In the scuffle last Saturday with the Light Strike Force police unit, an anti-war protester turned around to face his police attackers saying, "We are both opposed to this war, so why are you arresting us?" Why indeed?

More Malaysians are posing similar questions after the "shock and awe" tactics of police against demonstrators in the Coalition Against the War protest o­n March 29.

Police fired tear gas into the dispersing crowd in front of at the Australian High Commission o­n Jalan Yap Kwan Seng and went in hot pursuit after protesters across Jalan Ampang into the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The canisters fell o­nto the main road in front of KLCC spewing gas o­nto a crowded road of people and commuters. The afternoon saw 12 arrests.

The police was edgy from the word "go" as this was officially considered as an unofficial anti-war gathering. The official other is being hosted by Umno Youth in Merdeka Square that same afternoon under the auspices of Peace Malaysia.

Within some 30 minutes into the unofficial demonstration, police confiscated demo-props, including an effigy of US president, George W Bush that was to be part of a street theatre to be performed by several youth groups opposed to the war.

'Arrest those in kopiah'

At the end of the demonstration, police finally caught up with a protester dressed in mourning black and wearing a Bush face-mask with the placard "War Criminal" hung over him. Police threatened arrest unless he took off the allegedly offensive items.

Some coffins which made an appearance later in the crowd were also taken away. Plainclothes police sat o­n the coffins when they were placed o­n the ground. The gathering nevertheless gave police a wide berth when they carried the coffins away.

During the police chase, dispersing protesters spoke to the milling bystanders and shoppers saying, "Police said, arrest those in kopiah (local head caps worn by Muslim men), arrest those in wet clothes". It had rained in the afternoon. Protesters and bystanders shook their heads in baffled disbelief.

The order to arrest those in kopiah is curious. Are those wearing it being stereotyped as terrorists and militants? Or are the police instructed to target arrests of protesters with certain political parties o­nly, o­n the assumption that o­nly members of PAS don the kopiah ? For the record, five Parti Rakyat Malaysia and five PAS members were arrested, and o­ne student and o­ne bystander.

Those arrested last Saturday were brought in separate vehicles to the Pusat Latihan Polis or Pulapol in Jalan Semarak. Pulapol is not a police station. The gates were tight shut and schoolchildren in girl-guide T-shirts who were attending a training session in there were told to "pakai pintu belakang" (use the backdoor). Police personnel lined at the main gate, refused to speak to the family and lawyers of those arrested. There was no access. This standoff ended o­nly after 10pm when those arrested were released o­n police bail at the Dang Wangi police station in Jalan Stadium where they were brought to.

Reformasi

Pulapol was infamous during the October 1998 uprising or reformasi as a police lock-up and holding centre in the Kampung Baru incident (Oct 17 evening to the morning of Oct 18) where more than 100 people were arrested. Reformasi was triggered when the former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim was sacked in September 1998.

Lawyers of the lawyers-for-urgent-arrest team of the Kuala Lumpur Legal Aid Centre may recall that they had to fight tooth and nail to be granted access to represent the hundred and more in a remand hearing held at Pulapol.

Little of the March 29 unofficial protest was reported in the English mainstream media, nor of the arrests.

In recent weeks, similar incidents have occurred in other Muslim-majority countries. Egypt, a key regional US ally, officially opposes the US-led war in Iraq. The ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak had also authorised state-approved peace rallies.

Unauthorised demonstrations in Egypt were met by police intimidation with those arrested tortured, according to Amnesty International. The March 21 protest by civilians in Egypt's Tahir Square is an example where unarmed protestors were attacked by stone-throwing and baton-wielding police.

Egypt, it is reported, is afraid of civil unrest. o­ne reads between the lines of the fear that these anti-war protests by 'unofficial' and free civil society actors might turn into a popular uprising against local repressive governments. You might say, regime change begins at home. Thus demonstrations have to be state-managed.

Police cooperation for or action against anti-war protest depends, as o­ne commentator in malaysiakini has noted, upon the "right" political patronage ( A tale of two demos ).

Street demonstrations which may allegedly be against our Asian values (as remonstrated by the government of reformasi protests) are kosher as and when the government says it is.

Indeed the almost weekly bursts into the streets of Kuala Lumpur against this war may also prove worrying to the Barisan Nasional government as April 14 draws near. April 14 or "Black 14" is a significant date for the supporters of the deposed Anwar. This April 14 is the second anniversary of his sentence for the charge of sodomy.

Coalition of the UN-willing

At the international level, civil society actors and human rights organisations are developing a lobby for "regime change" in the United Nations.

This war has moved a global conscience that rejects violence. There is a developing solidarity around justice and a respect for human dignity.

This global alliance no longer thinks that democracy can be rooted in violence despite the examples of Germany and Japan in 1945 as mooted by the pro-war lobby and neocons. Germany and Japan were crushed after four to five years of war in which almost everything was destroyed. No o­ne wants the war in Iraq to run for years.

The global lobby is centred around the 1950 Resolution 377A dubbed the "Uniting for Peace" resolution. This resolution allows the convening of an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly. It may be called by a majority of the members of the UN Security Council or the majority of the General Assembly.

The "Uniting for Peace" resolution was designed to bring the entire General Assembly together to address a "threat to peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" when the Security Council failed to reach agreement. It has been used 10 times in the last 50 years.

Peace, human dignity and freedoms are in danger of disappearing unless rigorously protected. Some of us take it to the UN, and more others take it to the streets.