Malaysia arrests 514, fires tear gas at protest

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Police have detained more than 500 people and fired tear gas at many others as more than 10,000 demonstrators are massing across Malaysia's largest city to demand electoral reforms.


The opposition-backed rally is the culmination of weeks of intense pressure on Prime Minister Najib Razak's long-ruling coalition to make election laws fairer and more transparent ahead of national polls widely expected by mid-2012.


Authorities took extraordinary security measures to deter Saturday's rally by sealing off roads, closing train stations and deploying trucks mounted with water cannons near the Independence Stadium in downtown Kuala Lumpur.
Organizers said tear gas was fired at protesters but no injuries were immediately reported.


news.yahoo.com...

Update out:

Malaysia fires tear gas at protest, arrests 644

www.msnbc.msn.com...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Police fired tear gas and detained hundreds of activists as more than 20,000 demonstrators massed Saturday across Malaysia's main city demanding electoral reforms in the country's biggest political rally in years.

Through another forum (for sports card collectors) I know an individual who has taken part in the peaceful protests over there. Given his approval, I'm going to post his story within this topic.

News Report on Youtube Hi all, My apologies for my extended absence. I've been very busy of late helping out in whatever way with the Bersih 2.0 (stands for 'clean') rally that was held yesterday in Malaysia. Have a look at the Youtube link above for a quick recap of what happened. Essentially, the movement is organized by a group of 62 NGOs with the objective of seeing clean and fair elections in Malaysia. We are sick of the way our draconian government has lorded over us for the past 53 years.....huge amounts of corruption, police brutality and dirty tactics. We marched together yesterday between 2pm and 4pm Malaysian time....there was no violence on our part. We sang patriotic songs as we marched and carried yellow balloons and flowers. There were women, children, elderly and even disabled people among us. In total, roughly around 20,000 turned up for this. How did the police respond? They peppered us with hundreds of tear gas grenades and doused us with chemically-laced water from water cannons. They even shot tear gas into a MATERNITY hospital in order to weed out some rally members. This is a very critical period in Malaysia and the weeks to come will no doubt see many developments. I may or may not have much time to be online as I have dedicated my time to help out as much as I can in whatever way I can. The government is also threatening an internet blackout as there is already a ton of footage out there documenting how the police brutalized peaceful demonstrators....they don't want the world to see this. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers! This is Bersih 2.0s main homepage....you can find out more here: BERSIH 2.0