About 200 supporters of the pro-Umno Red Shirts movement opted to carry out charity work by helping build retaining walls out of sandbags against this weekend’s tide waters, which are expected to be higher because of typhoon forces heading westward from the Pacific Ocean.
The Bersih 5 convoy is making its way from Sekinchan to Tanjong Karang. For the past two weeks, the Red Shirts have followed the convoy, reportedly harassing and even assaulting members of the convoy.
Red Shirts legal advisor Mohd Imran Tamrin said the group of volunteers had been in Sekinchan since Friday to help residents protect their coastal homes and farms.
He said their focus at present was to help the people rather than deal with yellow-shirt Bersih supporters who, he said, were busy spreading lies about the government.
“Even though there is no clash between red and yellow today, we are still sending the same message, that where they go, we will go too, only today our focus and objective is to help the people here.”
Elaborating on the effort to build retaining walls, Imran said some 200 volunters were involved in the activity which started in Parit 5, in Sekinchan.
“We hope with this retaining walls, we can reduce the impact of the high tides which are expected to hit tomorrow,” he said, adding some 3,000 sand bags, weighing over 100 tonnes, were used to raise a wall stretching 1.5km along the coast.
Yesterday, Red Shirts leader Jamal Yunos had said in a Facebook posting that the group would not challenge today’s convoy, but would focus on carrying out “charity work” for residents of Sungai Besar and Selangor because of high tides expected in the next few days.