By IANS
Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia’s Bar Council has called off its annual human rights march for Sunday following disagreements within the body.
The lawyer-members argued the pros and cons of the march, with one faction insisting the march should go on without a police permit while another wanted a permit to be obtained, the New Straits Times reported Wednesday.
Bar Council chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan said that yet another group felt the walk should be cancelled altogether.
“Our decision to not hold the walk was a majority decision, not a unanimous one,” she said.
“The purpose of the event is to educate the public. We did not want to undermine the event by engaging in a tussle about a police permit,” she said.
The “People’s Freedom Walk” has been a feature of the “Festival of Rights”, an event held annually since 2005 to commemorate International Human Rights Day Dec 10.
Ethnic tension has prevailed in Kuala Lumpur since the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) organised a protest rally Nov 25 to highlight discrimination and what it called “ethnic cleansing” against the two million-plus Tamils.