Malaysia: lawyers detained during Human Rights Day march

Malaysian police detain 7 people

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP): Malaysian police detained seven people Sunday for holding an illegal human rights rally, lawyers said, criticizing the arrests as an assault on the right to assemble peacefully.

The Bar Council, which represents some 12,000 lawyers, had planned a 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) march in downtown Kuala Lumpur as part of a programme to mark International Human Rights Day on Monday but called off the event after refusing to seek a police permit. Any gathering of more than four people in Malaysia requires police approval.

However, some 40 people did march Sunday, holding banners that read ``Lawyers for the freedom of assembly'' and ``Government that abuses human rights is terrorist.''
Halfway through their walk, police told the crowd to disperse, said lawyer N. Surendran.

As the crowd was breaking up, Surendran said he and three other lawyers and three rights activists were detained.

``It is an outrageous act of trying to stifle people's right to freely assemble,'' he told the Associated Press when contacted on his mobile phone at a police station. He said he believed that police were making an example of them to prevent further street rallies.

Local police chief Che Hamzah Che Ismail said the detainees were taken in for questioning after ignoring warnings to disperse. Some 200 to 300 policemen were mobilized Sunday to prevent any illegal rally, he said.

Last month, two illegal street demonstrations stunned the normally peaceful country.
Some 10,000 ethnic Indians clashed with police in a rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 25 to demand economic equality. Two weeks earlier, thousands of people marched in the city to seek electoral reforms. Police used tear gas and chemically laced water to disperse the protesters.

The government has since warned it may invoke a security law allowing indefinite detention without trial to prevent further demonstrations.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, president of the Bar Council, said Sunday's march was peaceful and slammed the arrests as ``totally unnecessary and unfortunate.''

``The Bar holds the view that requirement of police permit is unconstitutional,'' she told reporters.

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