Student in yellow nabbed at Najib function

Is wearing a yellow Bersih t-shirt a 'crime' again?

KUALA LUMPUR: A Universiti Malaya (UM) student was today hauled up by police for questioning at a function featuring a dialogue with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak when he turned up wearing a Bersih 3.0 t-shirt at the campus.

Koh Cher Hao, 21, a first year Sports Science student, said that three plainclothes police walked up to him at about 2.30pm at the Tunku Chancellor Hall and asked him to follow them.

He alleged that police were “unprofessional” as they refused to tell him why they wanted him to go to the Pantai police station.

The policemen had showed Koh their authority card, of which he had taken photos.

Koh followed them anyway and finally an officer told him that he was being detained under Section 103 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

[Section 103 states: Police to prevent seizable offences-- Every police officer may interpose for the purpose of preventing and shall to the best of his ability using all lawful means prevent the commission of any seizable offence.]

However, he said he was not told what “offence” the police was trying to prevent.

Koh said when police questioned him, he refused to reply, saying that he would wait for the lawyer.

“They kept saying that their questions  wee very simple, but I did not want to answer. I waited for  Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching to come over and they basically took down my basic details and let me out.”

Koh said that police released him at about 4.30pm.

“Yes, I was wearing a Bersih t-shirt. I just want fair and clean election. What crime did I do to bring me in like that? When YB Teo asked them what offence they were trying to prevent, they could not reply at all”.

Simple questioning

Meanwhile, Brickfields district police chief Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul
Khalid clarified that police did not “arrest” Koh but had simply called him up to question him.

“We just called him to question, that’s all. We held him for a bit and released him after we had spoken to him.

“We were just curious why at the event he was the only one wearing a Bersih t-shirt and we wanted to ask him. That’s all. There are provisions for us to inquire, if police can’t even ask you questions, how are we to do our job?” he told FMT.

In a Malaysiakini report, Teo said: “Seizable offences includes murder, kidnap, rape, theft or burglary. When I asked the police, what is the seizable offence here, they could not answer.

The DAP Serdang parliamentarian and laywer alleged that police were plainly abusing their powers.

The dialogue was organised by the Eight Major Chinese Youth-based Organisations (Emco) and MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek was present.
Koh was arrested before Najib’s arrival.