Friday, November 23, 2007

Three Hindraf leaders arrested under ISA

KUALA LUMPUR: Police have arrested three Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) leaders under the Sedition Act on Friday.

P. Uthayakumar (photos), Hindraf's legal advisor was arrested Friday morning, while his brother Waythamoorthy, who is also the organisation's president, and S. Ganapathy Rao were arrested in the afternoon.

Uthayakumar was arrested under the Sedition Act at his office in Bangsar on Friday by five plainclothes policemen from the Selangor police headquarters in Shah Alam.

Uthayakumar, 46, was in his room working when the police came at about 10.30am. His secretary A. Shantha said the police had told the staff they wanted to serve a warrant on Uthayakumar.

"The policemen then approached Uthayakumar and before we knew it, he was arrested. The arrest was by the same team of policemen who had earlier gone to see Uthayakumar in his house in Bangsar at 7am to serve him with a court order," said Shantha.

The court order served on Uthayakumar in his house was issued by a Kuala Lumpur magistrate's court under Section 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

This section allows for a magistrate to issue an order in urgent cases of nuisance. The magistrate may direct a person to abstain from a certain act if the magistrate considers the intended action is likely to cause annoyance, injuries or endanger humans or lead to a riot.

The order is effective for seven days, until next Thursday.

Hindraf is planning a gathering on Sunday outside the British High Commission in Jalan Ampang.

At least 20,000 people are expected to take part in Sunday’s gathering and the protestors had been told to dress in orange.

The assembly is to submit a petition with 100,000 signatures to Queen Elizabeth II to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British government for bringing Indians as labourers to the then Malaya and exploiting them.

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