds of irregularities.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS