Now relating to the authorities’ justification of Bersih’s breach of barricade a Second Question arises from this Malaysiakini’s 29th April report by Andrew Ong “How the Dataran cordon was breached”. It said “based on a video published by Free Malaysia Today, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali was clearly seen motioning to NGO and Pakatan leaders on top of the truck in a “come over” gesture while standing right next to the barricade…Some of people on top of the truck appeared to disagree and an unidentified person on top of the truck waved his hand in a “no” motion.
After this exchange, Azmin was seen trying to step down from an elevated platform and people surrounding him conducted the first breach.” This had happened AFTER Ambiga’s call to disperse and PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim had reiterated calls for a dispersal. What does Ambiga/Bersih say to this? Will Anwar still defend Azmin and that sectionof his PKR / Bersih supporters if allegations upon investigation were found true?

To Wang Yen: My statement “strong police action (ie tear gas /water cannons) is defensible only at Dataran Merdeka in which barricade/perimeter was breached” is my opinion, if all a defence of strong police action were sought to be defended. I did not attribute it at all to what Bar Council Christopher Leong said. He did not say such a thing. He said it was disproportionate (everywhere). I agree its so everywhere else where supporters were peaceful, not immediately involved in breach of the barricade, didn’t know what was happening and were simply attacked. Now coming to that section of Dataran where the barricade was broken and some of the crowd surged across, though not everyone in the immediate Dataran crowd was complicit to this “breach” aware much less agreed to it, yet PDRM authorities defending the square would have the excuse of strong response in self defence against an aggressive crowd that breached the very barricade perimeter that Bersih’s leaders had undertaken to authority to ensure that their supporters would observe and not do!

///What he (Christopher Leong) explicitly says is that the court order to lock down the Square is defective, and the exclusion from the Square will be deemed as freedom denied.//

That the court order is defective is Leong’s legal opinion. It may also be Bar Council’s legal opinion. They may be right but until there’s another court decision to overrule the existing one obtained by DBKL are we to follow the Court order or Christopher Leong’s/Bar Council’s opinion as to what represented the law to be observed (apart from separate moral issue of whether to adhere to law suspected given by a not so independent court or a court that clever as to what the actual law should be)? The fact is Bersih’s leaders esp Ambiga had agreed to observe the barricade/perimeters of Dataran and directed supporters to do so. The question of whether the Court judgment is founded on correct reasoning or wrong law as opined by Christopher/Bar Council is irrelevant to the issue under contention here relating to police action, whether proportionate or disproportionate, depending on where it was unleashed!

The determination of what the law is, and whether the law as laid down or interpreted by a judge in a court order is “arguably defective in law DUE TO A LACK OF SPECIFICITY” is not for Mr Christopher Leong to decide. (Here he uses the word “arguably” defective which means that it is open to more than one point of view or argument). It is to be determined by another court judgment overruling the first, in the absence of which the first is still held as representing the law. There will be chaos if everyone whom we respect the views or sympathize with his political position can tell us that whether what is law that we should follow depends on not what the court lays down in judgment as the law but his views of what the law is or ought to be, no matter how well meaning, intelligent or even erudite in law he is.

There is also a mighty big difference between conceding (1) what the law is and arguing on the hand that (2) although that is the law, we choose on conscience, not to follow it because we either think the law is incorrectly decided by the court that is not independent or the law is simply inhumane immoral or arbitrary in enforcement. There is nothing wrong in (2) provided one is prepared to take the consequences of punishment in breaking or not abiding by it. That’s a personal choice. Bersih’s leaders have made the choice : they decided to follow the DBKL judgment as the law (whether they think it good or bad law). That is a moral stand because to decide not to follow it is to defy the judgment and gate crash the barricades of Dataran on basis that we have the right to occupy it that DBKL has no right to deny and in so doing cause a clash and police retaliation that will inflict injury on supporters including women and children. Bersih’s leaders have right to make choice whether to break that unjust law but they cannot, with responsibility, lead their thousands of followers to do so inviting such consequences. Be cavalier with one’s own lives based on principles and sacrifices but is it right to urge those thousands that follow you to take the consequences that one personally would take? Also what ethical principle is it, to once having decided on a course to follow the law, and give one’s undertaking to abide by the barricade line only to break that undertaking i9n the afternoon?

