PAS Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad has reportedly been arrested early this morning as the government crackdown continues to pile up.

PAS central committee member Dzulkefly Ahmad told Malaysiakini he was allegedly picked up for illegal assembly.

Dzulkefly ( right in photo, beside Khalid, centre ) said he was informed that Khalid is being held under Penal Code section 143 for illegal assembly, possibly over his attendance at the rally in Sogo shopping mall.

 

He said Khalid’s son informed him at 4am that the police came to their house at 3.20am to take his father.

 

“They came in four to five cars, well equipped as if YB is a criminal of some sort,” said the former Kuala Selangor MP .

News of his arrest was abuzz on Twitter this morning.

 

“The arrest of Shah Alam MP before dawn [...] and the continued detention of PKR leaders is most unjustified,” wrote PKR president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail on Twitter .

 

Khalid was one of the several PAS leaders at the Kita Lawan rally yesterday to protest the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, in conjunction with the wedding reception of the daughter of Prime Minister Najib Razak.

In another tweet, former Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) chief Abd Malek Husin condemned the police action.

 

“Who’s running the country? The Gestapo?” he tweeted.

Khalid’s arrest is reportedly the fourth  after yesterday’s peaceful rally after one of the organisers Kita Lawan secretariat member Fariz Musa was picked up after the roughly 500 protestors had dispersed.

He was arrested at Petaling Street around 7.45pm although the rally dispersed around 7pm.

Meanwhile last night PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil also reported that two youths have been detained at KLCC park "for wearing black and carrying 'Undur Rosmah' placards".

Crackdown tally exceeds 120

 

This weekend arrests not only stepped up in the run up to the Kita Lawan rally, but they were reportedly done with unusual force.

 

On Friday night, activist Hishamuddin Rais was reportedly abducted by several unknown individuals, and three motorcyclists then tossed him into a civilian car before he ended up in a police station.

 

That same night PAS deputy chief Mohamed Sabu was at a coffeeshop in Butterworth, when police wearing “ski masks” and bearing weapons took him into custody and eventually brought him to Dang Wangi police station in Kuala Lumpur.

Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) executive director was reported calling the dramatic abduction of Hishamuddin an overkill.

 

"This is extremely shocking. I fear that Malaysia is on the slippery slope to a police state where the rule of law and legal processes means little,” he told Malaysiakini yesterday.

Hishamuddin, Mohamad Sabu and other detained leaders had to be content with watching the Kita Lawan rally go by the Dang Wangi police station yesterday ( photo above ).

Political Studies for Change (KPRU) in a statement yesterday noted with alarm that as of Saturday, 120 individuals have been detained or questioned in just over a month after the jailing of Anwar in February.

The growing list of victims of the continued crackdown have been put up on their website.