Discussion held in the dark after UPM blocks venue

Attendees at an academic discussion on the National Economic Model were forced to sit on the floor in the dark last night when the original venue at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) was cordoned off by university officials.

There was also heavy security surveillance, with the security officers taking photographs and video recording of the event, the invited speaker, Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan (right in photo), said.

When contacted, Wan Saiful said the number of security personnel grew from three officers to six when the original venue, Latar Siswa at the Modern Languages Faculty, was changed to Kompleks Mahasiswa.

“It was a certainly a big change for me, from being invited to present to the cabinet and ministry to talking in the dark to people sitting on the floor.

“To be fair, the security personnel were only acting on orders and the lights may just be on automatic timer, so we can't say they turned off the lights on us.

“But the security personnel were following me around and taking pictures of me. One even placed a video camera right in front of me, less than two metres away. I felt like a celebrity,” Wan Saiful quipped.

He said that heavy security presence may have turned off some students from attending.

About 70 people were waiting at Latar Siswa when the event was supposed to start at 9pm, he claimed, but only about 20 stayed on for the two-hour talk that ended at midnight.

Security there to 'ensure safety'

He added the security personnel “coyly” said their presence was to ensure safety as a similar discussion organised  by the same group last week came under protest from another student group.

“If they were truly there to keep us safe, then they should have let us use Latar Siswa and kept us safe there,” Wan Saiful said.

The organisers, a loose group of students who organise discussions called 'Kelas Pencerahan' (Enlightenment Classes), last week organised a discussion on the book The Prince.

The discussion was led by PKR-linked think tank Institut Kajian Dasar's Khalid Jaafar, but the youth group Pembina, which is linked to the Islamic NGO Isma, protested Khalid's presence in the campus.

It is understood that the book discussion also faced difficulties, and the group had to move to another venue in the campus, also under security surveillance.

“I don't know if the students had obtained permission for the event beforehand, but I would question the need to have to ask for permission to hold an academic discussion in a university.

“I wish I could say we were part of some underground movement, but this is a lecture I have delivered before at Inti University, in an university-organised event and will deliver at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) on the university's invitation,” Wan Saiful said.

He added that Ideas had also made a tour of universities nationwide last year to speak on libertarian policies, and faced no problem.

In fact, he said, he had agreed to rebut the students' claims that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's economic liberalisation hurts the poor.

UPM: Students didn't get permission

Meanwhile, UPM Student Affairs Department head Nor Mohamad Shakil Hamid said the students did not obtain university clearance for the discussion, nor did they book the venue.

“All events organised by students must have permission from the student affairs department, especially if it involves outside speakers, as the university needs to look at the speakers’ backgrounds first,” Nor Mohamad said.

He said that the heavy surveillance and recording of the event were also part of the “standard procedure”, particularly when it involved an “unauthorised” speaker.

“The security personnel were there to monitor the situation,” Nor Mohamad said, adding that he does not know what the security department would do with the photographs and video recordings taken last night.

He also could not confirm whether Latar Siswa, a void deck-like area usually freely-accessed by students to hold study groups, had been cordoned off by the faculty to stop the event.

In a similar incident last month, Universiti Malaya students held a history lecture just outside the Kuala Lumpur campus gates (above) after the university, at the last minute, barred activist Fahmi Reza from addressing the pre-approved event.