Rafizi to camp with Occupy UM protesters, urges Pakatan MPs to do the same

Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli (centre) speaks with students near their tent outside Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur today. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, December 11, 2014.

Pakatan Rakyat MPs have been urged to throw in their lot with students of the Occupy UM movement and to take turns camping overnight with them to protest Universiti Malaya's (UM) decision to punish student leaders who organised a campus event with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli, who is also PKR's secretary-general, plans to camp with the students this Sunday beginning 11pm and has invited other politicians and activists to take turns doing the same until the punishments are lifted.

"All political party leaders, non-governmental organisations and activists should come and join the students who are camping out by taking turns to sleep there," he said in a statement which was also signed by PAS MP for Kuala Krai, Dr Hatta Ramli.

Occupy UM was launched yesterday to pressure the university management to lift the punishments imposed on seven student leaders who had organised the October 27 talk with Anwar.

Five have been fined RM150 each but two – former UM student union leader Fahmi Zainol and UM Pro-Mahasiswa president Safwan Shamsuddin – received the heaviest punishments: two months' suspension and an RM600 fine for Fahmi, and one month's suspension and an RM300 fine for Shamsuddin.

Rafizi said UM should drop all charges against the students.

Next Tuesday, he and other PR MPs, including Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, plan to deliver a letter of protest to the UM management to demand that the charges against the students be dropped.

"Malaysia needs youths who are critical and unafraid to speak out.

"The management of the university should instead focus on improving the quality of education and the values instilled in them by the institution. They should not stand in the way of the students' activities and the voicing of their opinions," Rafizi said.

- TMI