By Joseph Sipalan Jul 15, 11 | MalaysiaKini
Sungai Siput MP Dr D Jeyakumar is holding up well despite having been detained for nearly three weeks now, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang said today after meeting up with the Parti Sosialis Malaysia activist.
Lim, who with PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub and PKR’s Subang Jaya MP R Sivarasa met with Jeyakumar for 20 minutes at the Bukit Aman federal police headquarters earlier today, said he PSM was doing “okay” so far.
“By and large he is okay, despite the wear and tear. What is most important is the loss of freedom and injustice of this arbitrary detention, and I say this as a former detainee under the ISA,” Lim told a press conference after the visit.
Jeyakumar is one of the PSM 6 detained under the Emergency Ordinance on July 2, on police intelligence claiming interference by foreign powers trying to “harm public order” – which deputy inspector general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said gave them grounds to act to prevent potential violence and criminal activity.
The other PSM members detained are deputy chairperson M Saraswathy, central committee members Choo Chon Kai and M Sukumaran, Sungai Siput branch secretary A Letchumanan and youth leader Sarat Babu.
The six were re-arrested under section 3(1) of the EO, immediately after they were released from seven days of remand at Kepala Batas district police station.
They were initially arrested with 24 others on June 25, while in a bus at the Sungai Dua toll plaza, and investigated under Section 122 of the Penal Code for allegedly waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
Lim said that “not even the authorities themselves” believed the grounds for the initial charge, and accused the authorities of acting in “utter bad faith”.
Sivarasa pointed out that the authorities had nothing to justify the detention of the PSM 6 under the EO, let alone the charge of waging war against the King.
He said the only precedent where anyone was found guilty of waging war against the Agong was the infamous al-Maunah case, where the banned movement’s members had actually built up a cache of guns and murdered people.
‘Whole world looking at Malaysia’
As for the charge under the EO, Sivarasa said the police had replaced the earlier charge with a more “general” charge as they knew it would not stick.
“The charge sheet first said they were mobilisers for Bersih, therefore they were prejudicial to public order. That charge sheet was withdrawn and replaced with a more general charge of them being prejudicial to public order.
“The whole world is looking at Malaysia, and they are wondering what kind of police state we have. Jeyakumar is known as the gentle doctor, and we are holding the gentle doctor as if he is a hardened criminal,” Sivarasa said.
Meanwhile, the families and laywers of the PSM 6 spent the later part of the morning visiting them at the various locations around the city where they are being detained.
They are then expected to come together at Bukit Aman, where they intend to present a memorandum to inspector-general of police Ismail Omar at 3pm to demand the immediate release of the six