POLICE CANCELS PSM’S CRASH COURSE ON MARXISM !
18 March 2016
This morning at 10am, PSM representatives met up with the Petaling Jaya District Chief, ACP Zaini Che Din. PSM was led by Secretary General A.Sivarajan, Marxism Course coordinator S.Arutchelvan, Central Committee Member V.Selvam and two others.
ACP Zaini Che Din notified the PSM delegates that the police will not allow the PSM Marxism course which was scheduled to be held on the 20th, March 2016 for reasons of public safety and law and order. He also did not give written notice but when seeked clarification on what the law is being used to cancel the program, he said Section 105 of the Criminal Procedure Code ( CPC ). He also said that there were 107 complaints lodged against the program organized by the PSM. He also mentioned that police will erect roadblocks leading to the location where the program is to be held. He suggested PSM in future try to organize these programs in the University.
PSM position is as below
1. Cancellation of this program by the police is a violation of our rights as a registered party. The cancellation violates our rights to conduct activities as well as an encroachment into the right to freedom of expression, of thought and of peaceful assembly.
2. PSM is also disappointed that the police has given in to the parties who are opposed to this course who have shown their opposition by filling police complaints. This is a bad precedent as this will allow a legitimate, indoor and legal program can be cancelled just because the opposing parties have mobilized hundreds of police complaints it.
3. Taking into account that the police had canceled the program and also the IGP had before this threatened to take action against participants who join this course, the PSM Central Committee has decided to cancel / postpone this course this coming Sunday. This decision was taken primarily to protect the wellbeing of the 78 participants who have already signed up for this course .
4. Besides this, PSM also does not want to give any excuse to any parties including the police to use this to divert the attention of the nation on other pressing issues such as corruption, misuse of power, economic crisis and internal struggles within UMNO.
5. PSM is also in discussion with our lawyers and intends to sue the IGP for slandering us and his tweet which defamed that the main reason of the course is to revive communism. IGP’s accusation was made before an investigation by the police and was most likely the reason for the many complaints lodged against the course. For the record, this is not the first time, PSM had sued the IGP where in 2012 , PSM sued on similar accusation made against PSM members where we won a consent judgement and was paid RM 200,000 damages by the Government.
6. Today the Malaysian government have diplomatic and business relations with all Communist countries and UMNO even invites the Communist parties of China , Vietnam and Cuba to their General Assemble every year. Is this action a step in endorsing or promoting communism? Why was no action taken against UMNO? Why didn’t the IGP tweet when UMNO openly condoned and invited them with open arms? Is this not hypocrisy?. PSM is disappointed that obsolete cold war rhetorics are still being used to cancel an intellectual discourse on Marxism when even the BBC in an online poll upheld Karl Marx as the greatest thinker of the millennia.
7. PSM would also like to apologize to the participants who had already signed up for this course. We will find other means to run this course in the future for example through on - line and so on. Indeed, there are hundreds of thousands of writings on Marxism in the website and also the books can be borrowed from the public library .
As a socialist party, PSM has a responsibility to spread its socialist ideology among the people as an alternative to other existing ideas. PSM is of the opinion that the existing capitalist system destroys the environment, impoverishing the majority of the people in the expense of the 1 % of the most wealthy. The People should not be deprived the right right to think and make their own decisions . Let the people judge whether PSM and its politics is applicable in our country.
On behalf of the Central Committee
S.Arutchelvan
Coordinator Kursus Marxism Kilat
019-2537791