Saturday's Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat (People's Uprising Rally) in Malacca, organised by Pakatan Rakyat, has been forced into an 11th hour location shift because the venue owner is said to have been threatened by Umno.

"The owner had issued a written agreement to lease the land, but he contacted us this afternoon saying that he is withdrawing the agreement.

"This was after some parties had threatened him," Malacca PAS secretary Asri Sheikh Abdul Aziz said in a statement issued today.

Asri said the land owner was now "too scared" to lease the venue to Pakatan because he was receiving "various threats" from Umno and the BN.

The event, initially scheduled to take place on a vacant piece of land in Kampung Bukit Palah, has now been relocated to another vacant lot behind the Malacca DAP headquarters in the city centre.

Malaysiakini has made efforts to seek comments from several Malacca Umno leaders, but there has been no response from any of them as yet.

'Cowardly and uncivilised threats'

Asri, who is also Malacca PAS communications secretary, called the threats by Umno and BN “cowardly and uncivilised”, adding that their actions were a clear bid to restrict the people’s freedom and the right to hold an assembly at suitable places.

“They not only want to disrupt our programme with their ad hoc carnival but also made various threats to the landowner that caused him to cancel our original agreement,” Asri said.

NONE He lamented that the landowner’s last minute cancellation has forced the Pakatan parties to prepare the new location afresh, besides having already distributed thousands of leaflets listing the original venue to the people.

Contacted later today, Kota Malacca MP Sim Tong Him ( right ) told Malaysiakini that the original venue for the assembly has since been covered with BN flags, which also line the roads surrounding the area.

“The word is that the carnival there is being held by the Kampung Bukit Palah village development and safety committee, but we have learnt that Umno is behind it,” Sim said.

He said Pakatan has decided not hold the rally at the site originally fixed despite having paid the owner a deposit so as to avoid any unpleasant incident from taking place.

This is also in view of the fracas that broke out in Gombak, Selangor, on Tuesday night, during a talk given by PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, when a group of BN supporters allegedly disrupted the event, resulting in three people being injured.

NONE PKR organ Keadilan Daily reported that the chaos started when a group of Umno ‘thugs’ invaded the site making loud noises, yelling foul words and throwing stones at people at the venue.

According to Rasah MP Anthony Loke, the nationwide Pakatan mega-rallies that kicked off in Negeri Sembilan last month will be held in every state and culminate in a grand finale next month as part of the coalitions preparation for the forthcoming general election. 

Loke said the first rally in Seremban highlighted social issues such as the Lynas rare earths plant, the Pengerang petroleum hub, the clean and fair elections demands raised by Bersih and the oil royalty demand of the Kelantan government.

The Malacca programme on Saturday is scheduled to start at 4pm with a carnival, while talks by the Pakatan leaders are scheduled to start at 8pm.

PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu, DAP national vice-chairperson Tan Seng Giaw and PKR secretary general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail are among the speakers.

“We are sure that the people of Malacca will want changes to the rude, rowdy and violent behaviour of Umno and the BN, and rise to reject BN in the 13th general election later,” Asri said.