Its human rights committee co-chairperson Andrew Khoo Chin Hock said the number of lawyers involved would be finalised on Friday evening.

“The monitoring team will be on the ground to observe that the right to assemble peacefully is promoted and facilitated,” he told FMT.

Khoo said the Bar had sent such teams to monitor past gatherings and it would prepare a report on the rally.

“We will not step in to protect and defend rally partcipants who are detained or arrested by the authorities,” he said.

However, an urgent arrest team has also been set up under the Bar Council Legal Aid Centre (Kuala Lumpur), which will operate separately from the monitoring team.

The organisers have announced that the rally will take place in Kuala Lumpur from 10am to 6pm.

Bersih 2.0 has urged Malaysians to turn out for the #Bersih 5 rally in Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, saying not protesting was no longer an option.

The electoral reform group also asserted that it had fulfilled all the requirements under the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) 2012 to hold the rally in Kuala Lumpur.

The organisers said they had delivered the 10-day notice required under the PAA by hand on Oct 28 to the police headquarters in Bukit Aman.

It also sent the same notice to the district police headquarters in Dang Wangi and Brickfields and the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.

“We would like to stress that it was not (about) a permit or permission to hold the rally.”

Bersih has assured Kuala Lumpur Mayor Mohamad Amin Nordin Abd Aziz that it was complying with City Hall’s order and this includes restraining from entering Dataran Merdeka.

Bersih has repeatedly reiterated its demands for clean elections, a clean government and strong parliamentary democracy.

It added the people must also have the right to dissent, and Sabah and Sarawak should be empowered.