Toll Hike Protest – Summit, USJ, March 18th: The Ballad of Proton Yellow & Round Orange

Good news: Malaysiakini video speaks a 1000 words! Check it out, it’s far better than my big ass collection of pictures.

So I’ll just add tidbits.

Demo prob started around 4.15pm; then the police started the usual threats and then started spamming their sirens to drown out the speakers. New strategy, apparently, where all the squad cars just blast their sirens, creating quite the disco atmosphere.

Let’s think about this. Why do the cops so badly want to keep the rakyat from hearing what a few people have to say? If we were disturbing the peace, wasn’t that cacophany of sirens even worse?

So from speeches we transitioned to leaflet handing. And then we regrouped for 2nd round of speeches. The cops let Dr. Hatta speak, but as soon as they transitioned to Shaari Sungip, the cops laid on. You can see for yourself how brutal they were in the video, here are a few more pics.

Seriously, why do the cops need to so viciously manhandle a man who offered them no violence? (see video for evidence)

Once they ‘engaged’ him, do you really think anyone would attempt to physically harm the cops? Protestors aren’t stupid. We don’t go out there to pick a fight with cops. Our quarrel is with the government.

Can you think of a single reason why someone like Shaari Sungip would have to be violently grabbed and subdued so forcefully? Want to arrest, just arrestLAH.

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After that, Chan got arrested. He’s a real nice guy, just shooting videos most of the time. He was shoved around violently too. SB flers kept shouting and being all alpha-male about it. Here are the only photos I managed to get:

 

At this point, I had a little tussle of my own.

Let me introduce two SB friends. Proton Yellow (who you can see above too) and Round Orange.

 

Round Orange was a real hefty guy who showed me the true agent provocateur nature of our Special Branch.

At one point, when things started to get nasty, (I am perfectly willing to swear that) I witnessed this guy forcefully shove the crowd from behind.

It was so obvious he was trying to escalate the situation into more violence, probably to give the police an excuse to brutalise and get violent with the crowd?

Doesn’t sound like your friendly neighbourhood police?

Well, he’s not (plainclothes). But don’t think for a moment that the police aren’t capable of this sort of thing.

Proton Yellow got violent with me personally.

I was trying to take pictures of Chan getting dragged away violently, when Proton Yellow started yelling at me and at one point the ninny actually shoved my camera.

If they had damaged my favourite graduation gift, I would have been very unhappy.

I was already pretty unhappy and found myself standing there making an unhappy deadpan face at him. It was a bit of a blur, but I think he was still yelling at me. Then some uniformed cop came from behind and have me a little ‘hug’ and insisted (again, quite loudly) that I back off.

I think I was giving him a look too (but offering no forceful resistance of course – that’d be stupid), when a good friend from Suaram, Lih Kang, ‘came to my rescue.’ He (and someone else maybe) pulled me back and things seemed to calm down from then on (thanks Lih Kang!).

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Anyway. I really couldn’t help but have the impression that cops like Proton Yellow and Round Orange were really just itching for a fight. We certainly weren’t willing to give them one, but it seemed so strange.

I mean, do I prefer that people with violent tendencies are working with the cops rather than being gangsters on the streets?

You know, I really don’t know….

Round Orange was particularly vexing. This guy was like a kid! You should have seen this ridiculous grin on his face when things started going down and when he was trying to push everyone around and worsen the situation – from behind, most dishonourably.

I swear, it was like they were all getting hard-ons from their righteous anger :P :(

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Anyway, so they packed away 5 people in their little meat wagons. The protest leaders decided to do a little sit-in inside.

The Star says we disrupted things. In trying to be objective, I do regret any inconvenience caused to shoppers or tournament participants. I would venture to speculate that if the cops had just let us say our piece for one short hour, alllll off that could have been avoided.

The Summit people kept warning parents to keep their kids close :| But check out the videos and everything. Did you see a single protester acting violently? If kids needed to be kept safe, was it from us or from the cops?

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And then at last there was the police station. We waited, chanted, and prayed (in front of the police Light Strike Force) while our friends were inside. Young daughters alternated between screaming for their daddy’s release and playing football in front of the LSF.

 

 

(That’s Proton Yellow behind the football match, btw – with his LSF buddies nearby. Round Orange was hanging around too)

Took a heckuva long time, and the cops seemed to enjoy blaring their sirens every now and again. It was so silly – kononnya show of strength, jadinya macam disco :P

And Come On. If so many squad cars (with cops inside) were busy playing dance music for us, who the hell was patrolling the streets?!?! >:( Could this account for the four snatch thefts that have happened to people close to me so recently?

Sigh. But on a lighter note, when we saw a cop with sirens on on the way home, Remy said: ah, belum puas hati ni – hahaha.

Eventually they let them all out :)

(note: the round orange above is not to be mistaken for Round Orange :)

Now, let me ask you this. If taking people in and then releasing them at night is the standard Modus Operandi (and it is, trust me), where the police right in taking them in in the first place??

Are these the people the cops really should be so concerned about? Are we the ones inflicting harm and robbery on normal Malaysians? Just ask your local snatch thief.

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Sigh, what’s with all this repression? What is the government so afraid of? I’m still pondering this over…

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Super duper special thanks to politikus for her most indulgent patience in sticking with me throughout the ordeal! *muacks!* :)

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Plugs: politikus, Eli :)