It is now eight days since 31 Parti Sosialis Malaysia activists were arrested by the police on a mind-blowing allegation of collecting men and weapons to wage war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

From the outside we have been fighting a seemingly impossible battle to free our comrades from the clutches of the oppressive system that is all out to demonise us and criminalise our activities.

At the point of remand on the evening of June 26 we realized that we had become the first victims of a plot by the government to stop the Bersih 2.0 rally to be held on July 9. The government had tried both the soft approach and the hard, cajoling and threatening, but support for the rally for clean elections multiplied even more. The government’s fears on the potential of the rally seemed to have reached panic proportions, and it appeared that it had decided to abandon its civilised and democratic façade and use all the brute might it had at its disposal.

Reason, logic and decency were thrown out of the window and the wildest of fabrications were woven to frighten Malaysians with the scenario of an armed insurrection to replace the Barisan Nasional government.

From June 24 to 26, PSM activists were on a roadshow on two buses, one heading north from Johor to Kuala Lumpur, and the other heading south from Perlis, to campaign for change in the next general elections.

The PSM campaign, dubbed ‘Udahlah ’tu…Bersaralah’ was about how the situation of workers and the marhean (common folks) had grown from bad to worse in 54 years of BN rule and how continuing to vote for the BN would only further worsen things. The leaflet distributed during the roadshow exhorted people to use their votes wisely by rejecting the BN in the next elections.

The activists were harassed (not unexpectedly) throughout the campaign, with arrests at a number of points along their routes, but on the second night of the campaign, the police came down hard. As the northern bus from Perlis entered Penang, they were stopped at a police mounted roadblock and taken to the police station.

The police began frantically searching for a credible charge to pin on the PSM activists. The options they were considering included illegal assembly – but do people on a bus constitute an illegal assembly? – and contravention of the Printing Presses and Publications Act and the Sedition Act. At about 4am of June 26, the police arrived at their now infamous charge against PSM of preparing to wage war against the King!

The evidence they had collected to arrive at this fantastic charge included some PSM newspapers, T-shirts bearing the  images of  Che Guevara and Malaysian independence fighters such as Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD, a loudhailer, leaflets titled ‘Udahlah tu..’ and some Bersih leaflets.

After seven days in remand, during which the investigation team from Bukit Aman failed hopelessly to extract evidence to support their ridiculous charge, they resorted once more to their notorious detention without trial weapon. They released six activists – Kumar Devaraj, M. Sarasvathy, Choo Chon Kai, M. Sugumaran, A. Letchumanan and R. Saratbabu – whom they saw as the leaders, and as the six took their first few steps to freedom outside the gates of the Kepala Batas district police station after their initial detention, Bukit Aman police rearrested them under the Emergency Ordinance, and took them away to the Bukit Aman police headquarters.

The EO is a draconian law similar to the ISA, where it can hold people for 60 days without trial, but it is generally used on hardcore criminals. This is the first time it has been used on political prisoners, probably because the widespread use of the ISA previously has given the government a bad image.

Meanwhile at the Butterworth magistrate’s court, 22 lawyers headed by Tuan Hj Sulaiman Abdullah, fought a tough battle to disallow the further seven-day remand extension sought by the police for the remaining 24 PSM activists. In the end, three were released and a three-day remand was allowed for the rest in a decision dictated not by reason and rights but by orders from higher up.

It is a tough time for the PSM but we will emerge stronger from this attack on us.

As a socialist party, our struggles are based on the belief that the wealth of the country should be evenly distributed such that everyone can live in comfort in an environment without fear and with full human rights.

The policies of the BN government have made Malaysia currently the most unequal country in South East Asia. The gap between rich and poor continues and will continue  to widen with the withdrawal of subsidies for essentials, the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax, the widespread privatisation of government services, the refusal to enact a minimum living wage law, the signing of Free Trade Agreements, etc.

PSM has campaigned against each of these, distributing leaflets, holding discussions and talks, putting up banners, presenting memorandums to the government, and as a last resort, holding demonstrations to persuade the government to listen. These are the PSM’s ‘weapons’ for a better Malaysia. These are the reasons the government has tried to use the communist bogey in an attempt to discredit and stop us. And to use us to discredit and stop the Bersih rally.

The writer is PSM central committee member.