There are two main human rights that were brought about by the bersih rally that occurred in April 28.One of them is the freedom of assembly while the other is the right to take part in free and fair elections. Unfortunately, the exercise of these rights was characterized by violence where protesters, police personnel and journalists sustained injuries.
The government gave a promise that it would investigate with honesty and without bias, the occurrence of the violence, the perpetrators, who incited them and if there were any foreigners involved in the violence.
There is high hope that besides the police evidence, investigators would pay attention to the protesters’ allegations and reports from reliable sources like SUHAKAM and monitors from bar council. The investigation results should be availed to the public soonest possible for the sake of the nation and a firm action taken against the suspects.
It has also been prospected that the Bersih Rally violence would not have occurred if the organizers had heeded advice from DBKL and the police not to hold the rally in Dataran Merdeka but in the other four stadiums offered like Stadium Merdeka. This is because according to Dataran’s by-laws 1992,the square is only for use for public events and this resulted in the rejection of the request by the NGO to hold their rallies there.
Following the Bersih rally violence, another question comes out on how fair and free is elections in Malaysia This is because of the lack of ballot-box stuffing, disappearance of voters’ names in large numbers as well as ballot box switching. Over the years electoral irregularities have been observed and this is common to all electoral processes of the world.
This should not hinder us from believing that we can still change the way we conduct our electoral activities, are able to.