Arutchelvan and 50 other activists had gathered in front of the office last week to submit an appeal for Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to intervene in the sacking of Bank Negara employee Y Kohila.
He had insisted that the activists who gathered at the office had done nothing wrong, but the police had lodged a report against him on the same day.
Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) executive director Eric Paulsen, in response to the matter, said the police follow-up action to investigate the organisers of the peaceful protest was totally unnecessary.
“This is because the assembly was peaceful and entirely consistent with the right to freedom of assembly,” he told FMT.
Paulsen stated that police must be able to take the cue from the new government on the statements that have been made by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and various ministers on the government’s commitment to abolish or amend oppressive laws, including the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA).
“The old Barisan Nasional (BN) regime’s ways of oppressing the rakyat for merely exercising their fundamental liberties are over.
“Police must be able to catch up with the aspirations of the new government and the rakyat instead of working on auto-pilot,” he said, calling on the police to stop wasting precious resources on such frivolous cases and focus on tackling genuine crimes.
Human rights watchdog Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), in a tweet today, condemned the police action taken against Arutchelvan.
“Sending a memorandum is not a crime. Investigation by PDRM (police) is nothing more than harassment,” Suaram said in its tweet.
Anti-graft group Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) executive director Cynthia Gabriel also weighed in on the probe against Arutchelvan.
“In the era of ‘Malaysia Baru’, police should not even be opening an investigation into a peaceful demonstration.
“Our right, to disagree, express, protest and assemble peacefully is guaranteed in the constitution and reaffirmed in the Pakatan Harapan manifesto,” she tweeted.
Kohila was a manager at Bank Negara’s Museum and Art Gallery Department and had been an employee at the central bank for 12 years.
She was laid off last year for wearing a “Remove GST” T-shirt at a Labour Day protest in 2016. The PH administration had zero-rated the GST on June 1.
Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had also announced that his ministry had formed a committee to look into legislation which might be against human rights.
He said the committee, among others, will look at the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, Sedition Act 1948, the death penalty, Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, Prevention of Crime Act 1959 (Poca), Security Offences (Special Measures) Act of 2012 (Sosma) and Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (Pota).