It is a pity that Martin Jalleh in his letter seems to kick up more dust rather than deal with what I had raised in my letter. I had questioned the lack of transparency in the Article 11 road show and the labeling of the protestors as a mob.
Of course, any group has a "right to organise, conscientise and even send a petition" but why not be transparent about it, why speak in riddles about "silent majority (that) has been silent for too long" especially when it impinges on the rights and beliefs of others?
The organisers should not have masqueraded the object of the roadshow by chanting the amoebic phrase "supremacy of the Constitution". They should be open and transparent in their call for the civil courts to have full powers of review over the decisions of the syariah courts.
As for Martin Jalleh's 'mob rule'; the view that the demonstrators were a mob is not shared by all. There was no violence or threatened violence. No stones or chairs were thrown and there were no fistfights. They held posters and pictures and may have been noisy but that does not turn a protest into a mob.
Martin Jalleh also goes into rhetoric overdrive when he asks, "Who was it that first worked up the mob to attack the constitutional rights of the participants of that forum? Who was it that fanned the emotions of the crowd to even threaten to storm the forum site?"
Does he have any evidence of anybody having "worked up the mob to attack" and having "fanned the emotions of the crowd"? Prejudice should not blind a writer of his responsibility to the readers. Allegations must be based on evidence not rhetoric.