Call on Norian Mai to send out a clear directive to all police units in the country to stop harassing the DAP’s “No to 929” campaign and to apologise for the three sets of wrongful police arrests of DAP leaders and activists in the past two months


Media Conference Statement
- after launching the “No to 911,No to 929, Yes to 1957” People’s Awareness Campaign at Bentong wet market 
by Lim Kit Siang

(Bentong, Sunday): I commend the Bentong police for not harassing the  DAP’s “No to 911, No to 929, Yes to 1957” People’s Awareness Campaign at the Bentong wet market this morning, after last Sunday’s abuses of police powers and wrongful arrests of DAP leaders and activists, including the DAP MP for Batu Gajah Fong Po Kuan. 

The DAP’s “No to 929” campaign is neither seditious nor subversive, but fully patriotic and nationalistic as it is to uphold and defend the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, the “social contract” and 1963 Malaysian Agreement that Malaysia is a democratic, secular and multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion but Malaysia is not an Islamic state – whether UMNO Islamic State or PAS Islamic State. 

If the DAP’s “No to 929” campaign is seditious, then Malaysia has a seditious Constitution for the past 45 years.  We also  had three Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn who were seditious premiers  as they had publicly enunciated this fundamental constitutional principle when they were in office. Furthermore, Malaysia would have a seditious judiciary as the highest court of the land had adjudged that Malaysia is a secular nation and not an Islamic state when Tun Salleh Abas was the Lord President in 1988. 

In the DAP’s 36 years of political struggle, we had always extended our hand of co-operation to the police in the maintenance of law and order as the party is fully committed to a democratic and constitutional form of political change. However, DAP leaders had and would  never flinch from standing up on our principles and rights when the police had encroached on the fundamental democratic rights of Malaysians whether through gross abuses of powers or wrongful and unlawful arrests. 

Since the DAP’s launch of the “No to 911, No to 929, Yes to 1957” People’s Awareness Campaign in Penang in early May, the DAP had been the victims of three sets of wrongful and unlawful arrests – in Ipoh on June 5, Port Dickson on July 21 and Bentong on August 4.

I call on the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri  Norian Mai to send out a clear directive to all police units in the country to stop harassing the DAP’s “No to 929” campaign and to apologise for the three sets of wrongful police arrests of DAP leaders and activists in the past two months. 

The Attorney-General Datuk Gani Patail should also stop dilly-dallying and make a clear ruling that the police had been guilty of gross abuses of power and wrongful arrests of DAP leaders, and that the DAP’s “No to 929” campaign is in full conformity with the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, the “social contract” and the 1963 Malaysia Agreement that Islam is the official religion but Malaysia is not an Islamic State.

(11/8/2002)


*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman