Picture taken at Jalan Duta court lock-up, where Chin Huat was held awaiting remand hearing.
Civil society activist and poll reform group Bersih spokesperson Wong Chin Huat told me at the Jalan Duta Courts Complex lockup that he had been wearing black for 89 days to protest the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak since Feb. 5, 2009, but he was compelled to wear the compulsory orange police lock-up uniform on the 90th day.
He asked like-minded, justice and democracy-loving Malaysians to join in the protest against the undemocratic and illegal “coup d’etat” in Perak by wearing black, particularly tomorrow.
This is because tomorrow is the 91st day of the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak, when the usurper and illegitimate Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir is convening an illegal meeting of the Perak State Assembly to secure legitimacy for his totally illegitimate administration.
Chin Huat is in high and fighting spirits although he had been in police custody since 7.40 p.m yesterday when a platoon of nine police officers surprised Chin Huat outside his home in Taman Sri Sentosa, Kuala Lumpur as he was going out for dinner.
What was Chin Huat’s crime? It is believed that Chin Huat’s arrest under the Sedition Act is related to the press conference he had called yesterday to announce the BERSIH’s “1BLACKMalaysia” campaign to urge Malaysians to wear black on May 7 to protest against the undemocratic and unconstitutional power grab in Perak.
Chin Huat never advocated violence or force, only a peaceful but powerful civil disobedience campaign to make the people’s voice and protest heard loud and clear by the powers-that-be.
If Mahatma Gandi is alive today and in Malaysia, would the “Great-Souled” Indian be arrested for sedition by Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s police for his civil disobedience campaign?
Chin Huat’s arrest is a blatant case of police abuse of power. The police was super-fast and super-efficient to arrest Chin Huat within a few hours of the BERSIH media conference yesterday morning, but is super-slow and super-inefficient when performing its most elementary duty to protect the lives and property of Malaysians.
The media today reported another heart-wrenching loss of two lives when pregnant Jamilah Selamat, 32, succumbed to severe head injuries inflicted when she was a victim to a snatch thief near her home in Ayer Hitam, Johore.
We are reminded of a long list of avoidable fatalities in a country afflicted with endemic crime, like the Nanyang Siang Pau clerk, Chong Fee Cheng, 37, who died after she lapsed into a coma following a snatch theft in Taman Molek, Johor Baru and a housewife Lim See Nya, 58 in Bukit Mertajam who was run over by a three-tonne truck when she lost her balance and fell onto the road after a motor-cycle pillion rider grabbed her handbag.
Last week, the Johor Baru South OCPD was tied-up and robbed at knife-point in his house.
Why is the Police so super-fast and super-efficient to arrest Chin Huat when they are so super-slow and super-inefficient to arrest criminals to protect the personal safety and property of Malaysians, visitors, tourists and investors?
Kuala Lumpur Commercial Crimes Division Director Datuk Koh Hong Sun said Chin Huat was arrested for sedition following a police report to assist in police investigations.
This is a gross abuse of police powers in putting the cart before the horse. The police should investigate following a police report to ascertain whether there is any basis for the allegation that a crime has been committed. Instead, the police has chosen to arrest first and investigate later.
Chin Huat told me when I saw him at about 12.30 pm that although he had been in police custody for 17 hours, the police had not taken any statement from him.
The police has also seized a laptop and a cellular phone belonging to Chin Huat.
In ancient times, emperors and tyrants burnt books to deny their intellectuals the fundamental freedoms of thought, speech and expression. In this Internet era, the powers-that-be have resorted to snatching laptops and mobile phones!
Chin Huat’s arrest is a triple assault on the fundamental liberties of freedom of expression, media freedom and academic freedom.
Academicians and bloggers are rightly outraged. I agree with academician Ong Kian Ming who asked: “What kind of signal does the arrest send about the state of academic freedom in Malaysia?” and Khoo Kay Peng’s condemnation of Chin Huat’s arrest as “a national shame”!
Najib should intervene to direct Hishammuddin and the police to immediately release Chin Huat or his motto of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” will be the first casualty, as it would be seen as nothing more than a camouflage for “1Divided Malaysia. People Last. Performance Never.”
I read Police also seized two notebooks, three thumb drives and a modem from Wong yesterday. What reason could they have for taking his modem.
Great tee-shirt! Where can I get one?
