Opinion Poll: Police action against anti-ISA vigil

Technorati tags: Opinion Poll, Poll Position, Anti-ISA Vigil, Police Action

The previous poll, about politicization of Islam in Malaysia and its possible effects, has closed. We’ll discuss the results in a later post. Walski thought he should let you folks know about the new poll first.

Unless you’ve been living under a cyber-rock, or have just chosen to ignore it, you’ll know that Sunday, August 1st marked 50 years that the Internal Security Act (1960), better known as the ISA, has been in existence.

And predictably, the police issued a statement warning folks not to attend the vigils, which were declared illegal. Also, predictably, the police were present in full riot garb at the vigils in Petaling Jaya and Penang. Several people were arrested at both vigils, and were later released on police bail. As far as he can tell, no arrests were made at the Ipoh vigils, nor at other vigil locations.

But then, the same kind of action was not applied in a few other protests and “illegal assemblies”. Those that come to mind would be the Cowhead Incident, the protest against the Australian MPs, and several other public rallies and protests, including yesterday’s Perkasa-led protest memo event (which wasn’t much more than just a PR exercise, from Walski’s perspective).

Being a reasonable person, Walski has to ask, why so? Why the difference in police response? It would also be helpful to note that the Aussie MP protest was also declared to be an illegal gathering by the police (via The Malay Mail). And as we now know, the eventual police response was VERY different.

When Walski asks such questions, you know an opinion poll can’t be all that far behind… and therefore, predictably, he put one up this past Monday, asking exactly that: why the difference in treatment and response by the Royal Malaysian Police.
(the poll details, and more, in the full post)

The poll will be up until the end of this week, Sunday, August 8th. As with previous polls, Blogger sites can easily embed the poll by clicking on the Add to Blogger button, located below the poll (on the sidebar). Wordpress blogs, too, can easily add the poll by using the short-code [polldaddy poll="3558004"]. Other sharing/embedding options are available at the Polldaddy.com poll location.

Walski strongly encourages you to do this for the simple reason that he’d like opinions from across the political and (if possible) social divide. It’s no fun to do these polls when you know your audience is of a particular leaning, and therefore will have predictable results.

Once the poll has closed, Walski will discuss the results, and only THEN will he disclose what he personally thinks. It’s only fair that way.