The Sunday protest march against the fuel and tariff hike by the citizens seems to have taken a brutal twist .

In most countries, governments provide reasonable space for citizens to express their concerns and plights through peaceful assembly. This is not a Western practice as even in neighbouring country like Thailand we have seen how tens of thousands congregate to express their feelings and thoughts.

But the presence of armed police and the FRU at the Sunday's gathering is seriously bad public relations by the authorities. Here was a golden opportunity for the government to seize and diligently follow through with a communication exercise that will win them support and approval.

Common sense public relations dictates that a clear-thinking leadership will allow the protest to take place first. And later follow through with a well-structured communications exercise that will educate, reassure and protect the interests of the citizens. It should feature:

• A convincing battle against all forms of corruption and with speed.

And perhaps the leadership should even walk the talk by getting their army of men and women to take pay cuts and pass on the savings to the hardcore poor

But the brutal action taken against Sunday's protestors, and even against those who did not participate, will only encourage anger and disapproval. Are we saying that these uniformed personnel did not have tactics that could easily overpower any rowdy protestor without beating or kicking them?

Evidently, we have a classic case of how using the big arm of the law in an information society is going to work against the very grain of a government wanting to lead into the future with past success.

It is high time the authorities sat down and put on their thinking hats in the best interests of the nation and its rakyat. We cannot allow such brutality against peaceful protests. By curtailing such episodes, we are only entrenching the belief that we are a corrupt nation.

After all, history is punctuated with far too many examples of how oppression eventually worked against the oppressor.