I wish to take issue with two points in J Allen Otten's 'Write, not disrupt your way to change' (May 15).

He writes, "As a long-term visitor here and one who has had experience with crowd control through tear gas canisters and M-14 rifles, I have to support Malaysia's ban on assemblies without a police permit. It is a sensible rule for living in Malaysia."

The writer is only a long-term visitor while we are citizens. We are fighting the injustices in the system and the corrupt establishment not for you or any other visitors but for ourselves and our children's future. We live here while he just visits so I guess he does not know that it is next to impossible to get a police permit for any assembly if it is not to glorify the 'Beloved Leader'. For that matter you don't even need a permit if the assembly is to praise him.

He also writes, "So, maybe two good alternatives to the level of frustration the writer feels is a combination of communication with government leaders and a public place to hold public outpourings of feelings in a 'peaceful' way. Hopefully the government can work on them. The sooner the better."

Again the writer is too nave. This government does not listen to the people. It is composed of selfish, arrogant, greedy, corrupt robber-barons with feudal mindsets who think the people serve them when it should be the other way around. Communication is only one way: from the top down.

As for a "place to hold public outpourings of feelings in a 'peaceful' way", we have that and it's called Kamunting. It's not public, very exclusive, and it's a concentration camp run by our very own Gestapo. Did you know that they do not need any evidence to put you in there? And they can add two years to the initial two years and another two to that ad infinitum until you are turned over or kingdom come?

The writer has, in his nation, fora and other avenues including talk and comedy shows to put your leaders in their places. Here we don't. The writer's leaders may be crooks but they are not above the law. Here, they are the law and I think the writer can imagine what it's like when outlaws are the law. To say the least, a man feels like taking the law into his own hands.

We are a democracy in name only. Ask the 'Beloved Leader'. He can teach you a thing or two about 'good dictatorship'.