My Bersih 2.0 Story : Trapped, Ambushed and Gassed

ARCHIVES 2011

By admin-s On Jul 21, 2011

By Fadiah Nadwa Binti Fikri

On 7 July 2011, while I was lazing around at home after work, I got a call from my friend, N Surendran saying that my name was on the list of 91 individuals who were restricted from entering Kuala Lumpur on 9 July 2011.

Nothing surprising. It was just that I couldn’t wrap my mind around the paranoia displayed by the government over a planned peaceful assembly to demand for clean and fair elections. This whole scare tactic definitely was funnier than any comedy show I’d ever watched on TV.

It was 9 July 2011, the day plethora of right thinking Malaysians and I had been waiting for. It felt like waking up to Aidilfitri morning. Serenity filled the air. Peaceful. I packed my bag. Salt, checked. A bottle of water, checked. My friends, Latheefa Koya, Eric Paulsen and Renuka Balasubramaniam and I went to KL Hilton to meet with the rest of the group.

When I got into the room, I saw Bersih leaders, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Maria Chin Abdullah, Wong Chin Huat, Haris Ibrahim and Zaid Kamarudin, all getting ready to lead the march. I also saw Pakatan Rakyat leaders, Anwar Ibrahim, Wan Azizah, Lim Kit Siang, Hadi Awang, Tian Chua, William Leong, Nurul Izzah and our respected national laureate, Pak Samad Said, standing firm next to Bersih leaders, to give their undivided support to the cause.

I looked at my watch, it was 1.30pm. After finishing our Zohor prayers, we put our yellow Bersih t shirts on. The room was filled with laughter, the worrying thoughts on the highhandedness of the police in dealing with this planned peaceful assembly seemed to fade away for a little while. I could feel the strong conviction to freedom, freedom to march on, to assemble peaceably to demand for free and fair elections. We couldn’t wait to meet with the rest of right thinking Malaysians so that we could walk together to Merdeka Stadium on this historic, most awaited day.

We started marching on, we held each other’s arms so tightly. We chanted “Bersih!Bersih!Bersih!”.A strange feeling suddenly embraced me. A pleasant strange feeling. I believed this was what solidarity, strength and conviction felt like.

I was holding Wan Azizah’z right arm. Nurul Nuha was holding my left arm. As we were walking, I could feel more hands were holding my arms, the hands of amazing people I hardly knew. When I looked around, all I could see was police. My heart was beating so fast, in between the chanting and the thought that all of us would not make it to Merdeka Stadium as it was almost certain that we would be arrested, judging from the heavy police presence around us.

From KL Hilton we proceeded to KL Sentral train station. At this juncture I kept asking myself why we weren’t arrested yet. The police were there, surrounding us, waiting and watching our single move. I just ignored the question that was lingering on my mind. From KL Sentral train station, we had to go down the escalator to the underpass to reach the main road.

After going down the escalator, we then walked through the dark and confined underpass. Suddenly I heard the wail of police siren behind us, there was a police truck that was trying to pass. We stopped and gave way to the police truck. We then continued walking.

As we were still walking in the underpass, people in the forefront abruptly stopped. It was puzzling as to what was happening. I saw Anwar Ibrahim turning around and asking the people who were standing in the back to step back. I was still puzzled as to what was happening at that particular moment. In a split second, I saw the dark and confined underpass filled with tear gas. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were all teary. Everyone was coughing. Panic struck.

I kept asking myself these questions. “Why did they fire the tear gas directly at us while we were still in the confined underpass? Why didn’t they arrest us right before we headed for the underpass? Could this be a trap?”.