9 July - Second Bersih group walks down Jalan Pudu (2.07 pm)

As I and many others walked back down the side alley running along the Chinese Maternity Hosp. carpark fence, having failed to scale the wall/fence to get in, we were trying to figure out how else to join the crowd beyond the police. By this time it was drizzling/light rain, and some people took out (yellow) ponchos to put on. People were crowding on the sidewalk by now, trying to look over the police line.

That's when we saw, from up the road, another crowd walking towards us. At least a few hundred people (difficult to see on the video, I apologize). They seemed mostly Malay and, being clothed in mixed colors, we were unsure who they were. PAS? Perkasa? Or another group entirely?

They paused at that intersection for a while, seeing the police line. If they advanced further they might have actually pincered the police between them and the Pudu group below.

Instead they started heading up towards Raja Chulan.

Many of us ran to join them. We decided to take a chance based on the fact that there appeared to be a lot of women in the crowd-- something we didn't think a Perkasa rally would have-- and the slogans they were chanting were along the lines of 'hidup rakyat' (long live the people), not 'hidup Melayu' (long live the Malays).

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• police
• polis
• bersih
• rally
• july
• malaysia
• kuala
• lumpur
• jalan
• pudu