No wait. Changed my mind already.
What reason could they have for taking his modem
Modems are no longer necessarily passive devices. Consumer modems can also store content, share it on a network, participate in P2P file sharing and also even act as web servers. One could, for example, serve allhailprasad.com from a ‘modem’ alone, without any extra equipment.
OrangRojak, I think I saw that t-shirt on the street before.
Maybe can buy from Petaling Street.
“What reason could they have for taking his modem.” (Prasad)
The Police will try to hook up the computer to the Internet with the modem hoping that an autosaved password for logging into Wong Chin Huat’s email account will be found by just turning on the computer itself.
However, usually the Police will never be able to find anything from the computer itself if Wong Chin Huat doesn’t use mail software like Outlook Express to open mail and save mail to the hard disk.
Even if the Police cannot find anything from the computer, the computer will still be sent to the Police warehouse under the Police’s custody. After storing in the warehouse for quite a few years, then the computer will be stolen and then the case will be called off with a Discharge but Not Amounting to Acquittal (DNA). This is the usual way the Police adopted for purpose of creating harrassment on the Opposition. The main intent is to tie up the trouble-making Opposition member with the llong-lingering egal proceedings of a prosecution process in order to teach him a lesson. In other words, it is also a form of the abuse of the executive power by the Top Politician through the right-hand men deployed in the Police Force!
With the loss of the computer, the court would never be able to detect evidence showing that the Police was indeed abusing the executive power.
We should wear Black tomorrow to mourn over the death of democracy!
Black …. Black …… Black …..
Why Chin Huat in particular? There were also others in press conference under Bersih’s banner: Dr Dzulkifli Ahmad (PAS), Sivarasa Rasiah (PKR) or Tony Pua (DAP).
What probably angered the powers-that-be was his call to wear black to protest the BN’s takeover of Perak state govt. The best guess is that to wear black is of litle cost to the protestors/wearers. Worse still such thing easily spread by sms.
To wear or have something to do with black as a symbol is something that the masses of silent protestors can easily do to demonstrate their protest or civil disobedience effectively since it is low cost in sense that it is not an offence for anyone to like black.
They could wear black to work, walk around the town even if they’re no where near the State Secretariat – where the legislative assembly is to meet to evict speaker Siva – or anywhere confronting a phalanx of FRUs and their water cannons and batons.
If indeed the entire Ipoh and elsewhere see a sea of black going to work, markets, eateries, it is a very effective demonstration of dissent!
The fact that black as a colour is often associated with symbols of sadness, grief and even evil does not of course help the powers-that-be!
Yet it would appear counterproductive and not too smart to arrest Chin Huat for sedition. He is spokesman for Bersih (NGO) and an academic.
What is to be gained in criminalising otherwise law abiding citizens just because they express political dissidence and protests which they believe are in accord with their democratic rights – whilst real criminals, snatch theives, robbers, burglars, mat rempits have a free rein unrestrained?
Public would never view such protestors as criminal. He is viewed a matryr: in fact he is just given the passport/fame/notriety and already elevated by YB Kit to the platform of some Malaysian Mahatma Ghandi!
This kind of harrassment only faster accelerate the dissenter’s transition from an NGO spokesperson to become a leading member of the Opposition parties.
A lot of people didn’t even know about this call to wear black for Perak legislative assembly meeting tomorrow. Now thanks to his arrest everyone knows about protesting in black, and what more they have an added reason – besides protesting the BN takeover of Perak State Legislative – to wear black : the arrest of Chin Huat as symbol of stifling of civil society and democratic right to dissent!
I recall that Yellow is the colour of Royalty and Black is the colour of the subject of Negeri Sembilan by the Minan Tradition.
The fortune teller next door just informed me that the Police’s forcing Wong Chin Huat to wear Yellowish Orange was a bad omen for Barisan Nasional. The Police was trying to enthrone a representative from the Pakatan Rakyat with Yellowish colour when indeed this representative only wanted to wear black to mourn over the death of democracy. It was a sign indicating the gradual decadence of Barisan Nasional and the ultimate rising of Pakatan Rakyat to the ruling power!
The country is doomed having its police force being controlled by unscrupulous power-hungry politicians.
Police crackdown continues with three more arrests
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/25629-police-crackdown-continues-with-three-more-arrests
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It is unbelievable that Najis has turned Malaysia into another Myanmar barely 2 months after he took over the PM post.
