The University of Malaya (UM) Student Representative Council today revealed that several squads of police personnel, including those from Federal Reserve Unit (FRU), have camped themselves in the hostels in a move they believe is in preparation for the Kuala Lumpur Bersih rally this Saturday.

"Anyone who enters the campus can easily notice that the whole campus is full of police buses, trucks and even FRU trucks. The whole of UM seems to have become a police school and it is ridiculous.

NONE "We cannot rule out that these police and FRU personnel are coming from outstation and they would deployed on 9 July to suppress the Bersih gathering," said the highest student body of the university.

It is understood that police are now staying in  the 1st, 2nd and 7th residential colleges, which have been left vacant due to the academic year-end break.

An officer told Malaysiakini that police personnel who moved in yesterday will stay at the colleges until July 12, four days after the rally.

University of Malaya, the only public university in the nation's capital, is located just 8km from Istana Negara and other Bersih gathering points.

'University tainted'

The student representative council criticised the government's "inappropriate" use of police and FRU to clamp down on the peaceful gathering.

NONE They stressed that the university is a sacred place of academic freedom and independent thinking and it should not be tainted by helping the government to oppress the people.

"Why did the campus authority allow these oppression tools to enter the university?"

"Does it means that the campus authorities also agree that the police could disperse the peaceful gathering through violent means?"

"We want the authority to give us an explanation," the student council demanded.

The group also condemned the notice issued by the student affairs department to ban the university students from joining the rally.

The notice, dated June 24 and signed by deputy vice-chancellor for student affairs Rohana Yusof, warned that the university would act against students who take part in the Bersih 2.0 rally.

However, the student group was unfazed by the warnings.

"We fully support the 8 demands by Bersih because a people friendly government can only be selected through a clean election."

"We also believed that campus election could only become clean when the general election is also clean," stressed the group.