DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang came down hard on University Malaya authorities asking them to withdraw their police report on students who defied a lock down in the campus on Monday night to attend opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s talk.

The talk, titled “40 years: From UM to prison” was banned by the university despite being organized by PMUM (Students Union of University Malaya). A crowd of almost 2000 made up mostly of youth had nevertheless stormed the Bangsar entrance of the university to welcome the opposition leader at around 10pm at night.

“The University of Malaya administration should take an enlightened attitude to what happened on Monday, admit it had made a colossal blunder in the lockdown and power black-out of University of Malaya and enlist the support of university students, alumni, academicians and the Malaysian public to restore academic freedom to regain the university’s international repute for academic excellence in its early decades,” said Lim Kit Siang.

Anwar Ibrahim, who is in the final stages of trying to overturn the Court of Appeal’s decision that found him guilty of sodomy, had spoken on academic freedom and restoring the soul of the education establishment on the night of the speech. Anwar also said that he saw no reason why the university attempted to prevent him from speaking.

UM had then lodged a police report yesterday on students who they say were trespassing on private property by breaking through the main gate.

Lim Kit Siang commented that the university administration can go on a “witch-hunt and vengeful campaign” to penalize students and even academicians for the incident but it would not restore its reputation as the country’s premier university.

Lim added that hope was born anew on Monday night, in the midst of the stifling of academic freedom and the UM’s fall from grace in international reputation. -The Rocket