PKR: Perkasa assaulted Anwar in mosque event

After getting off to a rocky start on Friday with his bus being attacked, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has reportedly been attacked during a talk at a mosque in Alor Setar, Kedah.

According to a flurry of tweets from PKR leaders, a group they believe to be right wing Malay rights group Perkasa members disrupted the event at Masjid Pumpong in the northern state capital.

“I just received information that Anwar Ibrahim has been attacked by Perkasa members at a tazkirah event…,” tweeted Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh at around 8.50pm today.

“Perkasa member trying to storm the masjid to stop Anwar from tazkirah,” tweeted vice president Tian Chua.



“Perkasa (members) threw a shoe into the mosque. Is that the culture that Umno supports?” tweeted Fuziah again shortly after.

“Anwar now safe at Imam's house after the Perkasa assault,” reported vice-president N Surendran.

The incident is the second in three days to plague the opposition leader's nationwide tour.

On Friday night, Anwar’s Jelajah Merdeka Rakyat bus was splashed with red paint and damaged while on its Kelantan leg.

When contacted, Surendran, who witnessed the entire incident, said that the fracas started at about 7.45pm during the maghrib prayers in Bakar Baka.

As Anwar was about to give his speech after the prayers, a group of Perkasa members - about 100 - arrived outside the mosque.

Surendran said he recognised them as they were wearing the organisation's T-shirts, which was black and bore the Perkasa logo.

Surendran was at that time waiting outside the mosque and “witnessed everything".

"They came to create chaos. They shouted for Anwar to leave and they screamed obscenities," he told Malaysiakini.

"The fracas went on for about an hour. The police, who was contacted did not come until an hour later at about 8.45pm,"he added.

Surendran said that after his short speech, Anwar was taken to the imam's house behind the mosque to rest (right).

Even as was leaving, the group was still at the premises, shouting at him to leave and get out, said Surendran.

Surendran added that the police merely stood watch and did not stop the Perkasa members from their “aggressive and noisy" behaviour.

He said it was very clear that the Perkasa members were out to create chaos.

He added that they tried to intimidate Anwar and the mosque congregation by "kicking, shouting, banging the mosque door which was closed at the time, and also threw a shoe inside the area through the window."

"At one juncture, they dragged Anwar's bodyguard, who was standing outside, and kept him aside while they banged the door," he said.

Surendran was at the time accompanied by PKR legal bureau chief Latheefa Koya, Kuala Kedah MP Ahmad Kassim, and PAS vice chief Mahfuz Omar.

The party members are expected to lodge a police report on the incident soon.

The PKR leaders’ accounts were corroborated by a pro-Umno blog The Unspinners, that also reported the incident this evening, confirming that the perpetrators were from a group called ‘Gerak Khas Perkasa'.

In its posting ‘Perkasa Kota Setar foils Anwar’s abuse of mosque’, the blogger hailed the group’s actions as a move to stop Anwar from “abusing the mosque” with his political speeches.

Susan Loone