,Will democracy in Malaysia take a nip in the bud, or will Najib get a kick in his butt?

I am sure you will be kind enough to furnish us with ALL TRUTHyoutube.com/watch?v=1ZPjz-WdCbE

Police power at August 1 Anti-ISA rally, which was in full display for Malaysians and the rest of the world to see is a major political setback to Najib’s One Malaysia. The response to the rally was out of sync with the threat that protesting citizens posed to national security and public order. It was bizzare, brutal and excessive.

Only in Malaysia – where peaceful demonstration results in police brutality each and every time. Over here we have peaceful demonstrations by tens of thousands participants and yet seldom do we hear of police brutality. The police here work with the demonstrators to control traffic and to keep the demonstrators safe.

In the US demonstrators demonstrate for almost every known cause, political (Iranian election) to equal rights (Gay and Lesbian). Often times we have opposing demonstrators on the opposite sides of the streets, yet few incidents of firing of tear gas and baton bashing.Malaysian leaders have to grow up and the police should be restrained and allow citizens to express their views.

It was an ugly sight and as the Malaysian Insider says: “Images of riot police turning downtown Kuala Lumpur into a battlezone by chasing and beating unarmed demonstrators is not likely to do much good to a prime minister hoping to project an image of being a reformist” Malaysians after having had it so good for years, must now have their baptism of fire to appreciate that freedom is never free. It costs. It cost lives and more lives. How then do you attach value to human freedom if not in terms of human lives lost? It already costs a few along the way.

The police too would do well to treat this as a learning experience and Najib may find this a teachable moment. This game of attrition will continue. No doubt about that. It is testimony to the human spirit and like all spirits if you ban them they will find their way to those who are willingAny kid under threat of losing a long-treasured ill-gotten lolly will not only act irrationally but also couldn’t give a damn to rules or conventions or for that matter even fair-play, eschew the words ‘warzone’ and ‘battleground’. The ‘conflict’ was only in our Dear Leaders minds – can mere words and insults stop a CS canister or ‘polluted water’ cannon? Can it stop gravity or bullets? Authority is not God given – like freedom, it must be earned, to paraphase Din.

These bumno-ites have assumed for too long that authority equates to degree of force applied. In space, the more the force applied, the ‘higher and faster’ you go until you end up swallowed by the sun… That is Newtonian truism – the sooner ‘they’ will go.

So never expect fair-play.It is not just about a controversial preventive detention law of which the Internal Security Act (ISA) is just one. It is about many things.

It is about corruption, unfair elections, a court system that has gone terribly wrong and a judiciary that has lost its way. It is about everything else. It is about an oppressive and repressive regime that has lost touch with the grassroots.

Street protests have their purpose. They are about shock and awe, a warning that time is fast running out. They make good images where a reporter would find it hard to put into words. It is a desperate cry for help that unless countries like the United States exert their influence another nascent democracy is about to be nipped in the bud,Will democracy in Malaysia take a nip in the bud, or will Najib get a kick in his butt?

The government faced criticism for arresting hundreds of people and using tear gas and water cannon to break up a protest against laws that allow for detention without trial.

More than 60 of the 589 people detained in yesterday’s protest, which saw at least 15,000 people massing in chaotic scenes in downtown Kuala Lumpur, were still in custody today according to media reports and lawyers.

Najib slammed

He also condemned Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak over the heavy-handed police response, which saw 5,000 officers including riot squad members play a cat-and-mouse game with protesters through city streets.

“Is this an indication that the Najib premiership is going to be the most draconian of all prime ministers since independence in 1957?” he asked.

Najib had criticised the protest plans, saying that he had already promised to review the controversial legislation after taking office in April. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who is charge of the police force, reportedly said the Internal Security Act (ISA) could be amended as soon as the next parliament session.

But the opposition and rights groups are calling for the colonial-era ISA – which has been used to detain government opponents as well as suspected terrorists – to be abolished.

Latifah Koya, a lawyer for the detained protestors, said that police were continuing to hold senior opposition lawmaker R Sivarasa, as well as the wife and son of an ISA detainee. Two other children were also in custody.

“We totally condemn the police action. People who merely wore T-shirts with an anti-ISA logo were also arrested. We demand their immediate release,” she told AFP.

‘People want change’

Rights campaigners also condemned the police response. “Aliran is appalled at the determined effort by the police to crush the peaceful march,” said P Ramakrishnan, president of Aliran.

“Thousands of concerned and caring Malaysians have undertaken this march out of a patriotic duty to highlight their revulsion for the ISA which has gained notoriety for the mindless use of this law by the Barisan Nasional.”

Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng said that the results of 2008 elections, which saw a major swing away from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, showed Malaysians were demanding greater freedoms.

“The people want change. If the Barisan Nasional wants to remain in power they have to listen to the people who desire liberty and respect for individual rights,” he said.

“They took to the streets because the government has not provided an alternate platform to engage the people,” he said.

Khoo said the coalition, which has struggled to claw back support since the landmark 2008 polls, faced defeat at the next general elections if it failed to introduce democratic reforms.