Had Hitler won the war against the Allies and dominated the rest of the world (instead of the other way around) then we will never know (will we?) whether his genocide of the Jews based on domestic german law would now be considered invalid against these higher natural laws cited by Wang Yen..
For there would not be the Nuremberg trials, there would not even exist the Jewish state as we know today. or it is often the Victor that makes and defines what i law and what is higher written laws that the victor abides and the vanquished is said to break and must be punished.

///I don’t think you got his point. In your numerous posts on this topic (in other threads), you’ve been claiming that the police’s action to disperse the crowd was to clear the roads so as to give access to others who were heading to the city centre. But Leong’s point is that the firing pattern indicates that their intention was not to disperse.///

Thats right. In my earlier threads I was just wondering others had the right to re-enter the city (which was locked since morning), Ambiga/Anwar at 2.30 pm said Rally’s over please disperse and yet many did not want to disperse, wanting to hang around the main roads until nightfall. Whats the meaning of this? This is what I explained to Lim Kam Put in earlier threads. I have since corrected this line of thought in my posting #4 above as I thought whatever breach of barricade that occurred in Dataran itself justifying police strong action, there is no justification to use it (such force) across the board – at the same time upon one signal from the top- on the thousands (with peaceful intentions) every where else in the city, not knowing the ruckus in Dataran, not complicit to it, received no notice from Bersih’s leaders that rally was over and to disperse at 2.30 pm onwards (when original program of sit in was supposed to end at 4 pm) and equally with no warning from authorities/police to disperse or else…..

Wang Yen, Leong is correct that DBKL Court Judgment (hurriedly applied for & obtained in relation to our civic rights to gather in Dataran) qualifies as “unjust and vague law”. It is also correct of him to contend that “breaching an unjust and vague law does not justify harsh actions” (of PDRM retaliation). The argument is over the shooting of tear canisters/chemical laced water, whether it was ‘disproportionate’ harsh action or a proportionate one. At Dataran Merdeka itself the line was drawn at the perimeters of the sharp razor barricades with heavy PDRM presence standing in line just behind. I could also speak from vantage point of Dataran Merdeka at JlnTunPerak/Jln TAR junction in which I was present as early as 7.30 am – and intermittently at various points along the length of JlnTunPerak till afternoon. All along there was no problem from PDRM, they were restraint – or the crowd- for so long as these perimeters (as agreed) were observed. Bersih specifically directed that we were not to breach those lines. (Its based on rationale of the Court order that Bersih was not prepared to defy).

(Contining from 2nd post currently moderated) – Later we understand that part of the crowd at another point breached the perimeter/barricade. I could imagine that if I were the police stationed there (throughout the day to guard with no breach of lines) were to face such a tremendous crowd, with the lines breached and crowd surging forward in hostile way, I would have retreated and shot the canisters myself. My life was in danger. I would shoot my gun with live bullet if so threatened by bodily harm! Dataran was surrounded by thousands in all directions. They could be easily incited by the section of crowd that breached the agreed perimeters to surge in. I understand the sentiments of PDRM there in Dataran and think their action proportionate to the level of threat perceived but could not understand why at the same time this forceful response at Dataran (to deal with a particular specific threat) was also carried out at other parts of city simultaneously (from what I heard without warning) on other unwary peaceful protestors, considering such a huge crowd could not just be switched or off like bulb (when Amiga/Anwar message to disperse was not even conveyed to these areas). Maybe they thought violence could spread quickly to else where once rumours of what happened in Dataran spread.

If Bersih or PR felt like Christopher that the DBKL jugmnent was bad law and breaking it was no make shake, then say so in the beginning so that those of us who participated in the rally could come prepared for police retaliation due to the defiance of the judgment. It is not right to say Bersih observed the judgment/barricade – upon which reliance we who brought our children and family for rally thinking that as long as that was so risk of police reetaliation was mitigated – only to find at something 3 pm a certain group of supporters were not prevented from breaching that line/barricade exposing everyone to the risks of police retaliation, which materialised, only to be subsequently explained away that the police was using excessive force, the court judgment was not good etc!

Once Bersih’s supporters breached the barricades and threatened to surge into Dataran in large numbers in confrontation with police, their response (forceful by way of tear gas/water cannons to chase and disperse the crowd there) at Dataran is, my view, justified and proportionate in light of the changing potentially dangerous circumstances.

