Red Shirts to rally outside news portal’s office

KUALA LUMPUR: The Red Shirts will be gathering at the office of news portal Malaysiakini here on Saturday since its request to hold its rally in Dataran Merdeka has been turned down.

Its leader Datuk Seri Jamal Md Yunos said he “respected” the answer from Mayor Datuk Seri Mohd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz that Dataran Merdeka was off limits to Bersih and Red Shirts.

“We have done what is necessary and it was not approved. We were supposed to hold our gathering this Saturday at Kelab Sultan Sulaiman.

“The management gave us permission earlier, but on Oct 28 I met with them and it was withdrawn by the president, who is the Selangor Mentri Besar (Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali),” he told reporters outside the Dang Wangi district police headquarters yesterday.

“Now, we have applied to City Hall and it did not give us permission although we have gone through the process. We see that a suitable place is Malaysiakini headquarters at Jalan Tandang.”

To a question, Jamal said the portal’s office was suitable because the portal was one of the alleged recipients of funds from the Open Society Foundation (OSF), founded by American hedge fund billionaire George Soros.

Earlier, Jamal lodged a police report urging the authorities to investigate claims that Bersih was funded by OSF.

On Tuesday, a dossier said to contain 24 pages of confidential documents related to Soros and Bersih, was handed to the police by an NGO.

It was reported that the OSF has been funding several local groups to influence the outcome of the next general election.

Jamal said he was summoned to Bukit Aman yesterday over police reports made by Bersih against him.

“I was called by Bukit Aman to come. They told me if I did not come, they would arrest me,” he said.