‘Red shirt’ leader’s allegation baseless, says Otai Reformis

Petaling Street was one of the areas declared out-of-bounds to ‘red shirt’ rally goers but the situation turned chaotic when a few people tried to break down the barricades. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 21, 2015. 

Otai Reformis, the group accused by a “red shirt” rally leader of sparking the commotion between protesters and Federal Reserve Unit personnel at Petaling Street on September 16, has brushed off Datuk Jamal Md Yunos’s allegation as baseless.

Its spokesperson, Shaiful Ariffin, said the group had opted not to respond to the claim earlier as it appeared that the Umno man was trying to blame others for his own failure to control and bring in the numbers.

“It is a baseless allegation. Basically, he has failed and now he starts to blame others. He also failed to bring in the crowd,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Shaiful said, on the day of the rally, about 500 Otai Reformis members were present and scattered around the city centre, assisting and updating the police on the latest development during the rally.

“We received many updates, we knew what was happening on the ground to the extent we knew the number of policemen deployed on that day,” he said, and praising the police for “a job well done” in preventing protesters from entering Petaling Street.

“To us, it is an achievement that they did not enter Petaling Street.”

Shaiful said those who were at the Petaling Street, despite being present since 9am, had been advised by the police to stay at a nearby hotel to avoid confrontation with the protesters.

“At the point of ruckus, we were advised by the police not to go out from the hotel so we adhered to the direction.

“We never wanted to confront them anyway because by confronting them is same as advocating violence. Why would you provoke when you want to advocate peace, it defeats the purpose.”

Jamal had last week blamed Otai Reformis for distributing provocative flyers, igniting anger from rally goers.

Another reason, Jamal said was because protesters were angry over the alleged immunity enjoyed by Petaling Street traders, who have been selling counterfeit good and pornographic videos for years.

When the situation turned chaotic with the rally goers pushing their way to breach the barricades, police were forced to fire water cannon.

Petaling Street was one of the areas declared out-of-bounds to rally goers.

The Himpunan Rakyat Bersatu rally was held to counter last month’s Bersih 4 rally, which the organisers claimed had insulted the integrity of the Malays.

- TMI