PENAMPANG, April 29 – Instead of backing out, Bersih 3.0 Sabah has launched a campaign to highlight and advocate public support for this Friday’s Himpunan May Day (HMD) rally through the social media. The Sabah chapter of the electoral reform group encouraged the public to wear yellow, gather at the nearest town, take a photo, record the number of participants, and post information to the organisers at the Bersih 3.0 Sabah website or tweet to @TapisSabah.
Bersih 3.0 Sabah chairman Jannie Lasimbang said it did not matter whether they wore a T-shirt, shirt, blouse, a headband, a scarf or a sarong as long as it was yellow in colour. “It is mainly for the outstation supporters. “Our campaign slogan reads ‘Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, wear yellow to show support for #HMDSABAH’.
“It is just another way of getting the people to support the rally, where we hope to highlight issues that concern Sabahans such as land issues, the illegal immigrants and the Goods and Services Tax,” she said in a statement. Lasimbang added that the rally was definitely on, “with or without” the green light from the authorities, adding that the movement would stick to the original plan of conducting it in a peaceful manner.
Reiterating that HMD was to be participated by law-abiding individuals, she said the rally was not meant to create chaos or nuisance as alleged by the police, who had obtained a court order to effectively lock down the entire city. She said four of the 16 people named in the court order lodged a police report today to strongly deny that the HMD rally was organised to create riots, cause obstruction, annoyance, injuries or endanger human life, health or safety.
She explained that the police report was filed to highlight the malicious intention of the police to link the HMD rally to the Opposition parties by selectively naming respondents when they applied for the court order. Two of the respondents, Lasimbang said, were not involved in organising the HMD.
This included Angkatan Perubahan Sabah president Datuk Seri Wilfred Bumburing and Sabah State Reform Party chairman Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan. “Our constitutional right to assemble, as contained in Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, was not only denied and infringed, but was administratively abused by the Kota Kinabalu City Hall declaring Padang Merdeka as exclusively for government use only.”
Lasimbang said its legal team was doing its level best to challenge the police court order to bar the rally, adding that although it was denied its constitutional right to assemble, it believed the people would rise above this minor setback. At least 50 non-governmental organisations have endorsed participation in the rally, which hopes to gather 10,000 people to take part in the two-hour rally, which begins from 3pm on May 1.
On Monday, city police chief Assistant Commissioner M. Chandra disclosed that police had obtained a court order to bar the people from gathering at five open spaces in the city, namely Taman Chong Thien Vun, Padang Merdeka, City Hall, Segama Waterfront and the City Park, between April 27 and May 3.
