Sunday, January 15, 2006

Candlelight Vigil for the nation

A candle light vigil outside the Kuala Lumpur court was started to push for more reponsiblity from the system in regards to respect for all faiths. Bloggers were there. Other bloggers have sicne posted about it such as carboncopy and xpyre. Quackyogi was also out there.



At it's peak 600 people were there. Yesterday night (I wasn't there), I hear things tapered off . Apparently there was some concern that being a Saturday night an unmanageable crowd would descend on the place and the shit would hit the fan post-haste yet this did not materialise or at least it didn't appear in this mornings hamster cage liner (also called the newspaper). Ends up there were hoards of special branch (secret police) people there but not many vigil observers. Apparently the press was also there.



So far the press has not ignored this event



IPS



The protest has, thus far, been peaceful -- candlelight vigil at Sharif's office, a signature campaign, and a memorandum to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.



Today it was forwarded to everyone's email boxes (followed by calls) that the vigil is put off indefinitely as the government has contacted the council involved to say that matters will be set to rights for everyone in the land. As such, in good faith, I will ask all readers to refrain from attending the vigil to give the government room to act. Let's not pre-judge anyone and jump to conclusions.



A wrong was done by a Muslim judge bending over for a Muslim agent from the Muslim court in what was supposedly a secular courtroom. One disastruous decision but it is not the end of civilization as we know it.



It is now time for the government to come out and tell us how they're going to ensure it doesn't happen again. Should we find out later that this was in bad faith then there's still time to take to the street corner again. We already know that street corner can hold 600 candle toting watchers. It would do the government well to consider if they want to let us all find out whether the street corner can hold 6,000.



Update: Bobjots has more on the situation here. It's seems very disheartening at this point but there's two issues I will try to get clarified tomorrow:



1) Has the government indicated that they are making efforts to change.



2) Did any component member of the MCCBCHS knowingly obfuscate the reason for calling off the vigil?



Please look for tomorrow's posting on the situation and be patient. I commit to dig this out by noon tomorrow so that any fellow members keen on the vigil can check back for the information. Failing any confirmation, it is back to the barricades at 8 PM tomorrow. Every night we have to head out means that everyone pays a higher price for this at the end. That's just plain silly.

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