Yesterday, December 10, is International Human Rights Day. Many countries will be marking this important day with initiatives aimed at strengthening their commitment to protecting human rights and garnering as much support as possible towards ending human rights violations across the world. It would be reasonable to assume that Malaysia, a member of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, would be similarly engaged.

Instead, the government has chosen to mark the event in quite a different way - by arresting people who were exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression on Sunday. Those arrested were citizens who were walking peacefully in a march to commemorate International Human Rights Day in Kuala Lumpur as well as a number of people involved with Bersih in various states.

Whatever opinions it has about the causes these citizens are engaged in, it is the obligation of a democratic and responsible government to respect and protect fundamental democratic rights such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly.

In the case of the human rights march, the question of whether a police permit was issued is irrelevant. If we have the right to peaceful assembly, a right which is enshrined in Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of our Federal Constitution, then we should not need permission to exercise that right.

A right is not a right if permission must be sought before you can exercise it. Thus, the authorities should only take action against those involved in public gatherings if it becomes unruly or disrupts peace. I gather that this did not happen at the human rights march.

In an ironic way, the actions of the Malaysian authorities have helped highlight just why it is so important and necessary that we have an International Human Rights Day in our calendar - by illustrating that human rights should be universal by now and protected by democratic governments. It is by no means so.