16 Jerit cyclists arrested in Malaysia

Dec 6, 2008 The 'Ride for change' campaign has hit another snag. This morning, 16 activists about to take part in the cycling campaign were arrested at Suaram's office in Skudai and released after about an hour of questioning.

According to the campaign's southern region co-ordinator Nyam Kee Han, who was also arrested, some of the cyclists were arrested at 8.30am when around 50 police officers put up a total of eight roadblocks around the office area. "The first 12 people were arrested at 8.30am, when they were trying to negotiate with the police in front of our office gate so we all could proceed with our plan. "But as they were trying to negotiate, the police decided to arrest them instead.

The remaining four, including myself, who were in the office, were arrested at 9.15am," said Nyam, who was at the Skudai police station when contacted. According to Nalini, who is also Suaram co-ordinator, the police arrested the group for illegal assembly. "But I argued that it was not an illegal assembly as we were all just trying to cycle. But the police said that they received specific instructions to arrest us," said Nalini.

The campaign is Jerit's attempt to raise awareness of the current issues plaguing the country like food shortage, environmental problems, draconian laws and the current financial crisis. The group is scheduled to hand over a memorandum to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim at the end of their campaign.

Jerit co-ordinator Y Kohila explained at the launch of the event last week that the campaign was inspired by estate workers in Bukit Asahan, Melaka, who marched 150km to Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s to meet the then prime minister to resolve their problems. "We were not allowed to go out and the police started disturbing our bicycles, sitting on them and pushing them, and that's when we got angry," said Kohila, adding that the police accused activists of being unco-operative. "But the bicycles are our property and they have no right to do so.

Then they started asking the participants, especially the students, questions just to intimidate us," she added. Prior to that, she claimed that officers threatened to break down the office gate. "But we opened it ourselves when they gave us that warning," said Kohila. She also said the arrests this morning had thwarted their plans. "The police told us not to cycle in Skudai. They said even if one person cycles in Skudai, he or she would be arrested," she said. When asked about Jerit's next step, she replied, "We will decide once we go to Kulai to have our lunch but we'll let you know if we get arrested there." When contacted by Malaysiakini this afternoon, Nalini said the whole team was still in Kulai.

"The police are still following our bus to all the places we are going to. They are intimidating us by taking pictures and preventing us from moving." At around 4.30pm, 13 activists started cycling from Kulai to Simpang Renggam. However, according to Nalini, police stopped the Jerit activists and took them to the Kulai police station, where they were issued traffic summonses for not having reflectors on their bicycles. As of 7pm, cyclist were still on the way to Simpang Renggam.

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