MALAYSIAN POLICE FIRE TEAR GAS AT PROTESTERS

Police fired tear gas and fought with protesters in Kuala Lumpur as thousands of people marched calling for “reform” and cleaner elections yesterday, defying a new government ban on street protests in Malaysia before national polls expected this year.

Police also used water cannons as protesters threw shoes, bottles and chairs while trying to break through barricades to enter a square where the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, orBersih, wanted to hold a sit-in. Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government enacted legislation this month banning such protests after police detained more than 1,600 people during a similar rally in July.

“A group of protesters tried to provoke a violent confrontation with police,” Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in an e-mailed statement. About 388 people were detained overall, according to a Twitter posting by the Malaysian police.

Najib’s handling of the clashes may affect plans for timing an election. Arrests during a street rally by the same group last year led to a drop in the prime minister’s approval rating. A delayed vote would prevent him from taking advantage of a swell in support that followed increases to civil servant salaries and cash payments to poor households.

Police Cordon

“The Malaysian government is once again showing its contempt for its people’s basic rights and freedoms,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement yesterday. “Despite all the talk of ‘reform’ over the past year, we’re seeing a repeat of repressive actions by a government that does not hesitate to use force when it feels its prerogatives are challenged.”

The authorities began cordoning off Kuala Lumpur’s Independence Square on April 27 after getting a court order preventing people from entering the area where Bersih planned a sit-in. Crowds marched in groups toward the square from different parts of the city, including the 88-floor Petronas Twin Towers.

One police car was overturned and a gun snatched by a protester, a Royal Malaysia Police spokesman said. The pistol was later retrieved, Hishammuddin said in a Twitter posting. Two officers were admitted to hospital with injuries and 20 others received outpatient treatment, he said.

Around 25,000 people took part in the rally, Bernama reported, without citing where it got the information. While primarily a pro-democracy rally, some called on the government to block plans by Australian miner Lynas Corp. to start rare- earth refining in the country on environmental and safety concerns.

Polls

Smaller rallies were held in other cities and abroad, including Sydney.

Najib’s approval rating in peninsular Malaysia fell to a two-year low of 59 percent a month after last year’s protests, according to the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research. It increased to 69 percent in February after the government announced it would give cash handouts of 500 ringgit ($164) to households with monthly incomes of 3,000 ringgit or less, and overhaul security laws. The margin of error was 3.07 percent.

The government does allow protests, so long as they are peaceful and held at appropriate venues, Bernama quoted Najib as saying yesterday.

Bersih is demanding that election officials resign after failing to implement all but one of the group’s eight demands, including a minimum 21-day campaign period, Ambiga Sreenevasan, the group’s co-chairwoman, said April 24. She received a copy yesterday of a court order from Kuala Lumpur Magistrates Court Judge Zaki Asyraf Zubir that prohibits the public from joining any rally at Independence Square until May 1.