Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim (PKR-Permatang Pauh) said that the token act of charging lowly police officers who allegedly beat up a photojournalist during the Bersih 3.0 pro-electoral reform rally does not cut it, to really address the issue of police brutality and excessive use of force.
“It is implausible to only charge the two constables and let others higher up who are responsible go,” he said in a supplementary question to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz during Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Nazri had earlier answered that the two police constables were the only police officers charged thus far as part of government investigations into allegations of police brutality during the April 28 rally.
Allegations of excessive use of force abound after police broke up the rally, which had started off peacefully, when several participants breached a police cordon, triggering indiscriminate use of tear gas and beatings upon the over 200,000 participants and reporters on duty.
Several policemen were also injured when the crowd - sprayed with chemical water and bombarded with tear gas canisters, and hemmed in by police barricades and riot police shield walls - reacted in response.
[More to follow]
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