Anwar supporters teargassed, Malay unity talks off
Anwar supporters teargassed, Malay unity talks off
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Malaysia's Islamic opposition on Sunday postponed Malay unity talks with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad as police in his home state fired water cannon and tear gas at supporters of jailed rival Anwar Ibrahim.
The police used the strong arm tactics to disperse hundreds of Anwar supporters protesting against the trial of opposition activists, mostly members of Anwar's Parti Keadilan Nasional (National Justice Party) in Kulim, a town in the northwest state of Kedah.
Eye witnesses and court officials said at least six people were arrested.
In a separate incident on Sunday in Kuala Lumpur, 45 people including 11 women marching to oppose the closure of a 70-year- old Chinese-language school were hauled in by police.
In each case protesters were accused of ignoring controversial curbs on public gatherings, under which police can declare any gathering of more than four people illegal.
A few days earlier police in Kedah used water cannon to break up an anti-government rally of 5,000 people. The police said the rally was illegal as the organizers had no permit.
Leaders of Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) issued a statement after the latest incident on Sunday saying the Malay unity talks with Mahathir's party set for Monday had now been postponed. It said the talks would go-ahead at a more conducive time.
Bernama news agency quoted PAS president Fadzil Noor as saying there had been "a few incidents detrimental to the situation and as such the meeting scheduled for tomorrow... is postponed."
Fadzil said other preconditions for the talks were that oil royalty payments be reinstated to a state his party governs and for publishing restrictions on its newspaper to be loosened.
Tolerance
He condemned police actions in breaking up anti-government demonstrations at the weekend, saying peaceful demonstrations should be tolerated.
"These wild attacks on gatherings should stop," Fadzil told a news conference called to announce his parties demands for the talks with Mahathir.
A newly formed human rights commission is to conduct a study on whether the rules should be relaxed to allow peaceful demonstrations. Illegal assembly is punishable by up to one year in jail, a fine or both, although relatively few people have in practice been jailed for this offense.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said street protests staged by opposition parties were "undemocratic" and would not resolve problems.
"There are (other) ways to do it. They are represented in parliament and many of their representatives can register their objections," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.
On Thursday, PAS said it wanted any talks with Mahathir to include sensitive political topics including official corruption, the independence of the judiciary and the case of Anwar. It also demanded that the talks include the reinstatement of oil royalties worth more than 1 billion ringgit (US$263 million) annually to the eastern state of Terengganu.
Reinstatement of the payments was now a precondition of the talks, Fadzil said on Sunday.
Mahathir froze the payments last year on grounds that the opposition group had no legal right to them. Two other states ruled by allies in Mahathir's coalition continue to receive oil royalties.
Unity
Mahathir has said the talks should focus on Malay unity, not political issues. There was no immediate response from the government party to PAS's announcement.
The fate of former finance minister Anwar, who is serving a 15-year jail term many Malays think is unjust, had been on the agenda at PAS's insistence, along with a range of other sensitive issues.
Mahathir is seeking to restore the image of his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) within the majority Malay community, which accounts for 55 percent of Malaysia's 22 million people.
UMNO, which has led every government since independence from Britain in 1957, is probably more unpopular with Malays than at any time in its history.
The current UMNO-led coalition includes parties drawn from Malaysia's minority Chinese and Indian communities.
UMNO won less than 50 percent of the Malay vote in the November 1999 election, its worst performance for 30 years, and has shown little sign of turning the tide ahead of the next election due in 2004.
UMNO leaders were stung by the ferocity of criticism leveled at them during a mass gathering in Kuala Lumpur two weeks ago which had been billed as a Malay unity rally.
Mahathir last month invited PAS to join in the unity talks, while Anwar's Keadilan, led by his wife, rejected a similar offer.
Keadilan won a by-election in the northwest state of Kedah, Mahathir's home territory, last November. The nine people on trial in Kulim stand accused of rioting during the by-election.