Guan Eng slams police action in fresh Perak arrests

Written by Regina William, The Edge

DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng has questioned the arrest of eight Pakatan Rakyat (PR) elected representatives who were walking from the Perak DAP headquarters to the High Court in Ipoh for a hearing.

Among those arrested were ousted assembly speaker V Sivakumar, DAP's Ipoh Barat member of parliament M Kulasegaran and state assemblymen Keshwinder Singh (DAP-Malim Nawar), Chan Ming Kai (PKR-Simpang Pulai), Chang Lih Kang (PKR-Teja), Leong Mee Meng (DAP-Jalong), Thomas Su (DAP-Pasir Pinji) and Lim Pek Har (DAP-Menglembu).

They were going to the High Court to attend a suit filed against the Barisan Nasional (BN) state government over the sacking of elected village heads appointed by the previous PR government.

Another six people, including DAP members and two onlookers, were also arrested during the incident at 11.30am.

Those arrested has also earlier attended the launch of the three-day hunger strike calling for the dissolution of the Perak state legislative assembly.

Earlier in the morning, five employees of an event management company were arrested while setting up equipment in preparation of the hunger strike launch.

"Is this Barisan Nasional's new tactic to arrest PR representatives and charge them in court, find them guilty and then force by-elections?" Lim asked.

A visibly upset Lim said the police in Perak and Selangor were behaving like those during the colonial era in India, who arrested Mahatma Gandhi during his peaceful marches.

"I condemn the police action, as they are reduced to being BN's bodyguards and not an independent body to protect the public.

"Are they supposed to protect the people or BN?

"Malaysian police have succumbed to the levels of those undespicable colonial police who have gone down in history for violating democracy and human rights and this is exactly what they are doing now," he added.