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Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Selamat Hari Rakyat (Happy Citizen Day) at Putra World Trade Center

Today, 1 October 2008 is Hari Rakyat (Citizens' Day) as well as Hari Raya. It is both a day for celebration for Muslim as well as Malaysian citizens. The People's Parliament led by Haris Ibrahim, human rights lawyer, managed to make a statement at Malaysia Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi Hari Raya Open House at the Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur when after much trouble and struggle we managed to meet Abdullah Badawi face to face and put our message across - Free Raja Petra (and for me to wish him Selamat Hari Rakyat:

Our group of about 40 activists gathered at Secret Recipe at The Mall opposite Putra World Trade Center at around 11am. At 11.30am we moved to the entrance to the PWTC banquet hall. We were stopped by the Police at the entrance, so we formed a line to make our unspoken statement as the crowd moved past us. About an hour later, we were allowed into PWTC by the police who said he has obtained permission for us to enter. However, we were diverted into a dining hall where we could not meet Abdullah Badawi face to face. So we exited and reentered and after much trouble, we finally get to line up to wait our turns to meet Abdullah Badawi face to face.

People's Parliament activists on the way to meet Abdullah Badawi
Photo curtesy of Malaysiakini


Haris Ibrahim passed the request to Abdullah Badawi ("Please free Raja Petra and the ISA detainees") and I wished Abdullah Badawi "Selamat Hari Rakyat" (Happy Citizen Day) instead of the customary Selamat Hari Raya.

After completing our mission, we gathered for a group photo:

People's Parliament Mission Accomplished
Photo curtesy of Malaysiakini

2 comments:

telur dua said...

Great, go enjoy the food. It is our money that they are shamelessly spending despite the global economic meltdown.

With the RPK T-shirts you guys are also passing the message to sleepy head, loud and clear. Good job.

Anonymous said...

Today our minister is enjoying his hari raya at his best luxury. I wonder whether he has any conscience towards the suffering of the people he has placed under ISA detention. If the spirit of this holy season is to forgive and forget, it definitely is not showing by the minister and the ruling party in the government, eventhough they are muslims! Can he and the ruling party ask themselves whether they really believe that these people are capable of threatening the security of the country and overthrow the government? If they think that these people can instigate unrest, how about letting the citizen of this country to have a say about such presumption? The minister and the ruling party always like to claim to have the majority support in their action but the truth is they may not even have the majority suppot of their own members within the party to act in such an uncaring and unforgiving manner. If the minister and the ruling party do have some decent human character, the least thing they can do is to free those under ISA detention without trial and allow them to face the proper court of law in this country. Is it that difficult to do the honourable thing as a human being towards another?