Barisan Nasional’s print media moved quickly today to contain the damage from yesterday’s Bersih rally, claiming that the police succeeded in foiling the electoral reform movement which it accused of disturbing the peace and heightening tensions.
Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia front-paged the 1,401 arrests, which included Bersih chief Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang under the headline “Police efforts succeed.”
“Preventive measures by the police succeeded in foiling the illegal Bersih gathering from meeting at Stadium Merdeka.
“The troublemakers finally dispersed at 5pm, but police continued to be stationed at certain locations and roadblocks were maintained to ensure peace was returned,” the Malay daily wrote in its Mingguan Malaysia Sunday edition.
Both Berita Harian and New Straits Times (NST), controlled by Umno under the Media Prima group, slammed the electoral reform movement for bringing chaos to the city.
“Supporters of the illegal Bersih 2.0 gathering emerged from all directions in the capital yesterday from unknown hiding places, causing the situation to become tense,” Berita Harian reported.
The NST’s Sunday edition front-paged a picture of a protestor in the act of throwing an object with the headline “Peaceful?”
Its op-ed pages also accused the coalition of 62 NGOs of “wrecking the weekend” and of being a political rally with nothing to do with electoral reform.
MCA’s The Star also lamented that “if every complaint made one or the other party take to the streets, bringing a city to a standstill, people would not be getting much work done” in an editorial today.
Bersih had claimed a turnout of 50,000 for their street demonstration which went ahead without police permission.
The coalition of 62 NGOs decided to take to the streets despite previously accepting Najib’s offer to move the street rally to a stadium after the government refused to allow the gathering to take place in Stadium Merdeka.
With the whole of Kuala Lumpur locked down for nearly 24 hours, the government has sought to blame the demonstrators for the disturbance and ensuing economic impact.
However, the majority of urbanites on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, have laid the blame on heavy-handed police action, who set up roadblocks, shut down rail stations, and fired tear gas and water cannons in efforts to quell the gathering.
comments
It is the UMNO polis that forced shops to close and bus stations to shut dowm,closed the roads like gangsters all to prevent the protestors from getting into KL.This was UMNO instructions to the polis.Normally in a peaceful walk the shops make roaring business especially the restaurants and wayside stalls selling drinks.It always is like a pesta.But the polis determination to stop the gathering turned KL into a war Zone.Shame to BN and their Polis.
The havoc was brought in by BN government together with the PDRM. If they were to have issue the permit and allow the Bersih rally to carry out such eye sore incident would not have happened. Bersih has always maintain their stand that their march is a peaceful one, so we see no reason why Najib administration is so fearful, shivering and demand the Police to come in to cause havoc. So undemocratic.... here again I respect all who came out full force to march on 9th July, 2011 and for the one killed my condolence to your family. Blame it on BN,,,,
I was there. Not a window was broken. Not a street lamp was broken. Not a car burn. Not even a stone thrown. The crowd was super. They were discipline. The only violence came from the police who chased them like rats---shooting tear gas and gassing peaceful protesters, including man old men and old ladies who came from far away kampongs from all over Malaysia. I pity them---because the police were merciless. In spite of the clampdown in central KL (there were no traffic), people came, sneak through the condon and protested. The people were the Hero. I was an experience I will never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment