MP SPEAKS It has been a rather disturbing week. It has also been a circus choreographed by the Umno/BN government and acted out by the police.

Sifting through rambling comments by Umno leaders, reports about activists and opposition politicians being summoned to give statements at police stations, as well as the arrests ahead of the July 9 Bersih 2.0 rally, I can confidently say that the ruling politicians are shivering in their pants.

As I write this, the total number of people arrested in order to thwart the rally has exceeded 80. My colleague Senator Ramakrishnan Suppiah was detained for asking people to join the rally, when he spoke at a DAP dinner on Monday.

NONE Bersih 2.0 chief Ambiga Sreenevasan (left) and national laureate A Samad Said have been questioned. The renowned poet was interrogated for a poem on the rally, which the police claimed to be seditious.

More people are expected to be arrested over the next two weeks. The harassment is nothing but a pure bully-boy tactic to prevent tens of thousands of Malaysians from gathering to call for electoral reforms.

Many of those arrested are being investigated for ‘waging war’ against the Agong. Such a charge is baseless and a mere witch-hunt to stop the rally at all costs.

Bersih 2.0 is not about the organisers. It is also not about opposition leaders or prominent civil society representatives. It is a movement by the people to re-claim their right to a clean electoral process.

The government simply does not get this.

azlan When I meet people and find myself discussing about the arrests and warnings issued to stop the rally, their sentiments echo the fact that the government is rattled about people power or the political awakening of a society which has largely been in the BN’s grip for more than five decades.

I also sense their anger against a government which would do anything to stay in power. And clearly at the expense of the rakyat.

Bersih 2.0 is a coalition of 62 NGOs which zeroes in on meaningful electoral reforms. It has lobbied the Election Commission (EC) to reform postal voting, clean up the electoral rolls, use indelible ink, allow all parties access to the media and introduce a minimum 21-day campaign period.

The EC has not just shown strong resistance for any reforms but has closed the doors to Bersih 2.0 permanently, according to  media reports.

Get up, stand up for your rights

The planned rally is a peaceful gathering by Malaysians to show their dissatisfaction with the electoral system and to demand the elimination of such abuses such as vote-rigging, vote-buying, phantom-voting and gerrymandering, which have been common features all these years.

A memorandum is to be submitted to the Agong, petitioning for intervention in making these reforms possible.

At the circus that I have watched over the past week, some politicians have proved to be clowns.

rais yatim pc 070809 01 Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim (right) shot off his mouth saying that PSM is among "desperate parties" who are using an "evil and illegal" ideology to gain support for the rally.

He said "spreading communism is against the law". The learned minister cannot seem to differentiate socialism from communism.

Perkasa head Ibrahim Ali keeps insisting that Bersih 2.0 is a covert effort to instigate the Malays to clash against each other. Again this is a baseless allegation used to create confusion and fear among the public.

Freedom of assembly, expression and speech are key indices of democracy. They form the backbone of democratic nations. In Malaysia, we see the exact opposite.

Arrests to stop the rally, cloaked warnings and veiled threats are blatant examples of restrictive democracy. Fashioning the rally as an attempt to topple the government is the mark of a dictatorship.

I call on the police to immediately release all the 81 people who have been arrested and to making further arrests.

And let's not be cowed into submission by dictators. Let's take to the streets on July 9 to demand for our right to free and fair elections. As I say this, I am reminded of the German theologian Martin Niemoller who once wrote:

    First they came for the communists,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews,

    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

    Then they came for me

    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Malaysians need to stand up and be united to fight an electoral system which is riddled with abuses to serve the interests of the ruling elite. We cannot allow the high-handedness of the government or police to silence us.

Otherwise, when they come for you, there will be no one left to speak out.

CHARLES SANTIAGO is DAP’s member of parliament for Klang.

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