A RALLY to remember victims of custodial deaths will proceed as planned this evening despite no approval from the authorities, said the organiser.

Human rights group, Eliminating Deaths and Abuse in Custody Together’s (EDICT) spokesman Rama Ramanathan said the “Black Thursday” gathering will take place as planned at 6.30pm opposite the Bar Council building in Kuala Lumpur.

He said the gathering will honour those who had died unjustly.

“Yes. The event will take place and we’re hoping to gather for about an hour,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Rama said they are expecting about 100 people to attend the gathering, which would mark the 11th death anniversary of Teoh Beng Hock and R. Gunasegaran, who both died on this date while under custody.

Gunasegaran died in police custody while Teoh was found dead after being questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in its Selangor headquarters in Shah Alam.

Earlier today, EDICT issued a statement saying that this year’s Black Thursday was not given the green light by the police as there was no consent from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and the National Security Council (NSC).

“The Kuala Lumpur police claimed that the notice we submitted for our event, in accordance with the Public Assembly Act, is incomplete because it was not accompanied by consent from DBKL, the custodian and alleged owner of the pavement on which our event was held for years. We maintain that ‘custodian’ does not mean ‘owner’.

“A DBKL official and the police advised us to approach the mayor or the federal territories minister to get permission – because, well, DBKL has no process to deal with such requests.

“The police also insist that the National Security Council (NSC) has prohibited gatherings such as ours.

“However, when we contacted the NSC, we were told there are no such prohibitions. Notably, we were not urged to cancel our event,” it said in the statement.

EDICT also revealed that an average of 16 people die in police lockups annually, while the number is 50 in immigration detention centres and 258 in prisons.

They add up to an estimated 3,564 lives lost since 2009, many due to inhumane treatment, EDICT said.

The group added that based on parliamentary responses, inquests were not held in two-thirds of custodial deaths. – July 16, 2020.