Even if Wong Chin Huat is going to be prosecuted in court by the DPP office under the Sedition Act, the Police can hardly produce good evidence in order to prove that Wong Chin Huat’s sending SMS will create bad impact such as causing the deterioration in the public tranquility or causing danger of revolt by a typical group of the interested people. Telling people to wear black will never be a crime, just like telling the participants to wear casually or formally as the dress code to attend an indoor party or outdoor party can never be a crime anywhere anytime.
If the Police does not release Wong Chin Huat upon the expiry of the arrest warrant, then the Police may risk of being filed a lawsuit by Wong Chin Huat due to wrongful arrest imposed on Wong Chin Huat!
I hope that the Police will not further detain Wong Chin Huat under the ISA Section 73! Wong Chin Huat should be released immediately without any condition or restriction being imposed on him by the Police!
I think there’s a much darker side (!) to wearing black from the point of view of an oppressive regime. Without access to media or gatherings where a person’s doubts and fears can be tested or compared, it is only natural to worry that one must be alone. If tomorrow, a Malaysian steps out of their home wearing black and sees 60% of their neighbours doing the same thing, doubts and fears could become conviction and confidence. That would clearly never do.
Social activist and university lecturer Wong Chin Huat’s arrest under the Sedition Act is intimidation of the highest order. There seems to be no political dissent in Malaysia. The 1Malaysia slogan is a laughing stock and is also total rubbish for anyone to know. Everything sums up to 1BLACKMalaysia!
I hear they have just “grabbed” Mat Sabu & bundled him into thier car! Reminds us of the Secret Police of the South African Apartheid Regime & Nazi Germany, doesn’t it?!
Yes, Malaysia is fast going into a “Black” era!!!!!
Allah help us!
Not also arrest Mahatma Gandi, but also throw Barak Hussien Obama into jail being an apostate, that is, for not following the religion of his Kenyan father.
My foreign friends told me that they could not believe our country is being run by a group of CHILDISH people.
This sickly image must be changed!
Yes, we will wear BLACK come 7th May!
I must thank najib for arresting wong chin huat. I never knew he had such a plan. Now I know. I will wear a black shirt tommorrow to support the plan. Once again thank you najib for giving publicity to wong chin huat’s cause. TQ.
Wear Black with the Pirate skull emblazed on the T-Shirt
Wear Black with the Pirate skull emblazed on the T-Shirt– that is what the Somali pirates have been doing all along, showing their support for Wong Chin Huat.
Come tomorrow we must wear black to join Wong Chin Huat in comradeship to show our disgust for that Mamak (not Mamak Kutti!) for his illegal grab of power in Perak with the blessing of the Sultan.
It is very hard to believe in eyes.
Enforcement agencies are supposed to protect people from criminals.
How come now, the enforcement agencies set up block and barrier to help hijackers to hijack power from the people wills.
Is Malaysia still safe to stay? as enforcement agencies are not protect the people wills but help….hijack….
Very soon the cousins (PM and Home Minister) will demand all kindergartens to change
“Baa Baa Black Sheep …….” to
“Baa Baa White/Brown/Yellow Sheep ……..”
O dear, writing this in BLACK may also be seditious.
Beware of the Sedition Act.
Im particularly glad Chin Huat was arrested. A peaceful campaign can turn into a violence one in an instance or over a course of several years after the “peaceful” seed has been planted fruiting hatred.
If he really that “civil” he should tell Anwar about how uncivil the proposed 16th September is.. But off corse Anwar wont listen even to you Sir.
when did you hear a statement that is not a “reminder” all this while after zzzz has left.
looks like the kampong fair has begun
BN leaders arrest all the dissent,righteous and bold, even a dog which barks against them.
Hishammudin is trying to show his awe, it is believed that the new Home minister will arrest Anwar under the draconian ISA because he said Anwar is a threat to the national security.
The arrest made by the police has shown that Malaysia is returning to the Iron Curtain of Mahathirism. Thanks to our ‘intelligent’ Home minister.
But, I strongly believe one day he will be accountable to God who is the Protector of the poor, oppressed and righteous.
Where’s WCH? Released?
Taken to an unknown place.
Anywhere near a belukar?
C4ed to dust?