Those who participated in the Hindraf rally in Kuala Lumpur yesterday must face the consequences, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.

Speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby today, he said the participants had breached the law.

"In this country, we have laws and we have to abide by them. No permit was given, so the rally was illegal. The legality of the gathering is not based on whether or not it was peaceful," he said.

He said the government does not hesitate to issue permits for a gathering indoors, where crowd control measures can be implemented.

"We give permits for the Umno general assembly, DAP general assembly, or even PAS or PKR," he explained.

"However, this gathering (was held) outdoors. We have to ensure that the rights of others are not abused. This is a multiracial country. Anything could happen along the way. If the police could not control the moving crowd, what more the organisers?"

He further claimed that the police had acted within their powers and were "victims" in various reported incidents, and that "there were no high-handedness on their part".

Asked why the rally was not discussed in the Dewan Rakyat today, he said parliamentarians "are being responsible because they know it is an explosive issue".

"We don't want to make it worse by making noise about it," he said.

Proof of 'independence'

On a related matter, Nazri said the Klang Session Court's decision today to discharge three key leaders of Hindraf "goes to show that the judiciary is very independent".

"The government has expressed our opinion based on media reports. But procedures must be followed. We cannot have a charge which later could be rejected on technical grounds," said the de facto law minister.

"We believe they were discharged because the actual text of their speech was not attached. We cannot depend on a translation, because it is not the actual speech. We must have the actual text, then only the translation."

However, Nazri said he would check with the Attorney-General's Chambers to find out the real reason why the trio had be given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal on a sedition charge.

Explaining that he was not informed if they will be charged under any other law, he did not deny the possibility for them to be charged again.

P Uthayakumar, P Waythamoorthy and V Ganapathy Rao were charged last Friday under Section 4(1B) of the Sedition Act, based on police investigations pertaining to reports lodged against them in relation to their speeches made at a recent forum in Batang Berjuntai, Selangor.