Police have summoned several NGO leaders for questioning, which a lawyer described as a post-Umno annual general meeting "witch-hunt".

"This is a witch-hunt playing to the narrative played over and over in TV3 and RTM at the Umno general assembly that the country is under great threat due to a conspiracy to topple the government through foreign funding," said Eric Paulsen.

"They are trying to connect the dots that somehow all these organisations are receiving funding with an ulterior and unlawful purpose to overthrow the government using violence or unconstitutional means."

Paulsen, who is the executive director of Lawyers for Liberty (LFL), was among those whose statements were recorded at the Bukit Aman police headquarters this afternoon.

He is being investigated under Section 124C of the Penal Code for allegedly engaging in activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy.

Ambiga being questioned again

Bersih secretariat manager Mandeep Singh and two Bersih steering committee members Fadiah Nadwa Fikri and Farhana Abdul Halim were also questioned under the same section.

Lawyer R Sivarasa, who is representing Paulsen, said the investigating officer informed him that activists from rights group Suaram and women's rights group Empower would be summoned tomorrow.

National Human Right Society president Ambiga Sreenevasan, the former Bersih co-chairperson, will also be hauled up again, according to Sivarasa.

"We asked what was this about and they (the police) said this was the follow-up to the raid on the Bersih office (on Nov 18),” he added.

Bersih is being investigated for the funds it received from Open Society Foundations (OSF), an international grant-making group linked to American billionaire George Soros.

All groups were being investigated of using such funds in an attempt to topple the government in 2012, according to both Sivarasa and Paulsen.

"These investigation were done in bad faith. We will confer with our lawyers on what to do next," said Paulsen.

Imaginary enemies

He accused the police of chasing imaginary enemies.

"If you want to talk about moral high ground, then the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who admitted RM2.6 billion went into his personal bank account, must answer first before investigating any one of us," he said.

There is nothing wrong in receiving funding which is transparent and open, said Sivarasa.

"These NGOs (summoned by police) are very transparent and open, they are not like the Islamic State which is operating underground.

"The theme of Umno assembly was to demonise the idea of foreign funding and the police have been used as instrument to create substance of the plot," he said.

He urged the police stop wasting their time and resource on these petty issue and focus on real crime instead.

Mandeep, who was questioned by police for the third time of foreign funding today, said his response to every question posed by the police was that he would reply all queries in court.

Fadiah said the police kept asking her and Farhana about Bersih's funding, despite the information being available in the public domain.