Home Minister declares Bersih T-shirt illegal

PUTRAJAYA: Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has declared that the 'Bersih' T-shirt is illegal because it is associated with an illegal rally.

"The T-shirt is related to an illegal assembly, then whatever they (the demonstrators) are wearing is illegal," he said on Wednesday, June 29.

Hishammuddin was responding to a question on the arrest of people with the Bersih T-shirts, at a joint press conference with Bangladesh High Commissioner to Malaysia Atiqur Rehman on Malaysia-Bangladesh cooperation in addressing human trafficking, at the ministry here.

Asked whether the arrest of people over the July 9 illegal rally was politically motivated, he said: "On their part or on our part? I can ask the same thing to them."

He also said that action would be taken against Umno Youth members who had encircled the PKR headquarters on Monday as they had gathered there without any police permit.

"I told them (the police) to treat Umno Youth the same. Nobody is above the law," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Selangor police seized hundreds of T-shirts and other material for the July 9 Bersih 2.0 rally in a raid on a house near Assunta Hospital in Petaling Jaya.

Selangor police chief Tun Hisan Tun Hamzah, when contacted, said the T-shirts sported a logo related to the rally. The raid was conducted at about 11 am by about 10 policemen led by Selangor CID chief SAC Mohd Adnan Abdullah, Bernama reports.

Tun Hisan said the case would be investigated under Section 50 (3) of the Societies Act, which makes it an offence to display unauthorised symbols or emblems.

Messages posted on the Bersih 2.0 Facebook page yesterday said more than 15 police officers were involved in the raid on the office of Empower, a civil society organisation, which is functioning as the Bersih 2.0 secretariat. The postings said the police did not have a search warrant.

Besides T-shirts, the police confiscated laptops, a CPU, press statements and letters, leaflets, banners, headbands and a video-camera.
Seven persons from the group, including lawyer Honey Tan, were at the Petaling Jaya police headquarters, where they were waiting to give their statements to the police at presstime.

Bersih 2.0 supporters, including those wearing yellow T-shirts meant for the July 9 rally, have faced action in the past few days.

On Sunday, 30 activists of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, including Sungei Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar, were arrested for allegedly planning to wage war on the King and to revive communism.

Bersih 2.0 has called for a public rally on July 9 to press for eight electoral reforms, including a clean electoral roll, the use of indelible ink, reform of postal balloting, a minimum campaign period of 21 days, free and fair media access, strengthening of public institutions, the curbing of corruption and of political muckraking.

Malay rights group Perkasa and the Umno Youth movement are planning to hold marches against Bersih on the same day.