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And now gov’t is afflicted by balloonphobia

Yoursay

Published: Sep 2, 2015 7:21 AM

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Updated: Sep 2, 2015 4:15 AM

YOURSAY ‘When did releasing balloons deemed as a criminal act in this country?’

Cops question woman for 'insulting PM' with balloons

Gerard Lourdesamy: Did performance artist Bilqis Hijjas drop a bomb on PM Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor? No. So why are the police overreacting?

Did she intent to insult and did it to cause a breach of the peace? The same section 504 of the Penal Code ought to be invoked against the 200,000 Bersih 4 protesters since everybody was demanding Najib to step down.

I assume words like ‘free media’, ‘democracy’ and ‘justice’ are now prohibited in Malaysia under Najib.

Bilqis has a simple defence, she was filling up the balloons for her own personal use when they floated away due to her carelessness since she was distracted by the presence of Najib and Rosmah on the ground floor of the mall.

It was unfortunate and entirely unintended that a few balloons came down close to Najib and his voluminous wife. There was nothing sinister about the colour yellow since it is Bilqis' favourite colour at this time of the year, I mean with autumn around the corner.

Just Your Normal Rakyat: By arresting Bilgis, the police is only proving that there is something amiss with the words ‘free media’, ‘democracy’ and ‘justice’.

For them to use Section 504 of the Penal Code - "intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of peace" - makes it even worse.

Why should they use this section unless the police is saying that our PM is insulted by these words.

Anonymous_1416272691: What's wrong for someone to tell her chief servant to do a proper job? This is what happen when you give your servant too much of authority.

The servant will then become the master. They become arrogant and abuse their authority. The Home Ministry and the PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police) in this instance is a fine example. They have failed the state.

Odysseus: Since when did releasing balloons with global messages is deemed as a criminal act in this country?

I really wonder how will teachers in the sekolah kebangsaan teach the student in moral and agama subjects when words like ‘justice’ and ‘democracy’ are deemed to be wrong.

Little Sparrow: This is plain bullying. Why don't the cops question former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he insulted Najib by saying he was an alleged thief and used money to bribe Umno MPs and division heads.

He also called Najib ‘bangsat’. Isn't that more insulting than these balloons?

Anonymous 1058841433936091: You are a brave girl, Bilkis. I am so proud of you. That was indeed a very bold thing to do. Najib and Rosmah, this is going to be trend everywhere until you step down.

Ace: If words like ‘justice’, ‘democracy’ and ‘free media’ are taboo to a prime minister, need we say more?

Try rallying a crowd without money or power, Ambiga tells PM

Aries46: Spot on S Ambiga. With RM2.6 billion in political funds from his Arab donors to safeguard the nation from DAP and the Jews and to buy votes, the Election Commission ever widening the urban lines and narrowing the rural lines to arrest Umno’s waning popularity and looking the other way to abuses of election rules, the East Malaysian fixed deposits constantly in need of fixing and incentives, captive votes of the entire civil service, uniformed bodies, GLCs, village heads, Felda, etc, at his disposal, Najib managed a miserly 47 percent of the popular votes but was rewarded with a 134 constituencies, mandate curtsy of the EC.

Yes, Najib can easily hire a crowd of 100,000 or 200,000 but he can’t smell the commitment, spirit, enthusiasm, patriotism and self-sacrifice of the Bersih participants even in his wildest dreams. If he could, he wouldn’t be in this dilemma.

Xtcher: Well said, but the PM and/or the component BN parties can always get around the challenge by "persuading" sponsors to donate free or RM1 bags of rice, free Korean pop band concerts or some 1Malaysia motor sports and companies to use their CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds to provide free transport to the venue.

And of course, some fast food and drinks companies to provide RM1 or even free meals (with an added bit of kangkung to improve the nutritional value) and drinks.

n1: If Najib is willing to share his donations by giving away to each participant RM1,000, we will also be present in his rally, but there to take back the monies he had allegedly stolen from the people and to tell him to step down.

Anonymous 759201436321741: Ambiga, look at the bright side. Mahathir's movement is closely monitored by Umno. What he said is not important.

His presence on the weekend in the midst of Bersih 4 participants might have already sent a cold chill of dread amongst top Umno leaders.

Justice Pao: Many of us were there for between an hour to three hours before 2pm on Saturday and we have seen many already on the way home in the LRT. The 100,000 crowd estimated by Malaysiakini could be on the low side.

At around the Central Market area between 1pm and 3pm, there was easily 30,000 people rallying there and by 3:30pm, many including my family and I have left as we felt we have made our presence and voice heard (there was plenty of singing and shouting) and the rally was peaceful even though we came prepared with carbon-filtered face masks, goggles, lime juice, salt and whatever we can get hold of in case we were tear-gassed by the police.

It was a thoroughly memorable first experience for all of us.

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