Malaysian police firing tear gas and water cannon charged supporters of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim who had gathered on a main highway near here Sunday, witnesses said.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the crowd of opposition supporters numbering at least 1,000 fled as the riot police advanced.
Police were seen kicking and beating some detainees as they led them away and damaging some cars and motorbikes with their batons.
They shot several tear gas rounds into a palmoil plantation by the roadside where some protesters took refuge.
Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is currently confined to a wheelchair, said protesters had agreed to disperse peacefully before the police attacked. She estimated the crowd at several thousand.
"I think they (police) were just trying to create disorder so the opposition would be blamed," she told AFP after supporters had carried her wheelchair to a car.
Earlier Wan Azizah and the leaders of the three other opposition parties had led a march down the highway, after police blocked access to the venue of a planned opposition rally nearby.
The crowd, shouting "Reformasi!" and "Free Anwar!" and beating drums, had halted some hundred metres from a police line at a toll plaza to hear speeches from opposition leaders.
"As we were telling them (the crowd) to leave, the police ambushed us," said Wan Azizah, head of the National Justice Party. "The crowd was very quiet."
She said 80 people had been detained and six members of her party suffered head wounds from police batons.
Riot police damaged an AFP photographer's camera after he took a picture of one scuffle.
Protesters had called a rally in a privately-owned field near Klang but police had declared it illegal and said those taking part could be jailed for up to one year.
Hundreds of police and paramilitaries had blocked access roads off the highway to the rally site and then closed one lane of the highway itself. A traffic jam several kilometers long built up and opposition leaders and their supporters were forced to walk towards the venue.
Amid the huge traffic jam opposition supporters earlier in the afternoon staged impromptu protests, shouting "Reformasi!" (Reform).
"Restore the people's rights" read one banner displayed by a group atop a lane divider. "Up, up Anwar, down, down Mahathir," one placard said.
Opponents of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had called for a "gathering of 100,000 citizens" to protest at Anwar's plight and at curbs on freedom of assembly and other perceived rights abuses.
One police officer who declined to be identified said about 500 police were at the scene, including regular officers, red-helmeted riot police and the paramilitary General Operations Force.
In speeches just before the police attacked, opposition leaders said they were not seeking confrontation.
"We are not looking for trouble but we are here because we love this country," said Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the Democratic Action Party.
"We want justice, freedom and democracy to be restored to the people."
Wan Azizah, who was in a wheelchair after suffering a leg injury last week, told the crowd: "We are to demand the people's rights. Free Anwar, restore the people's rights and give us justice."
Organisers of the planned rally, in a joint statement beforehand, accused a "dictatorial leadership" of denying civil rights and sparking a political crisis by sacking Anwar "in the most callous and despicable manner."
The statement also complained of alleged cronyism and accused the government of violating constitutional rights of free speech, freedom of association and peaceful public assembly.
Police have wide powers to ban public protests.
Anwar was sacked by Mahathir on September 2, 1998 and arrested 18 days later following mass anti-government rallies.
Anwar claims Mahathir orchestrated a conspiracy to frame him on criminal charges because he was seen as a political threat. The government denies any plot and says the courts are independent.
In April 1999 Anwar was jailed for six years for abuse of power and in August was imprisoned for nine years for sodomy, with the sentences to run consecutively -- KLANG, Malaysia (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
