It is a dis-analogy to compare this year’s so called Human Rights celebration with other celebrations of “Merdeka or Hari Raya Haji, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Hari Raya Aidiladha” as if the circumstances were on equal footing in intent and question why if the latter were permitted, the former would not be, there being no difference….

In context, this year’s Human Rights celebration was intended and planned to be a protest march for human rights which were deemed to have been violated.

It was certainly not intended to celebrate and commemorate human rights that we have been blessed so far but to protest against their suppression by the powers-that-be that we have been cursed so far……

The march was intended by a small group of lawyers notwithstanding the Bar Council had already dropped its earlier planned annual march in conjunction with the World Human Rights Day due to pressure from the authorities withholding the police permit.

The march to mark International Human Rights Day planned to start from the Sogo department store to Central Market in Kuala Lumpur was intended to rally all and sundry to the cause of demanding human rights observance by the government and to secure media attention and spotlight for that cause. How could it be argued that it was a mere celebration and not a protest march?

So let’s call spade a spade – if one wants to fight the cause, be brave to admit it – and not try to duplicituously camouflage the real intention and justify it by some other name based on a false analogy.

Where writer Sagaladoola is coming from is that not every march with people holding banners tantamount to a protest – it could be just celebrating and commemorating a joyous occasion to mark Human Rights Day, and in the case of the lawyers arrested on Dec 10 this year it was wrong of authorities to view their brief walk as protest especially in light of the fact the Bar Council had organized such marches, successful ones at that on past anniversaries in 2005 and 2006.
Sagaladoola is right only if one looks at such a march – as just a march just like that organized by Bar Council in 2005 and 2006 without regard to the circumstances immediately preceding and then existing on Dec 10 this year, and whether in that context and circumstances might be construed whether by the authorities or the public as a street protest against the government’s human rights violation. In my opinion, one has to construe an event in the context of its prevailing circumstances and it is a tortuous argument to ignore such context and circumstances when debating this issue.

Now on the different circumstances this year Dec 10:

Everyone was edgy. Just preceding Dec 10, there were three marches, ie the Bar’s Walk for Justice in protest of the Lingam video clip revelations, the Bersih March demanding electoral reforms and the Hindraf’s protest demonstration amid hues and cries of ethnic cleaning and Tamil LTTE in Sri Lanka – all without permits, and each occasion condemned by the government which condemnation is also on each occasion equally deplored by human rights activists and concerned citizens as government’s clamp down on human rights esp. the right to assembly, which as events unfold led to the ISA detention of Hindraf’s organizers (lawyers) yesterday.

How could anyone suggest that there was anything to celebrate or commemorate on this year Human Rights Day? Whichever way one wants to slice it to justify the march, it would be perceived as protest! Look at the Malaysiakini’s report that Sagaladoola himself cited – what did they say? Was it against torture in Guantanamo detention camp or Abu Ghraib? No, the report stated “The marchers had carried banners that read “Lawyers for the freedom of assembly” and “Government that abuses human rights is terrorist.” We were, on Dec 10, at the jaws of a massive clamp down – and that Jaw just clamped down with invocation of ISA yesterday!

If circumstances in Dec 10 this year were the same last 2 years relating to Bar Council’s customary marches, why did the Bar Council agonized over the decision, pondered over whether it should apply for police permit when it never did such pondering before, and decide to officially call of the march leaving Edmond Bon (organizing person in Bar committee on human rights) and few others to carry on the token march in their individual capacities?
The official position of Bar Council in calling off the march expressed by its chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasanis that “the council’s decision was made after anxious consideration to the present circumstances that surround the event, particularly the interests of the public and the Malaysian Bar”.

What present circumstances was she talking about except a foreboding and the tense one prevailing between sections of rakyat and the authorities over freedom of assembly and human rights?

Sagaladoola is not right to argue that the march should not be construed as protest just because, theoretically, protest was not intended in minds of the lawyers marching and arrested. These Lawyers should know what Lord Blackstone said – that the Devil himself knoweth not what’s in the mind of man – so everything has to be judged on basis of what is reasonably perceived in the context and light of existing prevailing circumstances.

To say that this march was not protest – meaning ought not in light of prevailing circumstances to be perceived as protest – that it was marking Human Rights Day and celebrating it just like “Hari Raya Haji, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Hari Raya Aidiladha” is baloney.

What do the banners “Lawyers for the freedom of assembly” and “Government that abuses human rights is terrorist” suggest? Why did Bar Council agonize over decision and call off the March ?

So Mr Sagaladoola – is it I who does not do research and jump to conclusion as you alleged or you, whose position to fight for human rights, I too share, who is actually indulging in a tortuous argument to advance a Common Cause that is not helpful at all?