Najib the biggest loser, says Kit Siang
By FMT Staff
July 11, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today
PETALING JAYA: There are many casualties in the Bersih 2.0 rally – police, mainstream media and the Election Commission (EC) – but the biggest loser is Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, says DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang.
He said that the rally on Saturday saw the death of Najib’s 1Malaysia concept but the birth of a true Bersih 1Malaysia.
“(On that day), Malaysians of all races, religions, gender and age walked tall despite police threats, teargas, water cannons and sustained media demonisation to reaffirm their faith in a clean Malaysia…,” he said in his blog posting today. Read the rest of this entry »
Good Things that Came Out of Bersih 2.0 Rally
By Kee Thuan Chye
11 July 2011
WHAT the Bersih 2.0 rally of July 9 has shown is that Malaysians of all races are willing to risk arrest to speak up for their rights; that Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali is nothing but hot air and the media should no longer give him any attention; that Umno Youth is just a directionless bunch of brats; and, above all, that the Government is the biggest loser for mishandling the entire issue.
As it was, the rally turned out to be peaceful, as the organisers had pledged it would be. The only acts of violence were those committed by the police, when they attacked the protestors with tear gas and water cannons although the latter did not provoke them. In retrospect, if the Government had allowed the rally to go on without fuss from the start – and it must be said that Bersih 2.0 (Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections) asked modestly for only two hours, from 2pm to 4pm – it would have just gone on without fuss, and everything would have been all right. Read the rest of this entry »
Liow Tiong Lai: “Tung Shin Hospital ‘not hit’ in rally crackdown”
By Lee Way Loon
Jul 11, 11 | MalaysiaKini
"... don't cite whatever pictures or videos again..."
He said he has confirmed with the hospital authorities that the claims circulating on the Internet are not true.
“The police shot the tear gas over the main road. Maybe the smoke was blown by the wind in this direction – that, we don’t know, but they were not aiming at the hospital,” he told reporters after meeting board members of the hospital this afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysians Passed The Test, Brilliantly!
A remarkable thing happened this past weekend. To many, the event on Saturday was nothing more than a massive public demonstration that capped a long brewing confrontation between those advocating “fair and free elections” and those who deemed that our elections are already so.
As with any fight, the drama was played out long before the event, and by the time the actual battle took place, the participants had long forgotten the original issue. Instead, now the preoccupation is who blinked first, who outsmarted whom, and most of all, who lost and who won. These then become the new overriding divisive issues, eclipsing the original one. Read the rest of this entry »
The Proudest Day for Malaysians
By Thomas Lee Seng Hock
9th July 2011
Comment MCA president Chua Soi Lek has again put himself and his party in a very awkward, embarrassing and contradicting poistion by endorsing the Umno Youth street demonstration while condemning the march by concerned citizens initiated and led by Bersih leaders.
According to a report in The Star, when asked about the Umno Youth demonstration, Chua said that its chief Khairy Jamaluddin had a reason to do it as the youth movement wanted to “defend the current institutions and make known that the electoral roll was not tainted”. Read the rest of this entry »
Najib’s post-709 KL walkabout reminds you of what?
Posted by Kit in Bersih, Election, Najib Razak on Monday, 11 July 2011, 3:07 pm
There are many casualties in the 709 Bersih 2.0 rally on Saturday especially the police, the mainstream media and the election commission but the biggest loser of all is undoubtedly the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
709 saw the death of Najib’s 1Malaysia but the birth of a true Bersih 1Malaysia where Malaysians of all races, religions, gender and age walked tall despite police threats, teargas, water cannons and sustained media demonisation to reaffirm their faith in a Clean Malaysia where there are free and fair elections, a clean political system and incorrupt national governance. Read the rest of this entry »
Resign, netizens tell Najib
Posted by Kit in Bersih, Facebook, Najib Razak on Monday, 11 July 2011, 12:49 pm
Malaysiakini
Jul 11, 11
Even as thousands descended on Kuala Lumpur for the Bersih 2.0 rally on Saturday, netizens held their own protest via Facebook to demand the prime minister’s resignation.
