No road closure ahead of Jan 12 rally (Video)

There will not be any road closure during the Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat rally this Saturday.

This was confirmed by Bukit Aman Assistant Head of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Secretariat (Public Relations) Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf during a media briefing held today.

“As far as I know, there are no instructions for any road closures on the day of the rally,” Ramli said.

This was further confirmed by the official Twitter account of Polis Diraja Malaysia, @PDRMsia, and the public will be informed should there be any changes.

Bukit Aman Federal Reserve Unit commander SAC Datuk Abdul Hamid Mohd Ali, meanwhile, answered questions regarding the police tags that media personnel are required to wear during the rally.

“The media pass we are introducing is new and we will use this as a trial case. It is a way to identify media practitioners covering this event. If it works, we will use it as a standard of operations for other events like disasters, rallies or major operations involving police and a high number of media personnel."

Hamid also explained about the deployment of 50 marshals to assist reporters and cameramen should they require any assistance especially to move around during the rally.

When asked if this will restrict the movements of the media, Hamid said that this is done for the safety of everyone.

“The media can go anywhere they want. However, they can ask assistances from the marshals. Should there be a place where it is not safe, we will not bring the media personnel there. Safety and security are at the heart of the operations,” he explained.

On Tuesday, police urged journalists, who will be covering the rally, to wear special police-issued tags but was slammed by several quarters on grounds that it interfered with press freedom.