The Iskandar Puteri MP said police should not have banned the meeting although they were under intense pressure because of “irresponsible and incendiary threats by extremist quarters”.

“Now the police have a responsibility to show they are even-handed and take action against those who had completely without cause threatened unrest over the closed-door Dong Zong meeting,” he said in a statement today.

Lim said Vision 2020 will not be achieved next year, which would begin in four days’ time, unless the people resolve the crisis over the Jawi issue in a “peaceful and consensual Malaysian manner”.

Cops ‘pressed panic button’, says Ramasamy

In a separate statement, DAP’s Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy described the cancellation of the Dong Zong congress as “regrettable”.

He said police, rather than taking action against the perpetrators of false and hate news, took the easy out by seeking a court order to cancel the event.

He said they should have studied the matter further before they “pressed the panic button”.

Ramasamy said the congress was to discuss the introduction of Jawi script in vernacular schools, and not really about opposing Jawi script as such.

The government, he noted, had reached a compromise on the teaching of Jawi when it stipulated that it would an optional subject that would at least need the support of 50% of parent-teacher associations in schools.

He said it was Pakatan Harapan that had called for openness, freedom and for a new beginning for Malaysians.

At the end of the day, he said, he was unsure how PH could politically recover from having “lost its voice to extremists and trouble-makers”.