Keadilan Youth today asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Norian Mai to prove his claim that reformasi activists are a "secret group".

Refuting the police chief statement yesterday, Youth deputy chief Low Chee Chong said that there is nothing secretive about the activities of the reformasi movement, Keadilan and opposition parties, citing the talks ( ceramah ) that they hold periodically throughout the country.

Norian had said in Bukit Aman yesterday that a secret group made up of 20 reformasi activists had been set up in Kuala Lumpur to realise their plan to topple the government through militant means.

He said that between Jan 6 and April 4 this year, 12 secret meetings were held to plan ways of influencing the people to engage in street demonstrations and illegal assemblies, using militant tactics as part of the campaign.

However, Low in a press statement, denied the existence of such "secret meetings ", saying that Keadilan had numerous meetings with other opposition parties and NGOs over the past few months on official business.

"The meetings are not illegal. The police are making dubious statements and confusing the public," Low stated.

He added that the IGP's accusation that they were "taking various steps to get explosives including bombs and grenade launchers" is malicious, especially when Norian did not provide any kind of evidence to support it.

"This baseless accusation was made to rationalise the police arrest (of seven reformasi activists)," he said.

Power struggle

Keadilan vice-president Tian Chua, Youth leaders Mohamad Ezam Mohd Noor and N Gobalakrishnan, chairman of the Committee for the People's Memorandum of April 14 Saari Sungib and malaysiakini columnist and film maker Hishamuddin Rais were arrested by police under the Internal Security Act (ISA) on Tuesday.

FreeAnwar.com webmaster Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin and Keadilan youth executive councillor Abdul Ghani Harun were arrested yesterday.

Low said the arrest ordered by the Barisan Nasional-led government was to divert public attention from the problems in the country as "BN was going through a difficult period and Umno facing an internal power struggle".

He stressed that the reformasi activists' only planned to hand over a human rights memorandum to the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) this Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the conviction of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim for abuse of power.