If you don't already know, Paul's Place (on Old Klang Road) was raided on New Year's Eve. And yes, we are shocked (especially after Meor's arrest just the other day)! Since other sites are already writing about it (check out ricecooker.kerbau.com), we're only summarising some of the details (taken from reports by Centre For Independent Journalism and ricecooker):
*Brickfields police raided Paul's Place during a punk concert called "This Year's Final Threat". They were accompanied by the press. The raid was apparently done to stamp out the so-called "black metal" culture. Sound equipment and musical instruments were confiscated *tools of the devil?* yeah, right. All the musicians involved during the gig have denied that it was a "black metal" gig. Come on people, get your dictionaries out: punk is not metal.
*About 380 young people were arrested by the police, including those inside and outside the venue plus some others who were drinking and hanging out in some shops near the area. They were forcibly taken to the Brickfields police station where they had to take urine tests. Apparently, three tested positive for drugs. These three plus Paul's Place bartender David remain in police custody while the others were released without charge. Four out of 380! You do the math! What was really the point of this circus?
*Six of the detainees, three men and three women, were chosen by the police and paraded on New Year's Day in front of a hostile and obviously-biased media. The report made it to TV and look out for the so-called "official" reports. One of the detainees who was paraded said that she was forced by the police to appear before the media, adding that the media were not interested in the her side of the story. Obviously, this is one of those media publicity stunts organised by the police to prove they're apparently doing a good job of stamping out the "black metal" threat. Wha?
PRESS CONFERENCE AT PAUL'S PLACE, 2 January 2006, 2pm
In response to what appears to be a gross misconduct of power and violation of human rights by the police, Rafil Elyas (of 360 Degree Head Rotation and Disarseter Records) and a few friends are assisting Paul's Place owner Paul Millot to fight for redress. In lieu, they've set up a press conference at the venue to address the following issues:
a) Definition and characterization of the Black Metal sub culture; music, lifestyle and philosophies.
b) Superficiality of sub culture embracement in
c) How Black Metal clamp down operations have spilled over to other sub cultures and musical genres, punk, hard core, rock.
If you're at all interested in local music, human rights issues or just want to show your support for Paul's Place, please come one and all to show that music has to remain free from police brutality and stupidity.
Paul's Place Press Conference
Date & Time: Monday, 2 January 2006, 2pm
Address: 8, 2/137B (Top Floor),
(It's situated "behind" the block of shops that's directly across the highway from Pearl International Hotel.)
2 comments:
try contacting other international punk band websites, music websites in general (eg.mtv), and opinionated sites in general to generate media hype overseas. that'll shake 'em up real good :)
if foreign press get a hold of how the local police could make such a ridiculous raid under such trivial reasons, they'd have a ball snickering about it. the fact that the police can't even get music genre's right, that says a whole lot about their intelligence, and ofcourse their sheer ignorance.
music is a form of art, and art bears no boundaries. no one should be denied the freedom to experience music, and they want to take that away to feed their narrow minds then they're heading towards a regressive mindset for malaysia.
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