bobjots : redux

.. Many of them who came in red T-shirts shouted anti-government slogans while some appeared rather aggressive, to hear their leaders speak since 10am and it went on until late Sunday night ..

.. The presence of police and members of other law-enforcement agencies around the stadium who acted in a professional way ensured that there was order ..

.. caused some problems to the neighbourhood residents who had to stay indoors for fear of their safety due to the sudden appearance of thousands of people in the area ..

The plan by the Coalition Against the Fuel Price Hike (Protes) to gather one million people to pressure the government to reduce the oil price, fell well short of the target when only about 10,000 people turned up at the Petaling Jaya City Council Stadium, near here, Sunday night ..

The fact that the coalition had scaled down their expectations due to the relocation of the protest was not mentioned and the fact that stadium, which has a self reported capacity of 25,000, was filled with an overspill into the field (which I was told, hearsay like, has a capacity of 100,000) was significantly overlooked

.. The poor response to the gathering which did not have a permit and organised by opposition leaders showed their failure to influence the public at large to protest against the government ..

Hmm .. what about the public threats and intimidation by the police to the public warning them not to attend the gathering, the unusual presence of military personnel in the neighbourhood up until the day before the protest, roadblocks all over the country (with some reported as far north as Ipoh)

.. However, the one-day gathering themed "Protest by A Million People", caused some problems to the neighbourhood residents who had to stay indoors for fear of their safety due to the sudden appearance of thousands of people in the area ..

One must wonder why no specific quotes were gathered. I know for a fact that friends who stayed in the neighbourhood actually took a walk over to the stadium to see what the big deal was. To some of them, it was a first .. both as a participant in a political protest rally as well as a visitor to their neighbourhood stadium.

.. The police had earlier advised the organisers to hold the rally at a more suitable place like the Shah Alam Stadium or Malawati Stadium ..

The police did advice the organisers to relocate the protest that was originally planned to be held at KLCC. The organisers originally relocated the protest to Padang Timur in PJ but was again advised to relocate it to an enclosed venue, like a stadium (note that none was specifically mentioned). This caused the organisers to scale down the expected turnout and agree to relocate the event to the Kelana Jaya Stadium, in the interest of public security (since we didn't want participants to get maced or get the living daylights whupped outta them by the ever so efficient and mesra rakyat police force).

And it wasn't that the whole shebang yesterday was uneventful. There was an incident where Carburetor Dung, one of the bands playing created a little incident which involved boxer shorts while singing their signature anti-corporatist anthem, Mari Menyanyi Menjilat, and they had to be escorted out of the venue for their own safety. I wasn't there so I'll let them speak for themselves and maybe another third party opinion. But I have to admit, it was a pretty dumb thing to do when your audience consisted a significant number of pakciks with their wives and kids around.

Here are some photos (sorry for the bad quality .. maklum le .. cell phone camera). I won't give an exact figure since I'm pretty lousy at visual crowd estimation but the published reports by various news agencies give a figure between 10,000 - 30,000. Have a look at the photos and work it out yourself.