Students at Dataran to make way for royal concert
Students occupying Dataran Merdeka have decided not to interfere with the royal concert that is to take place at the iconic public square on Saturday.
Students occupying Dataran Merdeka have decided not to interfere with the royal concert that is to take place at the iconic public square on Saturday.
"We had a meeting and we have decided to avoid any issue about disrespecting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. We shall make way for the concert.
"Perhaps we will move a little to the back where people can't see us, and camp back here again afterwards," Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia secretary Haziq Abdul Aziz said last night.
He was asked to respond to Deputy Higher Education Minister Saifuddin Abdullah's call yesterday for the students
to break camp
in view of Saturday's concert in honour of the monarch.
Asked about the possibility of being evicted by force in a late-night raid, the Universiti Malaya law student said the students had set up a security team that would keep watch against any intrusion.
"We will resist as hard as we can as we had done before . But we can only resist, we can't fight back," he said.
On Saifuddin's condemnation of the students - including Haziq - for parading ‘funeral’ photos of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin during the student's street demonstration last Saturday, he dismissed it as a distraction to the main issue.
"It's like the anti-Universities and University Colleges Act protests on Dec 17 last year, where they did not focus on the issues we brought up, but attacked Adam Adli (Abdul Halim) instead," he said.
Student leader Adam was criticised for lowering a flag bearing Najib's portrait outside Umno's headquarters in that protest.
Student received more visitors
Yesterday evening, the students continued to receive visitors, some of whom donated food and other essentials. They included former Perak Menteri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin, PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu and Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan.
The other Bersih co-chairperson, A Samad Said, also gave about 30 students a half-hour poetry class.
At night, law professor Azmi Sharom (
right
) gave a lecture titled 'Article 153 and Equality', drawing a crowd of about 100.
The poetry class and law lecture are part of the protesters' nightly 'Universiti Dataran Merdeka' series.
A basic Chinese language class is scheduled for this evening, while political cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaq, better known as Zunar, will be giving lessons in drawing cartoons tonight.
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