After being snubbed by Sri Lanka embassy in the first round, MIC Youth wised up and got its coalition partners to join in the next protest which was held today evening. UMNO sent about 300 members, while representatives from Gerakan, MCA, PPP, IPF, Makkal Sakthi, and other NGOs attended as well.  I, for one, never thought the other BN partners will join in MIC protests. For that, I must say well done to MIC Youth. I really can’t remember MIC Youth ever leading any protest with other coalition members before this, so this is an achievement.

Hmm…not sure about DAP, PAS, and PKR members. Never get invitation?

However, I was surprised to see the police not doing anything to disperse the crowd. Borrowing the Selangor CPO, Deputy Home Minister and others of the same ilk’s words – What if some “bad elements” made use of the crowd to cause disturbance? The police should take preemptive action before something bad happens 🙂

Permit? I think we better not venture into that area.

More surprising is the orange color t-shirts worn at the protest. Orange at the moment symbolises HINDRAF. But it seems MIC members (Youth or Putera?) also use the same color for some time now. At the very least, police should have taken in all those wearing orange into questioning and ask them things like : Why you wear orange, which group wears orange, were you at deepavali open house, are you member of hindraf, who is your leader, why he is not here, why you are here, and 1001 other questions. 🙂

MIC also takes a leaf out of HINDRAF’s strategy by including children in their protest. But since its just a day before school holidays start, I guess its OK to bring the kids for some sort of outing.

Oh ya, I’m not belittling the protest nor the war in Sri Lanka. I’m very curious on why the police never do anything.

All in all, good effort by MIC Youth. Hope we see more protests in the future.

Pool of Orange!

Hundreds of MIC Youth members, party supporters and NGO representatives were bussed in from all over the country for the protest.

This time they were joined by about 200 Putera Umno members led by Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim. There were also small representations from the youth wings of Gerakan, PPP and MCA.

Last Friday MIC Youth had similar but smaller demonstration at the same site.

At about 3pm, the crowd armed with placards and banners marched some 100 metres towards the Sri Lankan embassy and gathered there for about 30 minutes.

At that point the crowd had swollen to about 1,000 people, including children.

They chanted slogans such as “Don’t kill the innocent”, “No war” and “Stop the killings” in Tamil. The protestors also donned black arm bands to show they were mourning for the dead civilians in the conflict.

Memorandum handed

By about 4pm, protest representatives handed a memorandum to Sri Lankan embassy officials – as representatives of BN Youth demanding the Sri Lankan government to cease their military aggression.

The Sri Lankan government was also urged to allow international aid organisations into the affected areas and resume negotiations with combatants.

Speaking to reporters later, chief organiser of the protest and MIC Youth deputy chief S Murugesan told reporters that the protestors represented a cross-section of Malaysians who are opposed to the violence in Sri Lanka

Abdul Azeez (left) said that Umno Youth and youth wings of other Barisan component parties had joined the MIC Youth initiated demonstration on the basis of friendship.

“We give full support to this action initiated by MIC Youth especially in opposing the use of violence against civilians and the bombings of hospitals and schools,” he said.

He said that the protest was not meant to be a political action, but it should be seen as a humanitarian appeal for the Sri Lankan government to end military violence.

The event was closely watched by 50 police personnel who did not intervene except to halt the protestors 50 metres from the embassy.

Asked if a police permit had been obtained for the protest, Murugesan did not give a direct answer.

“We have applied for it… We were told in that in principle, they (the police) have agreed,” he said.