A group of Penan have descended on the federal capital from Sarawak and they will hold protests outside the federal police headquarters in Bukit Aman and go to Parliament tomorrow to get the authorities to look into their plight.

They will be meeting with Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar at Bukit Aman, in the morning and submit a memorandum to him to get the police in Sarawak to stop harassing them.

NONEAfter meeting Khalid, they will walk to Parliament House to report the Sarawak government's discrimination of the Penan community to the MPs.

They also hope to meet the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, opposition leaders and other lawmakers to relate their grouses and to hand over a memorandum detailing their sufferings.

The Penan also called on the people who are in solidarity with their plight to march with them tomorrow morning.

Fo two months now, the Penan in the Murrum Dam region have been protesting against the RM4 billion Murum hydroelectric project that they said would destroy their homes and food sources once the area is flooded.

Some 1,500 Penan have been involved in the demonstrations and they have set up blockades since Sept 20 to prevent the impounding of the completed Murum Dam because they have not received fair compensation.

The community also claimed that their leaders were not consulted in the critical decision-making process during the planning and construction of the dam and that no environmental impact assessment report was made available to the community.

Najib urged to step in

Since then, some 27 NGOs have urged Najib to step in as reports emerged that police were preventing the Penan from holding their protests.

Sarawak Energy Bhd chief executive Torstein Dale Sjøtveit defended the Murum Dam project, saying as it would bring jobs to Sarawakians and raise the Penan from the poverty they were living under.

Sjøtveit also said the 1,500 Penan who are displaced by the project would be well compensated as each household would receive RM600,000 in compensation under the Resettlement Action Plan.

However, the Penan in their memorandum said they have been forced out of their homes and that no replacement houses were provided. They also want the authorities to look into the loss of their customary land and prevent future losses of customary land.

Earlier this month, some 80 police personnel arrested eight Penan protesters in the Murum Dam area.