Three organisations write to the Malaysian Ambassador to Thailand to express solidarity and relay an appeal to the government to allow the Bersih 2.0 rally to proceed.

9 July 2011

H.E. Amb. Dato’ Nazirah Hussain
Ambassador of Malaysia
33-35 South Sathorn Road, Tungmahamek,
Sathorn, Bangkok 10120.
Tel: +66 2 679 2190 – 0  Fax: +66 2 679 2208

Solidarity with Malaysians – Bersih’s Rally Should be Allowed Respect to Proceed

Today, the Malaysian people will organize a rally led by the Bersih 2.0 – a coalition of civil society organizations to campaign for electoral reform in Malaysia. We are here to express our strongest solidarity support for the struggle of our Malaysian friends for human rights and democracy in Malaysia.

As a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, your government should respect and protect the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. Instead, your government has shamelessly and arbitrarily arrested more than 150 people and raided the office of Bersih, in an attempt to create fear and to stop the rally. We condemn strongly these undemocratic actions of your government, which also constitute grave violations of human rights.

We are especially concerned about the physical and mental integrity of the six detainees who have been detained without trial under the Emergency (Public Order and Crime Prevention) Ordinance since 2 July 2011. These detainees are Dr. Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj (member of parliament), Sarasvathy a/p Muthu, Letchumanan a/l Aseer Patham,Choo Chon Kai, Sukumaran a/l Munisamy and Sarat Babu a/l Raman. Any form of detention without trial is a barbaric act, a gross violation of human rights and an affront to justice.

We call on your government to:

Allow the Bersih’s rally to be held without harassment, intimidation, arrest and violence from your police force;
Release all the 6 detainees currently detained under the Emergency (Public Order and Crime Prevention) Ordinance;
Abolish the Emergency Ordinance as recommended by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
Ensure the physical and mental integrity of all detainees and are not subject to any form of torture;
Drop all charges against the organizers and campaigners of Bersih’s rally

Thank you for your attention and we hope you will take the necessary actions to save the international reputation of your country.

Sincerely yours,

People’s Empowerment Foundation
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development
Try Arms Labor Group