///Getting into an empty square does not endanger any person or property///

Reply: Square was not empty. The Police were all there under instructions to guard/defend it!

///Violence was caused by the police action whose justification was void because of the injustice of the ban.///

If ban were unjust, then Bersih should NOT have accepted to observe this unjust ban and promised/undertaken to the authorities to uphold it by instructing its supporters not to cross the barricade. One can’t have the cake and eatr it at same time. As organisers its Bersih’s duty to ensure that its supporters (never mind agent provocateurs) not violate this understanding with authorities. Unit Amal PAS helping Bertsih should be stationed along the perimeters to ensure strictly that barricade not crossed by any sub group to provoke the police acting on Bersih’s promise not to cross.

///whether or not one should breach or encourage the breach of an unjust, vague, and arbitrary law/// Depending. Generally, you fight for its repeal. Then again oppressors won’t repeal! So the question arises whether by encouraging its repeated breach by many conscientious people, normally law abiding, the arbitrary and unjust law and its enforcement will be so discredited as to lead to its sooner obsolescence or its repeal. There are of course those who don’t agree and would say for so long as it is law, for the time being, and sensible and conscientious people can make moral intellectual judgment with accuracy as regards its arbitrariness, yet until its repeal, it should be abided as breaking the law should not be encouraged based on ends justifies the means to discredit it. I believe that’s position taken by Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz in breaking ranks with his party leadership over its support of Bersih 3.0. 2000 years ago Socrates drank hemlock to uphold the unjust sentence meted to him for “poisoning” minds of the young for teaching them how to question & think. Myself I think we should not have hard fast rules (in the abstract). The particular law, the degree of injustice, the circumstances of its enforcement or opposition to it, the results, context will all have a part play as to which stance to take.

///Even…if the breach of an unjust, vague, and arbitrary law that does not harm anyone or any property (except for the harm inflicted by police action) is morally unjustifiable (ie Tunku Abdul Aziz’s stance), do I think that such a breach justify the violent police response? /// It depends on meaning of “violent” response. It’s a question of proportionality of response based on circumstances. For eg if in context of preceding discussions/arguments, police in Dataran in response to breach of barricades respond by shooting water laced chemicals or tear gas with the object of dispersing the gathering I would think it is justifiable proportionate response whether (one labels it violent) though at the same time the same response unleashed simultaneously at the crowd ELSEWHERE without warning would be disproportionate response. However back to Dataran : if after the first response of dispersing the crowd by SOP (chemical laced water &tear gas) the police took the opportunity to go further in mopping up operation and in that process brutalise (eg beat and trample senseless people, go into private premise without warrant to arrest anyone with yellow Bersih tee shirt (when they had not done so before throughout the morning), then yes that’s brutal and violent action, and in answer to question- I don’t agree that such a breach justifies the violent police response (in these senses & context).

///Does it justify the police action on 28/4? EVEN IF the breach is morally unjustifiable, does it justify such a brutal response?/// Doesn’t #3 answer that? I said Police in Dataran in response to breach of barricades responded by “brutally” shooting water laced chemicals or tear gas with the object of dispersing the gathering – I think that it is justifiable proportionate response. But if one is talking of “brutal” response in context of reports from Malaysiakini – eg Mohd Firdaus Azizi, 28 punched and kicked by 2 groups of policemen or 113 casualties in GH- of course such police action is (to my mind) unjustifiable even if breach of the law were unjustifiable. I assume thats obvious. They are two separable issues justifiability of law breaking and justifiability of such police response.

I wasn’t focusing strictly on angle of issues you said Christopher raised because I assume from past experience police brutality is expected factor. Given this known factor, I expect Bersih not to breach the barricades per its undertaking so as not give that brutality an opportunity to unleash on common peaceful Malaysians out to make a democratic point. I am particularly piqued if opposition politicians maneuvered the finale by incidents to mar an otherwise successful rally just to provide authorities the excuse to unleash this brutality so as to exploit public moral outrage once again to tilt the electoral playing field against an ensconced incumbent. It may be ends justifies the means but its the common people (children included) that bear the brunt and pay the price. Its Ok if you tell them in the beginning what to expect, not change rules of engagement at the end and make them pay the price.