Fine Day For A Fuel Hike Protest

When you get a beautiful sunny day like this Friday, most photographers would roll out their DSLRs with tripods and say: "A beautiful day today! Take panoramas? Macro, perhaps? What the heck, I'll do 'em all!", and dutifully go about their business to do their best to make Frans Lanting look like an amateur. Yeah, right. Anyway, since my bridge camera screw mount got busted, I couldn't roll out my tripod and all. I then decided on the next best thing: photograph the fuel hike protest organized by PAS. It was scheduled to begin after the end of Muslim Friday prayers, starting from Kampung Baru mosque and to make its way to KLCC i.e. Petronas Twin Towers.

Dr. Lo' Lo's (Member of Parliament for Titiwangsa) community service center at Kampung Baru. I was so busy trying to get a shot in the can that I did not notice a car pulling over. The driver and the passenger steps out and gives me a quizzical look; then only I realize I am looking at Dr. Lo' Lo' herself. After a brief introduction, she graciously invited me in to her community service center and permitted me to take some photographs.

Dr. Lo' Lo' attending to one of her constituents. The man on the right had had some problem enrolling his child with a higher learning institution and was given the runabout by a few apparatchiks. His coming to ask for Dr. Lo' Lo's help was the only available course after exhausting all possible avenues.

Following one of Dr. Lo' Lo's supporters through the nooks and crannies of Kampung Baru. Before we left, Dr. Lo' Lo' and her crew dispensed a packet of salt to everyone. Apparently, placing salt under your tongue and sucking on it like a sweet (irony, huh?) mitigates the effect of the chemically laced water sprayed from FRU water cannons.

The police officer seen on the right, from what the reporters there told me, is an OCPD from the Dang Wang police station. This was taken just prior to the Friday prayers. At that time, I didn't know who he was, but decided he must be an important police officer as he had rows and rows of medals and badges on his uniform, reminiscent of Leonid Brezhnev.

Mosque. Unpredictable crowd. Riot gears. Tough looking heavies in red berets. Silly photographer aspiring to be the Malaysia's Robert Capa. And all the while I was thinking: is this a good time to call up my medical insurance carrier?

My thanks to the men and women in blue for this photograph. Ribuan terima kasih daripada saya kepada pegawai-pegawai polis yang bertugas diatas kerana sudi bergambar. From left to right: Cik Noraziah, Cik Suraida, unknown, Cik Yana, Cik Suzi, and Encik Hairul. Thanks!

Commencement of the fuel hike protest at the end of the Friday prayers.....

.....and met by heavies in red berets armed with thump-guns and in riot gear. (I really should stop getting up-close. I mean, do I really wanna see my insurance premium skyrocket? Lucky I don't drive, ya know what I mean?)

I later bumped into Haris Ibrahim of People's Parliament at the tail-end of the march at the SOGO department store. Haris commented that he observed that the show of force by the boys in blue and the heavies in red was not, uhm, how should I put it, at a respectable level that commensurated a true riot control, you know what I'm saying? He speculated that perhaps the authorities did not want an all-out confrontation right at the doorsteps of the mosque, which could have ended as a public relations fiasco, and therefore only deployed the bare minimum. My estimate of the crowd in numbers? 1,000 to 2,000. Tops. The fact that a fuel rebate could be claimed as early as this Saturday (in cash, no less) at the local post offices may have played a part with the attendance of the fuel hike protest.

IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S.....

.....a police chopper. Just great.

There's a punchline here. The cops are overseeing the demonstrators. And the demonstrators are overseeing the traffic. Apparently, in order to avoid a confrontation with the police, the demonstrators were herded to SOGO at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman instead of KLCC. Haris later informed me the real show of force i.e. water cannons and all were deployed in strength at KLCC itself. The men in red shirts on the right are from Unit Amal Malaysia, an auxiliary organization affiliated with PAS. That Friday, those men in red shirts acted as provost marshals, traffic controllers, and pathfinders. Judging from the way these men managed the crowd and traffic, PAS definitely has quite an oiled and organized political machinery, second only to UMNO.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

My packet of salt from Dr. Lo' Lo' and her crew. Thankfully it remained unused but I did share it with Rahim and Jim from Malaysiakini, and a lady from NST, whose name I had forgotten. As for me, no more adventures and close-ups with thump-guns. For now.