KL Cops hopes for compromise on 'Blackout505' venue

Police have called for a compromise following a deadlock between Pakatan Rakyat and City Hall(DBKL) today over the planned ‘Blackout 505’ rally next weekend.

Following a meeting today, Pakatan continued to insist on using Padang Merbok field for the June 22 ‘Blackout505’ rally. DBKL, however, had said that it was not available for use on that day.

“Hopefully we can all come to a compromise and this can be settled calmly,” KL police chief DCP Datuk Mohmad Salleh told Astro AWANI today.

Mohmad added that police are not taking any action at the moment, including making any pre-rally arrests.

“Now they are still negotiating and discussing, so we’ll wait and see what will be decided on next,” he said.

Earlier this morning, Pakatan reps met with the KL city mayor Ahmad Phesal Talib.

The mayor said that the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) had booked Padang Merbok to organise a charity run on June 23, and not Dataran Merdeka as claimed by the opposition.

PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli, one of the Pakatan leaders who met Ahmad Phesal, had claimed that the mayor had lied about the charity run’s venue and used it as an excuse to reject the party’s application for the rally.

Rafizi today also reportedly said that people would want to exercise their right to freedom of assembly as long as it does not breach the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012.

Aside from Rafizi, PKR’s Datuk Johari Abdul and the DAP’s Fong Kui Lun, also attended the meeting with Ahmad Phesal.

Ahmad Phesal had earlier this week given three reasons for rejecting the venue:

- to give space to OCM to prepare for the charity run a day earlier

- to preserve the landscape and decorations along Jalan Parlimen

- to avoid massive traffic congestion in the city.

“We can arrange for them to use the alternative venues. In fact the police also have no problem with their rally, but we are proposing to them a seated venue such as Stadium Merdeka or Stadium Titiwangsa,” Ahmad Phesal was quoted as saying by FreeMalaysiaToday.

The opposition has been organised massive public gatherings around the country in protest of electoral fraud since the May 5 polls, which they claimed was rigged.