The Bersih4Kuching organisers wholeheartedly thank the
people of Sarawak for their support over the Bersih weekend events – thank you
to those who attended for coming and to those who didn’t for accepting any
disruption.
Participants were well-behaved and Bersih 4 was peaceful, no disturbances happened
Thank you to the police and
the Mayor of MBKS for their sympathetic attitude and thank you to the State
Government for putting their trust in the Rakyat to behave exactly as they
did.
The event has proven that Bersih is
not ‘mob politics’, it is the voice of the voting public, and we beg you listen
to them! The crowd was enormous for
Kuching, a clear sign that the people have had enough of the current levels of
corruption and skewed governance.
Many
Sarawak people had also taken the trouble to fly to KL for the event
there. The organisers will deliver the
signatures to the Chief Minister’s Office on Thursday 3 September, from there
it is up to him.
Nicholas Mujah anak Ason, said: “We also apologise once
again for the cancellation of the event on the second day. We know that there were many, many
Sarawakians who planned to come to Song Kheng Hai on the Sunday to register
their presence and have their voices heard.
We were receiving calls all day yesterday from members of the
public.
We are not the type of people to
apportion blame to anyone and we accept all the criticism that might come our
way. However, we stand by our decision
even in the light of any disappointment.
The first day was so wonderful, thanks to the people of Sarawak.
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| Bersih 4 Kuching signing begins |
We feared that the second might not be so
lucky and this would mar the whole event.
Our sound system was gone; there were increasing numbers of people bringing
children on the field, making the police nervous, and there was evidence of
increasing extremism from a small minority of participants unbefitting an NGO
calling for clean governance.”
He added: “We respect people’s right to free speech but
we also feel that this should be done with the respect that is proper from one
human being to another. Overall, we feel
that the event was a good example of freedom of expression.
People were allowed to attend and register
their protest at the unpleasant changes that we are seeing in our beloved
country. Then they dispersed peacefully
without any injury or harm. Our thanks
go to the police, once again.
They acted
with dignity and allowed us ours. Their
only stipulation was that we respect the law and the smooth running of the
city. We owed them that at least. ”
There was one unpleasant incident in the wake of the
cancellation. A totally fabricated story
circulated from a blog, Sarawakiana.net, that Nicholas Mujah ak Ason had tried
to lay blame onto an opposition party which attended the event.
This story was picked up by the Borneo Post
in particular who were later required to take the spurious story down from
their website. Karen Shepherd,
spokesperson for Bersih4Kuching stated: “Personally, I question the
professionalism and, frankly, the sanity of any journalist who picks up
information from a blog or a Whatsapp chat group and then proceeds to publish
it without any verification whatsoever.
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| Chief organiser Nicholas Mujah using a hailer to speak to the participants |
The motivation of this so-called blogger is unclear but it has not
reflected well on the mainstream media with many readers now calling their
objectivity into question.
Unfortunately, they were fooled on this occasion. Unfortunately, members of DAP also were taken
in and took the opportunity to spew forth all kinds of venom and condemnation
in the press and in social media.
I
would just like to say that Peter John Jaban was MC for the event and not an
organizer, as DAP well know, and therefore not in any position to give consent
to a breakaway event – so why should he?
I can also state that this kind of finger-pointing did not come from any
member of the organizing committee.
If
members of the public were blaming certain parties on social media, then that
has come from their own observations of the behavior on the field and not from
us. If anything should come out of this
week’s events, it should be that Ministers, Political Parties, Journalists and
Commentators of any kind should take care to verify facts before they shoot publically. I hope it is a lesson learned.”
Overall, the organisers genuinely feel that the event,
albeit shorter than expected, was something for Sarawak to be proud of. It served to highlight the five clear and
consistent goals of Bersih, under which the resignation of a Prime Minister
facing allegations of corruption is a natural part.
The organisers hope that the public enjoyed
the opportunity to come out in solidarity with those goals. Karen Shepherd ended by saying: “Bersih is in
this for the long term. We will continue
to work with anyone who is willing to achieve a ‘bersih’ Malaysia.
We sincerely believe that Bersih is not the
space where the people listen to politicians.
It is the space where the politicians must come to listen to the
people. We hope that they will be
heard.”
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