On the 9th November 2008 at about 11pm, I was awaken from my sleep by a phone call from a fellow lawyer from the Urgent Arrest Team informing me that 24 people were arrested including a lawyer, an opposition MP and 2 state assemblymen. The arrest was for unlawful assembly for the candlelight vigil for the 1st anniversary of the Bersih rally. I , being part of the Team, got ready and went to the Section 8 police station in PJ. I reached there about 1145pm and there was already a crowd outside the police station.
I was told that before I arrived that 2 opposition MP's have already given their press statements and left. Being part of the Urgent Arrest Team for awhile now, you get immune to the antics and the stunts that certain groups do to get publicity. At the end of the day, the dirty work is always left to us. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I just want the public to know who the real people on the scene actually are. It is important to know who are the people that get their hands dirty and are not interested in the media and the publicity. More often than not, the people who get the media attention do the least amount of work.
When the arrests had taken place, the Chairman of the Selangor Bar, Mr. Rajpal Singh, had already contacted the Chief Police Officer (CPO) of Selangor to know the situation of the detainees and what they are going to do with them. In circumstances like these, the police can do one of two things, they can keep you overnight and produce you in court the next day or they can release you on a police bail. We always work to get the latter. Rajpal then told us that the CPO would inform us when we can have access to the detainees. They required time to take down particulars and process the paperwork.
Until we get access to the detainees, we are unable to advise them and the waiting game begins. The wait could depend on many factors. It could be because of the number of detainees, idiotic police officers, nature of the offence or just plainly making the lawyers life difficult. When I am on duty, I don't expect to be home early.
After about an hour, Rajpal gets a call from the CPO and he informs us that we should be able to have access to the detainees in about 20 minutes. The CPO then allows 5 lawyers to enter the station. We negotiated and they allowed 9 lawyers to enter. Among the 9 lawyers was an opposition MP. Before the CPO said anything to us, the said MP started raising his voice at the CPO and starts abusing him. The CPO immediately tells him to behave and if he refuses to do so he would be arrested. At this point, Rajpal stops the MP and tells him that he is in charge and calmed him down. The MP then challenges the CPO to arrest him and we calm the whole situation down. Rajpal then tells the CPO that we want access to the detainees before their police statement is taken down. He agreed and we were allowed to set up a team before we saw the detainees.
We got a team of 14 lawyers and we advised the detainees on their rights. The police allowed us to provide some nasi lemak and KFC to the detainees as they were hungry. The Team stayed at the station until 3am and all but one detainees were released at 7am.
I was disappointed with the way MP behaved. If this is the state of an opposition MP then I would not want him to be part of the ruling government. It was unprofessional conduct by him and he later stated that the lawyers did not know what they were doing and were too polite to the police. Apparently we did not fight with the police enough.
Dealing with the police is a psychological game and you play it. It turns out as a win-win most of the time when you get it right. Not all encounters with the police needs to be a fight. I fear that certain opposition MP's don't have what it takes to be part of the ruling government and I think they lack of intelligence. When you are an elected MP, you have a different recourse. You fight for the people in parliament and you don't go to the streets anymore. You are at a different level. The Pakatan Rakyat exco members should not have been at the vigil in the first place. They are members of the Exco of Selangor State Government. What were they doing at the vigil? Publicity stunt?
The people needs to be given a choice on who should be running the government. But when the people are left with 2 bad choices, who would they pick? So will the people vote for Pakatan Rakyat the next election because they are capable of running the country or because the people are just fed up with the ruling government?
There has to be a third choice.
Sreekant Pillai
I was told that before I arrived that 2 opposition MP's have already given their press statements and left. Being part of the Urgent Arrest Team for awhile now, you get immune to the antics and the stunts that certain groups do to get publicity. At the end of the day, the dirty work is always left to us. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I just want the public to know who the real people on the scene actually are. It is important to know who are the people that get their hands dirty and are not interested in the media and the publicity. More often than not, the people who get the media attention do the least amount of work.
When the arrests had taken place, the Chairman of the Selangor Bar, Mr. Rajpal Singh, had already contacted the Chief Police Officer (CPO) of Selangor to know the situation of the detainees and what they are going to do with them. In circumstances like these, the police can do one of two things, they can keep you overnight and produce you in court the next day or they can release you on a police bail. We always work to get the latter. Rajpal then told us that the CPO would inform us when we can have access to the detainees. They required time to take down particulars and process the paperwork.
Until we get access to the detainees, we are unable to advise them and the waiting game begins. The wait could depend on many factors. It could be because of the number of detainees, idiotic police officers, nature of the offence or just plainly making the lawyers life difficult. When I am on duty, I don't expect to be home early.
After about an hour, Rajpal gets a call from the CPO and he informs us that we should be able to have access to the detainees in about 20 minutes. The CPO then allows 5 lawyers to enter the station. We negotiated and they allowed 9 lawyers to enter. Among the 9 lawyers was an opposition MP. Before the CPO said anything to us, the said MP started raising his voice at the CPO and starts abusing him. The CPO immediately tells him to behave and if he refuses to do so he would be arrested. At this point, Rajpal stops the MP and tells him that he is in charge and calmed him down. The MP then challenges the CPO to arrest him and we calm the whole situation down. Rajpal then tells the CPO that we want access to the detainees before their police statement is taken down. He agreed and we were allowed to set up a team before we saw the detainees.
We got a team of 14 lawyers and we advised the detainees on their rights. The police allowed us to provide some nasi lemak and KFC to the detainees as they were hungry. The Team stayed at the station until 3am and all but one detainees were released at 7am.
I was disappointed with the way MP behaved. If this is the state of an opposition MP then I would not want him to be part of the ruling government. It was unprofessional conduct by him and he later stated that the lawyers did not know what they were doing and were too polite to the police. Apparently we did not fight with the police enough.
Dealing with the police is a psychological game and you play it. It turns out as a win-win most of the time when you get it right. Not all encounters with the police needs to be a fight. I fear that certain opposition MP's don't have what it takes to be part of the ruling government and I think they lack of intelligence. When you are an elected MP, you have a different recourse. You fight for the people in parliament and you don't go to the streets anymore. You are at a different level. The Pakatan Rakyat exco members should not have been at the vigil in the first place. They are members of the Exco of Selangor State Government. What were they doing at the vigil? Publicity stunt?
The people needs to be given a choice on who should be running the government. But when the people are left with 2 bad choices, who would they pick? So will the people vote for Pakatan Rakyat the next election because they are capable of running the country or because the people are just fed up with the ruling government?
There has to be a third choice.
Sreekant Pillai
