Location: The Meadows Park, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Time: 28 Apr, 1230pm +0UTC
Number of participants: 60+
Bersih 3.0 Scotland was held in the Meadows park, Edinburgh on Saturday 28th April. Approximately 60-70 participants travelled from several cities around Scotland to attend the event in Edinburgh. It was very successful with a bigger turn out than Bersih 2.0 in Glasgow last year and with all participants showing great spirit, unity and desire for changing Malaysia’s election system as well as the country’s future.
On behalf of the Bersih Scotland Organising Committee, I opened the event with a welcoming speech and by reading the demands of Bersih 3.0. This was followed by speeches from the other committee members, including one who read Ambiga’s message. A.Samad Said’s poem Unggun Bersih was recited in Malay and English by our friend from Aberdeen. The programme continued with poetry which had been written by two participants for the event. The group then joined together for a duduk bantah when we chanted Bersih slogans whilst holding our banners and posters. This is when we took our team photograph.
All participants were then invited to write messages and signed their names on yellow cloth which we will send to the Bersih committee in Kuala Lumpur (we need the address). Each participant was also given yellow cloth to tie round their wrists as a sign of unity. We also had Bersih Scotland badges made for the event.
We then sat together, chatted, and enjoyed our picnic until the wind picked up (despite the sun shining) and we decided to disband around 15.30.
To conclude, the event went really well. All participants were delighted to get to know each other and there are plans to keep in touch to do something again during the summer this year.
