Anti-Bersih ‘red shirts’ call off its protest

KUALA LUMPUR: The anti-Bersih red shirt group has decided to postpone its protest on Aug 29.

Its spokesman Datuk Jamal Yunus said he and several group members had gone to the Dang Wangi police headquarters to have their statements taken yesterday evening and had a meeting with the City police chief and Dang Wangi OCPD after that.

“We were briefed on how the police planned to handle the Bersih 4.0 rally.

“They also advised us not to have our rally on the same day and we will listen to their advice,” he told reporters at the Dang Wangi police headquarters yesterday evening.

He said they would hold their rally to voice their dissatisfaction over the Bersih 4.0 rally in one or two weeks’ time.

“We will follow the law and have our rally at a suitable venue.

“We may hold the rally at a stadium,” he said, adding that although they had made logistical arrangements for the rally on Aug 29 including renting buses to ferry people.

Jamal said reports stating that their supporters had been advised to carry parang and other weapons were sensationalised.

“We did not advise anyone to carry weapons. We merely wanted to demonstrate silat techniques,” he said.

It was earlier reported that despite a police warning, the anti-Bersih red shirt group will carry on with its counter gathering plan this weekend.

Jamal had told reporters yesterday afternoon that they were only prepared to call off their gathering if Bersih 4 rally organisers did the same.

He also claimed that his group, said to consist of 30,000 members from over 280 NGOs, many of whom are silat practitioners would proceed with the planned counter-rally.

They had planned to gather at Low Yat Plaza on Aug 29, starting from 2am and march to Dataran Merdeka via Jalan Pudu at 10am.

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