Ambiga, 3 others freed after a night in lock-up

(From left) Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S. Arutchelvan, DAP national organising secretary Anthony Loke, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and Dr Hatta Ramli at the Jinjang police remand centre after their release today. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Nazir Sufari, May 2, 2015.

Police have released lawyer Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and opposition politicians Anthony Loke, Dr Hatta Ramli and Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary-general S. Arutchelvan who were arrested over the Workers Day rally in Kuala Lumpur to protest against the goods and services tax (GST) yesterday.

Lawyers for the four in the Jinjang police remand centre were seen giving the thumbs up to supporters waiting outside. 

Police had earlier applied for remand orders against the four.

Loke's lawyer Gobind Singh Deo said that the police had applied for a four-day remand order, but magistrate Zuraini Abdul Razak rejected the application after listening to arguments from both sides.

Gobind who was among 16 lawyers representing the four detainees argued that there was no necessity for remand as those detained had cooperated with the police and surrendered themselves when asked to.

"These were the two general grounds that we brought to the magistrate," said Gobind.

He said all four would have to present themselves at the Dang Wangi police headquarters after this to have their statements recorded.

"We told the investigating officer we will give full cooperation," he said.

Another lawyer, N. Surendran, said police had wanted a longer remand period because the demands raised in the anti-GST rally yesterday had touched on alleged corruption and the recent wedding of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's daughter, which many have described as "lavish".

Speaking to the media upon emerging from the Jinjang remand centre, Ambiga said she still had to go to Dang Wangi for further questioning before being released as police wanted to ask her more questions despite having questioned her at 4am today.

She said the police's "high-handedness" was unnecessary in detaining them overnight.

"It is time for our police to respect our liberty. Liberty is precious. You do not take it away from anyone even one minute if you don't have to, and the very fact they were unable to show circumstances to justify remand just shows that they acted without real basis in detaining us overnight," she said.

She also condemned the remand order granted for the 29 rally protesters who were mostly were youngsters, calling it "ridiculous".

"The youngsters were handcuffed and chained. Three days is ridiculous. I am very concerned. We owe it to them and hopefully that they are not treated badly," said Ambiga.  

The four released today are being investigated under Section 143 of the Penal Code for unlawful assembly.

DAP national organising secretary Loke is also being investigated for sedition.

Loke said he was puzzled as he did not know what he had said in his speech at the rally yesterday that could be deemed seditious.

He added that he was shocked that the officer who questioned him could not tell him which of his statements were allegedly seditious.

He said the only reason he surrendered to the police last night was to avoid having his family disturbed at home.

Ambiga added that police were not acting against the "real theft" that has been going on in the country.

"I'm talking about grand theft going on in front of our very eyes and not a single person has been arrested.

"We have enough reports. We even have former prime minister (Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) talking about it and no arrest has been made and yet they came after us so quickly and they took away our liberty too easily," she said.

Ambiga said with the arrests yesterday, police were essentially saying that "workers cannot get together and complain about the GST".

Hatta, meanwhile, said he believed the arrests were made to find fault with the leaders and not for the sake of conducting investigations.

"They want to find fault. They want to detain us because we told them we have the right to remain silent and will only speak in court," said Hatta, who is PAS's elections director.

PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli is still in detention after presenting himself for questioning over the rally this morning at the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.

- TMI