Mission accomplished with a candlelight vigil last night outside the Kamunting Detention Centre: Yin, Joseph, Meng and Michael. Their colleague and photographer, Jorge, is not in the pic. The camera flashes alerted the officers on duty, who came out to have a look. (Note: This cycling team is not part of the Jerit cycling team.)
Ready to roll on the Freedom Ride
First it was candle-mania; now it’s cycle-mania
One of the cyclists, Michael, sent in this report at 4.00am today:
It’s been a very tiring and hectic two days (Saturday and Sunday) for me especially today as I had to reach Kamunting, do the candlelight vigil last night and still catch the 9.00pm bus back to KL. It was a great feeling having been able to achieve what we set out to do.
We started out from Klang on Saturday, 6 Dec at 8.00am from a bak kut teh shop, no less. Besides the five of us, two more friends rode with us to Sabak Bernam (110km) where we stopped for the first night. The next morning, the five of us started at 8.00am and, with only a few stops for lunch and quick breaks, we rode all the way to Taiping (160km away), reaching the town just before 7.00pm. (Coincentally, the southbound Jerit cycling team were spending last night in Taiping and Bagan Serai.)
After dinner, we headed out for Kamunting but the infamous Taiping rain (which already showered us a couple of times earlier) poured out of the skies in huge sheets, forcing us to take shelter from it. After about 15 minutes, it subsided and we decided to ride in the rain anyway and do what we came to do. Two of us had to catch the 9.00pm bus back to KL, while the other three were continuing to south Thailand.
It was quite kan-cheong as we reached the entrance of the detention centre. We stopped to organise ourselves at an empty warung opposite the entrance. We decided to just go for it even as the rain was beginning to let up. We crossed the road with our bikes, went up to the signboard, quickly lit our candles before it got drenched out and took a few shots. The camera flashes alerted the cops who came out to have a look. We just smiled at them and said ‘tangkap gambar saja‘, and that was that. Because of the rain, we didn’t stay long and left, satisfied that we had achieved what we came out to do.
We made it to the Kamunting bus station with five minutes to spare!
[...] pix from AnilNetto [...]
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Congratulations to our young heroes who finally enter the the dark fortress of oppression, Kem Uniting, to light up candles, the action itself endangers the national security. It was a most challenging job well done. The team started on a bright note, innocently, as a healthy and fun weekend on an old mode of transport. With high spirit and fine shinny weather, nature turned awry with thunderstorms and heavy rain soon began to slow the team’s progress due to challenging obstacles as well as cold and hunger. … and the guards were surprised when our heroes, by now young veterans, lit the candles and this is called check mate. Calling Malaysians to unite and you have only one right and that right is to vote for a new government – it can never be that bad and even in the worst scenario such as from frying pan into the fire,I will choose the fire because in either way I will be roasted. Cheers and congratulations to our you veterans who light up the dark fortress Ken Uniting all Malaysians.
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Wunderbar! Absolutely wonderful that such significant acts of self-empowerment & expressions of solidarity with all those detained without trial are happening spontaneously – and being dutifully reported by our trsuty Anil Netto. I’m so glad… so glad… and proud of all those guys who not only THOUGHT of doing something like this… but actually DID IT!
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Proud of you young people! You put most Malaysians to shame for our ‘tidak apa’ attitude.
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Your trip to our very own Guantanamo at Taiping meant so much to our detainees inside if they knew you were there!Even God showered you all with his blessings.Well done friends and congratulations!
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Congratulation to these brave heroes who have had the courage to defy the ISA; me best wishes to them and I hope their gallant effort will ignite a concerted campaign to remove this obsenity; the ISA of course !
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Anil, it was the “slaughter of the sinnerconman” to sinner or sinnerman or conman to simply con!meaning the sinnerconman has been maimed losing a quarter of his identity. My sincere apology if that was too “strong”. I still fine it difficult to accept that, “porky breakfast”, “renewed spirit”, “quarter of ordnance destroyed”, “thugs ran away with the tails between their legs”, “local resistance ..to release the prisoners” are offensive. Now definitely, being out of context, these phrases seem so meaningless. I am sure you will miss all the drama if I said that the Bible begins with humans and God in paradise and ends with humans and God in paradise but even in the latter paradise there “…two trees of life, one on each side of the river” but in the beginning of the book there was only one. (…) you and co. know what I mean. Cheers with renewed spirit.
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[...] from http://anilnetto.com/civil-society/a-new-cycling-team-freedom-riders-reaches-kamunting/ Filed under A Brush with Politics, Hues of Humanity, In Perspective [...]
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