YOURSAY ‘Nazri is confused between freedom of assembly and freedom to riot. Malaysians want the former. Or is he intentionally confusing the people?'

Nazri uses May 13 riots to justify street protest ban

Roger: Hello, Minister Nazri Aziz, May 13 was a racial riot between Malays and Chinese. The recent Bersih 2.0 street demo, on the other hand, is a demonstration of true 1Malaysia - the rakyat of all races marching hand in hand, sharing salt, etc, to protest against a corrupt ruling Barisan Nasional government. Can't you get that through your skull?

Armour Man: Nazri is confused between freedom of assembly and freedom to riot. Malaysians want the former and not the latter. Or is he intentionally confusing the people?

Anonymous_4196: It takes the BN government 42 years to react to May 13? Come on!

Azizi Khan: So Nazri, are you telling me that BN took 40 years to come up with a solution to prevent May 13? Geez, you guys are slow aren't you? Considering that Umno is the biggest culprit in inciting racial hatred, how about you lot arrest and imprison yourselves and we the rakyat promise we will throw away the key - for good.

Blind Freddo: It's not 40 years, maybe just 40 hours of deep thinking. Nazri obviously realises that nobody would swallow the London riots as a reason for this legislation. So he fell back on the usual Umno tactics of stoking fear, violence and racism. He either paid for his doctorate or plagiarised someone else's work because he sure isn't thinking too deeply these days.

Umno= Parti Untuk Otak OKU: That was 42 years ago. What an idiot. That's the problem with Umno leaders. Most of them, if not all, are caught in a time warp. Lost in a time zone. They have never grown up.

Anonymous_40bb: Cow sense logic produces cow dung conclusions. Maybe we should have another May 13 as we who were born in the 1970s don't really understand what kind of violence occurred then. To us, it was the government sending out the military and police in civilian clothing to massacre 200 non-Muslims.

My aunty, working in an embassy then, was almost hacked to death, until her Muslim colleague begged for her life. The rakyat in Malaysia are a peaceful lot. This violence did not come from the public then, as we Malaysians were and still are not like that.

Boon Hor: I have to agree with some of the commenters that May 13 is NOT a demonstration. It's a racial clash instigated by Umnoputras and that's in the history books.

Human Being: PM Najib Razak's dad was the aspiring PM during the May 13 period. Bapa borek, anak rintik (like father like son)?

Amigo2010: Who cooked up May 13? Wasn't someone from your party Umno who had been really to blame? Who led the procession before starting to chop up those of other communities in Chow Kit? So, is that what you call a demonstration?

Abasir: If justice had prevailed after May 13 and the instigators and conspirators had been made to pay for their crimes against the nation, we would not have suffered this regime all these years, and the nation would have taken its rightful place among other developed nations, with real social justice for all citizens.

Dark Knight: We are talking about a peaceful assembly of citizens exercising their inherent and constitutional right to publicly and civilly express issues affecting their liberties and the nation. This is unlike May 13, where violence was promoted and unleashed by racially-tainted sinister hands upon street gatherings celebrating election gains.

It is the duty of the police to protect and direct peaceful assemblies and ensure law and order is observed at all times, as opposed to creating chaos using blockades, tear gas and water cannons, such as seen during the Bersih 2.0 rally.

The London riots, on the other hand, were riots by disgruntled communities and hooligans out to create chaos, leading to the looting of businesses. The riots arose from perceived notions of persecution and indiscriminate treatment by the authorities.

The Occupy Wall Street movement in the US is a relatively new phenomenon. In essence, the great majority of citizens are against greedy politicians and corporations who abuse the system for personal gains.

Mighty Bear: May 13? What is that? You are talking to a generation of citizens who do not know nor care about this topic. All we know is what we read in Wikipedia, and it looks like politicians have been lying about the facts about this incident, point blank.

Unless we set up a commission to dig up the mass graves in KL General Hospital and count bodies, these words mean nothing to the young generation in Malaysia who are the real undercurrent in the country.

No, it is not the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Iban, Kadazan... it is the young Malaysians. Unlike the old, rotting fear mongers, we young Malaysians will stand side by side as true Malaysians if you try to bring down the rain on us. We know who the real aggressors are.

Gen2indian: The only reason you and all the other BN thieves do not want protests is to prevent any more embarrassing news from reaching the non-Internet public. You control the print and electronic media, TV and radio, so how else is the public to know what you goons have been up to the last 50 years?

The whole lot of you are sh*t scared of Bersih 3.0, aren't you? And how are we to, as you say, "take our protests to the ballot box" when all kinds of obstacles are placed on the opposition and there is no free flow of information?

MKini Reader: The British in the colonial days did not ban street protests. If they had - as advocated by Nazri - then those unhappy with the formation of the Malayan Union could not have protested with their marches and instead would have to say it by the ballot box.

Righteous: Let's outlaw politicians because of their role in the many wars we have had to tolerate throughout history. I think the biggest fault with governments today is that so much power is in the hands of one person.

Observer of Johor: Hello our law minister who does not understand law, we do agree to take our dissatisfaction to the ballot box. Now, the problem is we need to take to the street for unfair and unjust election practices: dead voters, more than 10 voters at a single address, unfair postal voting, abuse in the delineation exercise, bribing of voters, use of police to refuse and disrupt opposition campaigns, betraying our sovereignty by giving citizenship for votes, use of judiciary to silence dissent, use of royalty to overthrow a legitimate government, like on Perak... just to name a few of the problems.

Swkdayaks: You see how arrogant Umno is. We have no voice, no rights under Umno and the BN government. Our votes for them are treated as a blank cheque for them to take away or deny us our rights at anytime and in any manner they want.

Ahmike: If people holding a candlelight vigil and singing Negara-ku at a park or street or even voicing against corruption or injustice, I won't be scared of the assembly. However, if 200 Mat Rempit and people holding cow's heads or burning posters with no action against them, then I would feel scared. So do you get a picture - we need a law to protect the correct group for the right reasons.

Dr Mamakthiew Mamad aka Mamak Bendahara: Why doesn't Nazri talk about 709 where the street protest was peaceful?

Hang Babeuf: This new law is intended as some form of protection against threats to public order? Patent nonsense! The de facto minister is himself the greatest threat to public order, civil peace and the common conduct by public-minded citizens of public life.

Swipenter: Umno and many of its politicians have been using the threat of another May 13 incident in many of their speeches and gatherings against the minorities, if the latter do not bow to the ketuanan doctrine and accept Malay supremacy over them since May 13, 1969.

Even the present PM had threatened to bathe the keris in Chinese blood, when he was Umno Youth chief. Perkasa is just as guilty, for threatening the non-Malays with another May 13 earlier this year.

Did the Umno-led government take any action against these instigators? The answer is a big "NO". Why, out of the blue, are they are so concerned with the threat of another May 13 incident from happening, now and not before?

Mob1900: Nazi Aziz's pasar malam usage of the May 13 riot as the sole reason to justify the protest ban is akin to not eating when one has had food-poisoning. Try trolling again, Nazri.

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