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."