The page, ‘100,000 People Request Najib Tun Razak Resignation’, quickly hit its six-figure target, garnering a staggering 109,484 ‘likes’ from Facebook users within 48 hours.
A large part of the virtual congregation is made up of Bersih 2.0 supporters, many of whom have used the official Bersih 2.0 profile badge. Read the rest of this entry »
I am proud to be Malaysian
By May Chee Chook Ying
July 11, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
JULY 11 — On Friday, after checking into the Swiss Garden Hotel at around 5pm, I sent an SMS to my good friend Kim which said: “Just checked into the Swiss Garden Hotel for my second honeymoon. Going for a picnic tomorrow at 2pm at Stadium Merdeka. Please pray for all of us gathered there, that everything will be peaceful.”
When asked whether he wanted a room with single beds or one with a king-size bed, we were requested to check into the Residence after my husband asked for the latter. Later, we took a stroll down Bukit Bintang Road and I was rather surprised at how things have changed. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysians Resort To Facebook To Voice Out Their Opinions
By Dinesh Karthikesu
July 10, 2011
Malaysia, according to a recent report by greyreview, is home to more than 11 million Facebook users, and is Asia’s No. 4 Facebook nation behind Indonesia, India and the Philippines respectively. Malaysians however, aren’t just using this ingenious creation to keep in touch with their friends, and to have some social fun. They’ve actually resorted to Facebook to voice out their opinions, and to make themselves heard, and to be perfectly honest with you, they are doing a pretty good job at it.
In the wake of the recent Bersih 2.0 rally that took place in Malaysia, as well as several other countries by concerned Malaysians, several Facebook pages have been set-up by angry, and dissatisfied Malaysians.
A Facebook page was registered under the title, “100,000 People Request Najib Tun Razak’s Resignation“, and moments later, people started flooding the page. The page went viral, and has 52,802 ‘likes’ as I type this. The best part of it? Well, the page has been up for less than a day! Instead of blatantly insulting their leader, who is under immense pressure right now, they figured that being united would be the best way to achieve their goal of having a good government. Some use the page as a medium to share shocking facts, and revelations related to the country’s government. Read the rest of this entry »
An inconvenient focus
By Jema Khan
July 11, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
JULY 11 — The Bersih 2.0 rally on Saturday where tens of thousands of Malaysians demonstrated appeared to be more spontaneous than precision planned. Although we all knew that July 9th was the day for the rally, there was hope that it would be held in a stadium and that any disruptions would be minimised. It appears that even the intercession of the King was not enough for the police to provide a proper venue for Bersih to air their grouses.
The police warned us that they were in effect “locking down” Kuala Lumpur and that anyone suspected of being involved with Bersih would be arrested. As it happened, they arrested a total of more than 1,600 Malaysians. Read the rest of this entry »
DAP never asked Chinese to avoid Bersih, says Guan Eng
By Yow Hong Chieh
July 10, 201 | The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The DAP did not send out any text messages asking the Chinese not to attend yesterday’s Bersih rally, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said today..
He stressed that the only messages sent out by the party were those encouraging people to turn up at the rally for free and fair elections.
“This is a lie. No DAP leader sent out (messages) asking the Chinese not to go out and to let Malays fight each other,” said Lim.
“Anti-Bersih elements are trying to sabotage the relationship (between component parties) in PR but this will not work.” Read the rest of this entry »
Family says police responsible for Bersih death
By Yow Hong Chieh
July 10, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The brother of Baharuddin Ahmad, who died yesterday after collapsing during the Bersih rally, has blamed the death on a “deliberate act of cruelty” by the police.
Kassim Ahmad, 72, told The Malaysian Insider his brother had died because the police had withheld medical aid from Baharudin after he collapsed while running away from tear gas and water cannon bombardment.
“[They] asked the police to help send him to hospital but they refused, so we waited for one-and-a-half hours before the van came,” he said.
