To Najib, Zahid from Tian, Haris & Adam: You can arrest us, but you can't scare the people anymore!

Despite facing sedition charges that carry hefty jail sentences, Tian Chua, the MP for Batu, and Haris Ibrahim, founder of the Anything but Umno movement, came to the Black 505 rally in Petaling Jaya to fire more bullets at Prime Minister Najib Razak's government for its "high-handed intimidation".

Student Leader Adam Adli, who has already been charged and released on bail, was due to arrive but had to renege on his promise because his mother had taken seriously ill.

Even so, Adam sent a message of thanks to all his supporters, especially who had kept candlelight vigils to pressure the police into releasing him when he was under a 5-day remand last week.

"Although I cannot be with you, rest assured of my solidarity with all of you who are brave enough to stand up to this cruel and despotic regime," Adam said in his email message read out by the emcee.

Adam was arrested under the Sedition Act for allegedly inciting the people when he called on Malaysians to topple the Umno-BN regime during a speech at a Black 505 rally in Ipoh earlier this month.

The Black 505 rallies were begun by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim just 2 days after the controversial May 5 general election, where Najib had claimed victory with a 133-seats win versus the Pakatan Rakyat's 89 seats.

But Anwar, the Pakatan's de-facto head, had refused to concede defeat, claiming widespread cheating. He called for the first rally in Kelana Jaya to protest the electoral outcome on May 8, and 150,000 people turned up despite the short notice. Since then the Black 505 rallies - with black signifying  the death of democracy - have been packed to standing room only, at every venue that Anwar and team visited.

Arrests won't frighten the people anymore

Political watchers believe that, fearful of the mounting public opinion against him, Najib had ordered a swoop on the Pakatan leaders in a bid to scare the people from going to their events.

The politicians rounded up earlier this week were Tian and Tamrin Ghafar, the son of former deputy prime minister Ghafar Baba, who recently quit Umno to join PAS. Additionally, the offices of Harakah, the newspaper unit of PAS, and Suara Keadilan, the PKR organ, were also aided.

"Haris and I were just arrested and released. And I heard Zahid Hamidi has more than 3 names on his list of who to arrest next. Maybe many of those who are sitting here on this stage will be the ones to be arrested. But to Zahid, to Najib or whoever it is in power, don't think that by arresting people, you will frighten the people. The people will not be frightened," said Tian.

"It is them who panicked, not us. The people who are the most afraid are the people in power without legitimacy. The heroes are the rakyat (the people). They are not scared. No where in the world can any government hold back an uprising of people."

Tian and Haris were arrested under the Sedition Act for allegedly calling for street protests to demand re-election in 27 seats, or about 15% of the 222 federal Parliament seats that were contested in the recent election.

"Hear this Najib, hear this Rosmah, hear this Zahid Hamidi You can detain Adam, you can detain Tian, you can detain Tamrin, you can detain me but our soul and spirit are always with the people. Long live the people," said Haris.