Gerakan Youth Secretary General, Dr Dominic Lau today welcomes the amendments made to the Peaceful Assembly Act which will be tabled for the second reading today. Dr Dominic appreciates the government’s willingness to accept public opinion and adjust the few sections of the Act to suit the demands of the people. Dr Dominic also acknowledges the government’s kind intention to ensure order for the country and protect the safety and interest of the people. However, Dr Dominic Lau opined that the Peaceful Assembly Act is not an ultimate solution to resolve conflicts or issues.

“The key issue here is not about regulating an act to regulate assemblies, but why many people still chose to protest,” said Dr Dominic.

Dr Dominic Lau said that the reason protests and assemblies are taking places more and more frequently is because people are extremely frustrated and they have no avenue to channel their requests. There are a lot of instances when the demands and complains of the people were not responded. There are also times when the people are not happy with the policy proposed by the government and were forced to resort to protests in order to pressure the government to make the necessary changes.

“No one likes protesting on the street, there has to be a certain level of accumulated negative emotions which spark each protests. If the voices of the people are heard and responded promptly, the number of protests and assemblies would definitely reduce,” said Dr Dominic Lau.

“The right thing to do is to study the reason behind each protest instead of imposing more restrictions on the people. There is no need to be worried that the rights of assembly is abused by organizations or political parties, the bigger question mark here is why people are easily influenced by them to participate in protests, it has to be due to some frustration or anger in them which has been triggered by the call for a protest,,” he added.

To resolve the issue from the root cause, the government should listen more to the public and respond to the public promptly and reasonably, only by doing so could the problem of protests be curbed.