“A lot of people tried to revive him … Had he been given oxygen, he would be alive today.” Read the rest of this entry »
Firmness without justice or manners
By Hafiz Yatim
Jul 10, 11 | MalaysiaKini
COMMENT The motto for the Royal Malaysian Police Force is Tegas (Firmness), Adil (Just), and Berhemah (Well-mannered) But was it practised in its crackdown on the Bersih 2.0 demonstrators yesterday?
There is much mention over the Inspector General Standing Orders (IGSO) which is under the Official Secrets Act. But were such guidelines employed by the force?
Witnessing the event live on the field among the demonstrators and law enforcement officers, I have to say I have my doubts over the manner and professionalism as to how our police reacted in handling such a pressure cooker situation! Read the rest of this entry »
Countering the anti-Bersih talk
By Azmil Tayeb
July 10, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
JULY 10 — To those who support the recent Bersih 2.0 rally for clean elections we’ve heard the same old tired detracting canards propounded by the Malaysian mainstream media echo chamber, which were later parroted by our own family members and friends.
Truth be told, it got to the point where I simply refused to dignify their “anti-Bersih” arguments with sound intellectual responses because I think they were too frivolous and didn’t deserve any.
Still, I also have this nagging need to clear the air for once and for all especially now in the aftermath of the event. The dust has finally settled and the facts have naturally emerged from the battle-scarred ground. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Lady of Liberty’ at Bersih march draws online support
By Clara Chooi
July 11, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 — Quiet has settled over Saturday’s chaos but one image is still making waves on the Internet — the picture of an elderly woman in yellow, drenched in rain and chemical-laced water, walking away from riot police while clutching on to a long-stemmed flower and a near-empty mineral water bottle.
She is Annie Ooi Siew Lan, a 65-year-old retired English teacher who took a bus from Setapak in the early morning of July 9 to join thousands of others in Bersih 2.0’s march for free and fair elections. An unknown man had offered her the flower in the morning and she waved it like a flag throughout the four-hour march. Read the rest of this entry »
Bersih’s legacy – the eradication of fear
By Lee Min Keong
Jul 11, 11 | MalaysiaKini
COMMENT Despite weeks of threats and intimidation over the Bersih 2.0 rally and a massive operation to lock down Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, my wife and I joined tens of thousands of Malaysians from all walks of life to give the government a simple message – give us free and fair elections, true democracy and a better future for our children.
Walking down traffic-free downtown Kuala Lumpur near Petaling Street at about noon, I see people representing a cross-section of Malaysian society congregating, patiently waiting for the Bersih rally to start. Read the rest of this entry »
Weighing the political cost of July 9
By Ooi Kee Beng
July 11, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
JULY 11 — After the events of July 9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak could be making a mistake if he calls snap elections any time soon.
A day after the police suppression of the Bersih 2.0 demonstration, he continued using a confrontational tone in public,and seemed to play more the role of United Malays National Organisation (Umno) party leader than of Malaysia’s national leader. This strongly suggests that he is psyching himself and his party into election mode. Read the rest of this entry »
My Bersih 2.0 Experience
So I went.
I have to say that the night before I had many many misgivings, especially after reading about the army doing exercises with the FRU. Could the government seriously be contemplating shooting their own people? Who knows? My stomach was in knots thinking about the many young people I knew who were intent on going, including my daughter. Would I be able to forgive myself if something happened to them?
After seeking advice from various friends, I finally decided that I could not stay safely at home while my daughter, friends and colleagues faced possible danger. I had to walk with them. Besides even if I stayed home, I would have spent all my time worrying. So I had to go. Read the rest of this entry »
The debacle of mishandling
By Hsu Dar Ren
July 11, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider
JULY 11 — The dust has settled from the Bersih 2.0 march and life is now back to normal.
The much-anticipated rally took place and despite the heavy clampdown, shutting KL-bound roads and diverting traffic, an estimated 20,000 people walked in many parts of the city to express their wish for a cleaner and more transparent election process.
With all due respect, the authorities could have handled this rally in a much more civil and humane way, since this was as an initiative by civil society ( a coalition of 62 NGOs) to ask for something which should by right should be provided without even having to ask. Read the rest of this entry »
