Kuala Lumpur police chief Mustafa Abdullah has rejected a DAP appeal for a police permit for an 'Internal Security Act debate' between Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang and minister Mohd Nazri Aziz, backing an earlier decision made by his local district chief.

Youth secretary Anthony Loke (picture left), who heads the organising committee, said Mustafa, in a brief letter to the party, cited 'security grounds' as reasons behind the rejection, without elaborating why the event was considered unacceptable.

The party had earlier sent a letter to the KL police chief, to appeal against a written decision made yesterday by Dang Wangi district police chief Hadi Ho Abdullah, who only alluded to 'security reasons' and failed to say more.

DAP leaders expressed bafflement, claiming that only a day earlier, Hadi gave party leaders verbal assurance that DAP would have their police permit for the July 11 event, to be held at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall.

Delivered to IGP

"I cannot possibly foresee any problems to holding this event. Here we have both very experienced politicians, one being a minister, the other the opposition leader. Both (Lim and Mohd Nazri) have publicly maintained their differences over the Act, and even debated the matter at length in parliament. This forum was merely to shift that debate onto different platform," said Loke, who is also a Negeri Sembilan state assembly representative.

Loke said a second appeal to the police was delivered to Inspector General of Police Mohd Bakri Omar this morning.

Lim, in querying the decision, called on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to intervene and remind the police of its democratic responsibility and that debates are "...routine, run-of-the-mill events, and not a grave security threat."

Otherwise, such police decisions, if left standing, would only fuel impression that domestic security is so fraught with "fragility and uncertainty that a public debate on the ISA would be unanimously regarded by the government and police as a grave security threat," said Lim in a statement.