Cops accept Women's March notice after fifth try, mum on rejections

 

Police have accepted a notice for the Women’s March Malaysia (WMMY) 2024 to be held in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, according to organisers.

However, a representative for the organisers said the police did not explain why they had refused to accept previous attempts to hand them the notice.

“It’s the same documents that we tried to deliver by courier on Friday and (by hand on) Saturday and it was accepted without any problems today,” Deborah Augustin told reporters outside the Dang Wangi district police headquarters.

“So, as far as we can tell, there’s no reason for why it was not accepted and we were not given a reason,” she added.

She was met after meeting the police for their fifth attempt at submitting a notice as per the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA).

WMMY organiser rep Deborah Augustin (left)

Augustin welcomed the police cooperation today but emphasised that the freedom to assemble is a constitutional right and that organisers had complied with the PAA requirements.

The Act was legislated 12 years ago, and originally required rally organisers to submit a 10-day notice to police.

However, this was shortened to five days after the law was amended in 2019.

Despite this, police have continued to maintain that police “permits” need to be issued before allowing protests.

Freedom to assemble is enshrined under Article 10 of the Federal Constitution.

Gender-based violence

Augustin hoped that there would be better support from the government in countering harassment aimed at WMMY organisers and participants.

"The people who are not peaceful or the harassment that occurs is from others who harass march participants, in the form of real-life harassment and also online harassment which includes online gender-based violence.

"The past few marches, we have always seen online gender-based violence after the march or during the march so we hope this year that if such things occur we'll see a strong stance from the government to say this kind of behaviour is unacceptable," she said.

2022 Women’s March in Petaling Jaya

The Women's March will begin outside Sogo in downtown Kuala Lumpur at 9am on Saturday.

The organisers then plan to march to Dataran Merdeka nearby.

This year's march demands are:

1. Prioritise economic empowerment and development of the working class over corporations.

2. Declare climate crisis and include participation from women and indigenous persons.

3. End all forms of violence and discrimination towards gender and sexual minorities.

4. Implement comprehensive sex education to protect and empower children’s rights.

5. Implement immediate, inclusive and accessible reproductive and mental health services in healthcare.

6. Ensure equal opportunities and participation for all at all levels of decision-making in political life.

7. Eliminate gender-based violence in private and public life.

8. Ensure gender-equal nationality laws.

9. Protect freedom of assembly and expression.

10. End all armed conflicts and liberation for all.