KL mounts huge security drive to enforce ban on rallies

KL mounts huge security drive to enforce ban on rallies

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Hundreds of riot police backed by water cannon deployed across a key Malaysian state to enforce a ban on political gatherings by the country's biggest opposition party, police and opposition leaders said Wednesday.

Police have been enforcing the indefinite ban on open-air political gatherings imposed nationwide two weeks ago, citing security concerns. In a few cases, opposition activists meeting in violation of the ban have been detained for a day or two and released.

In a show of defiance, the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic party organized 31 gatherings Tuesday night across Selangor state, next to Kuala Lumpur.

Police mounted roadblocks at routes leading to the venues and turned back hundreds of people, PAS youth leader Mahfuz Omar told The Associated Press on Wednesday. No violence occurred and no arrests were made.

Mahfuz was one of the leaders scheduled to address one gathering.

"The police forced our party supporters to go home," Mahfuz said. "Barbed wires were put up and water cannon trucks stood by ... all to intimidate our people."

Fadzil Noor, the Islamic party's president, said that "the police are being used as political tools" and said a lawsuit was being considered to force the ban to be revoked.

Rusni Hashim, a senior police officer in Klang district, about 30 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur, said his men were under orders to mount a tight security operation against illegal gatherings.

"We are merely enforcing the law as part of a statewide operation," Rusni told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, activists from 80 human rights groups handed opposition lawmakers a bill to introduce in Parliament, demanding the government repeal laws that provide for detention without trial.

The bill is unlikely to be debated since it requires support from government lawmakers, who form more than two-thirds of Parliament.

In June, the government ordered six opposition activists to be detained without trial at a prison camp in northern Malaysia, accusing them of plotting violent protests to topple Mahathir. The opposition says the arrests were ordered to put down dissent against Mahathir's rule.

Helped by public anger over the jailing of popular former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, the fundamentalists emerged from general elections in 1999 as the main threat to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's rule over this Southeast Asian country of 23 million people.

Over the years, the party has depended heavily on open-air political gatherings to raise funds and draw Malay Muslims, the country's dominant ethnic group and traditional bedrock of Mahathir's support, into joining its ranks.

Many meetings are held without permits. Since the blanket ban was issued two weeks ago, the four-party opposition coalition that includes the fundamentalists has accused the government of employing heavy-handed tactics to suppress dissent.

Raja Ahmad Raja Zainuddin, a lawmaker in Mahathir's United Malays National Organization, said that Malaysia "is suffering from an overdose of politics."