{"id":783,"date":"2007-11-25T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2007-11-25T15:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2007\/11\/25\/hindraf-to-submit-petition-in-london\/"},"modified":"2007-11-25T23:45:08","modified_gmt":"2007-11-25T15:45:08","slug":"hindraf-to-submit-petition-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2007\/11\/25\/hindraf-to-submit-petition-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindraf to submit petition in London"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
Hindraf to submit petition in London
http:\/\/www.malaysiakini.com\/news\/75256 <\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n\n\n
Nov 25, 07 7:44am<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n

After six hours of confrontations in the streets of Kuala Lumpur today, the police eventually allowed Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) to submit the petition but the offer was rejected.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

P Uthayakumar, Hindraf's legal adviser, said the petition would be delivered to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in London instead. The 2,000-strong crowd outside the British High Commission then dispersed following pleas from organisers.<\/p>\n

The petition asks for Britain to appoint a Queen's counsel to represent Hindraf in their lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit targets former colonial ruler Britain, and is aimed at highlighting what ethnic Indians say is continuing discrimination by the Malaysian government. <\/p>\n

It seeks four trillion dollars' compensation for the estimated two million ethnic Indians whose ancestors were brought here as indentured labourers by Britain in the 1800s – two million dollars each. <\/p>\n

The activists are also demanding the government boost the social and economic standards of minority Hindus, who make up the third largest community in Malaysia. <\/p>\n

Nazri backs use of force<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, minister in the Prime Minister's Department, backed police use of force.<\/p>\n

"This protest is illegal. The police have been given permission to use legitimate means to halt the gathering. And this means the use of tear gas and water cannons," he told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Police used water cannons on the crowd who had gathered near the iconic Petronas Twin Towers but the protestors refused to budge while some threw the tear-gas canisters back. <\/p>\n

Chemicals used in the water cannons cause nausea and force people to gasp for air. <\/p>\n

Witnesses said police beat up some protestors with batons. Organisers said at least 400 people were arrested and 19 injured. Police, however, said more than 100 people had been detained.<\/p>\n

Demo a wake-up call<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lim Kit Siang, opposition lawmaker and chairman of DAP, said the excessive use of police force "is most high-handed, ham-fisted and undemocratic."<\/p>\n

\"\"The government had banned the rally, fearing it could spark racial violence and warned that anyone who participated would be detained.<\/p>\n

Demonstrators condemned the tough police action and said that they would not be not silenced.<\/p>\n

N. Vijayan, 40, an engineer, said the Indian community had been marginalised for too long.<\/p>\n

"This demonstration should be a wake-up call for the government that we are really upset with its policies," he said.<\/p>\n

– AFP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hindraf to submit petition in Londonhttp:\/\/www.malaysiakini.com\/news\/75256 Nov 25, 07 7:44am After six hours of confrontations in the streets of Kuala Lumpur today, the police eventually allowed Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) to submit the petition but the offer was rejected. P Uthayakumar, Hindraf's legal adviser, said the petition would be delivered to Britain's Queen Elizabeth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[119,112,21,24,27,105],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-dap","tag-discrimination","tag-hindraf","tag-mic","tag-protest","tag-uthaya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}