70 stage anti-Gaddafi protest, hand over memo
Some 70 people from the opposition parties and NGOs, as well as Libyans, staged a peaceful protest and handed over a memorandum to the Libyan embassy in Kuala Lumpur today demanding the resignation of the country’s leader for four decades, Muammar Gaddafi.
Some 70 people from the opposition parties and NGOs, as well as Libyan students, staged a peaceful protest and handed over a memorandum to the Libyan embassy in Kuala Lumpur today demanding the resignation of the country’s leader for four decades, Muammar Gaddafi.
“We call on the Libyan military to immediately lay down their arms and stop the killings of innocent civilians. We call for respect towards the Libyans and for Gaddafi to step down immediately,” said PKR vice-president and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar (
centre in pic
) at a press conference after handing over the memorandum, which was received by the deputy ambassador.
Also present were PKR vice-president and Batu parliamentarian Tian Chua, PSM secretary-general S Arutchelvam, PAS international bureau chief Syed Azman Syed Ahmad and former PAS vice-president Muhamad Sabu.
Initially, the protestors were to make their way from the Tabung Haji mosque along Jalan Tun Razak, where they gathered, to the Libyan embassy, but they were stopped by police 600m from the embassy.
Despite this, the protestors managed to reach the embassy using other routes.
“There was only some 50 or 70 of us - peaceful protestors - which is way less then a hundred, and yet we were blocked and stopped by the police. We are truly disappointed,” said Syed Azman.
The protestors then gathered on Jalan U Thant, 200m from the embassy, at 2.45pm, chanting “Malaysia Boleh, Gaddafi Tak Boleh!” while waving the Libyan flag and holding up several anti-Gaddafi banners.
Malaysiakini was informed that at least 50 police personnel in riot gear have been blocking the entrance to Jalan Madge since noon, closing off the embassy and the roads leading to it.
Embassy officials had defected
Last Tuesday, Libyan embassy officials in Kuala Lumpur joined many of their colleagues around the world in condemning Gaddafi for the killings of many who took part in anti-government protests in their country.
Some 300 Libyans in the country, most of them students, had then demonstrated peacefully outside the embassy.
The protestors burned a portrait of the dictator during the two-hour demonstration, before the police ordered them to disperse.
An embassy official, Osama Ahmad, distributed a statement supporting the anti-government movement.
Gaddafi has ruled Libya as “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution” since overthrowing the monarchy in 1969.
Following the retirement of former Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro in 2008 and the death of then-Gabon president Omar Bongo in 2009, Gaddafi is now the world’s longest ruling non-royal head of state.
To date, it is reported that more than a thousand people have died and many more injured in Libya.
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