Najib dithers: Up to police to release detainees, undecided if Bersih still illegal

As expected, Prime Minister Najib Razak dithered over growing demands for the release of Bersih detainees, including MP for Sungai Siput Michael Jeyakumar, insisting that it was a police matter.

Najib has been the object of intense revilement both within the country and overseas for ordering an unprecedented crack down against supporters of the July 9 Bersih free-and-fair-elections rally.

Not only has his administration arrested more than 200 Bersih supporters, the Home Ministry has also outlawed the citizens' march. Yet, although Najib agreed to allow Bersih to carry on its rally in a stadium, he refused to confirm if that mean Bersih was now legal.

Nonetheless, the government-controlled has stopped labelling the rally as "illegal rally". But Najib still could not bring himself to confirm the actual status of Bersih.

“That is up to the police to decide," he told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the release of detainees.

“This is a point whereby we consider them illegal but they don’t consider themselves as illegal but what’s most important is public interest," he added, declining to explain further on the Bersih ban.

I want to protect Malaysians

Even so, he must have felt the public animosity as he tried to give reasons for the crackdown.

"I want to protect the Malaysian public from any untoward incidences and that is why I do not want this street demonstration to take place,” he added

Meanwhile, Pakatan Rakyat leaders have agreed to support the Bersih stadium rally provided the BN recognized the people's right to peaceful assembly and to release all detainees.

Decriminalize Bersih and yellow T-shirts

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang also reiterated that several steps must be taken to return the country "to the course of sanity, good and common sense".

"As a first step, the police should immediately stand down its apparatus of repression in the past two weeks, when the police abandoned and abdicated its first task to keep the people and country safe from criminals by going on a nation-wide mobilization against imaginary foes in the form of Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9," Kit Siang said in a statement.

"All police personnel in the country should be directed immediately to go back to their most important duties of keeping the streets and homes of Malaysians safe and free from crime. The police should also immediately decriminalize Bersih and Bersih 2.0 T shirts so that tens of thousands of Bersih T-shirts could be printed in the next three days for those attending the Bersih 2.0 rally in a stadium on Saturday."

"Finally, all persons arrested in connection with the Bersih 2.0 rally, including for wearing yellow Bersih 2.0 T-shirts whether outside or as inner garment should be released unconditionally, with all charges withdrawn and dropped – including the ridiculous Emergency Ordinance charges against the Sungai Siput MP Dr. Michael Jayakumar and all the other PSM members."

- Malaysia Chronicle