Mat rempit 'tajaan Umno' dakwa Lim Guan Eng rasis

One of my friends posted in Facebook:

Mat rempit accuse Penang CM of racism

About 200 mat rempit held a noisy demonstration at the historic Clock Tower near the Penang state legislative assembly building today, demanding a 'racing track' for their use.

The leader of the group was Shahabuddin Ahmad, also a representative of Pertubuhan Islam Gabungan Amal.

The group lined the area with their motorcycles about 1pm and honked noisily for about 15 minutes before the police dispersed them.

Their mission appeared political as most of the bikers were wearing yellow T-shirts with the words  ‘LGE racist’ - a reference to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng - and ‘Save Penang’ and also unfurled banners reading Mahu litar lumba (We want a racing track).

The police trailed some members of the group from Komtar, the state's administrative building and detained five of them, including Shahabuddin.

The mat rempit had proceeded from Penang Road to the state legislative assembly building along Light Street.

During the arrests, a minor scuffle broke out between the police and several protestors who were shouting with one of them throwing his helmet on the ground.

Parts of the Komtar building had earlier been defaced with graffiti reading Guan Eng tipu Melayu (Guan Eng has lied to the Malays), but it is not known if the group was behind this.

Georgetown OCPD Gan Kon Meng said the group had planned to hand a memorandum to Lim over several issues affecting them.

Gan said, "We allowed them to submit the memorandum because we are a democracy. But if (any gathering) is not peaceful, it can create chaos and cause lost of property. Those held will be investigated for illegal assembly under Section 27(5) of the Police Act."

Told of complaints of police violence during the arrest, he said it could be due to the protestors resisting enforcement action.

However, Komtar assemblyperson and Lim's political secretary Ng Wei Aik (right) was upset with Gan for not doing his work professionally and said Gan should explain why he allowed the 'illegal' protest when this was clearly "a politically-oriented rally".

Gan alleged that the request for a racing track was merely an excuse and did not think it was related as all demonstrations in Penang were easily linked to Umno and said, "Someone sold Umno's agenda to them. If it is not political, why do they say ‘LGE racist,’ when mat rempit are only mostly interested in racing?"

In a related development, Teluk Bahang assemblyperson Dr Helmi Yahya denied that Umno wasin any way connected to the mat rempit and explained that he had merely been invited to launch Pertubuhan Islam Gabungan Amal at Universiti Sains Malaysia in July.

During the launch, he had advised them to organise charity programmes for the benefit of the people.

Helmi  who is also the former Penang deputy chief minister declined to comment on the protest, saying he had not witnessed the incident as he was resting at that time and by the time he came to know about the protest, it was already over.

So we can clearly see the 'never-ending' agenda of Umno to use the race card to attack the Penang Government. Of course, there will always be allegations and denials but the fact is nowadays people tend to link anything nefarious to Umno - that's people's perception.


We also know that at one point of time, Khairy Jamaluddin and Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim from Putera UMNO attempted to rebrand "Mat Rempits" as "Mat Cemerlang". Khairy even suggested "Mat Rempits" should become the "Eyes and Ears" for the Malaysian Police Force. How ridiculous can that be - hence the project 'FAIL' before it even took off.