(Sept 1): Putrajaya should tell police to drop investigating a woman who dropped yellow balloons at an event attended by Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday, said DAP, urging the prime minister to understand her intention.

Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang said Najib should speak up and stop the police probe on dancer Bilqis Hijjas, saying it would not benefit either Najib or Malaysia.

"I urge Najib to accept in good grace Bilqis’ intention, take note of what she intended to communicate, and tell the police to 'hands-off' Bilqis as any harassment or persecution of Bilqis for her artistic licence will do neither Najib nor Malaysia any good at all, whether to Malaysians or to the international society," he said in a statement today.

"More importantly, Najib should let it be known that he would not have been 'provoked' to break the public peace or to commit any offence by Bilqis’s artistic licence."

Bilqis, 35, faces charges under Section 504 of the Penal Code for intentional insult, after being nabbed by the auxiliary police at the Pavilion shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

She had allegedly dropped the yellow balloons bearing the words "democracy", "free media" and "justice", from Level 5 of the complex.

Najib and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, were attending the DiverseCity International Arts festival opening ceremony on the ground floor.

Sources said the balloons floated down behind the big screen television set.

Bilqis was later handed over to the Dang Wangi police for further action.

Bilqis was released last night after police recorded her statement.

Lim, who is DAP parliamentary leader, said that while Bilqis was guilty of "artistic licence", her act did not fall under the offence of intentional insult as she had not intended to "provoke" Najib, although "intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation" would cause the prime minister to "break the public peace or to commit any other offence".

The veteran politician was quoting from the offence as stated in the Penal Code.

"The arrest and harassment of Bilqis for her 'spark of creativity' in releasing seven yellow balloons with words like 'Free Media', 'Democracy' and 'Justice' as if these words personify all that is most evil, reprehensible and unacceptable in Malaysia," he said.

Lim added that Malaysia had failed in becoming a psychologically secure society as stated under Vision 2020's nine strategic challenges.

This was because Putrajaya apparently continued to see "an enemy" behind "every bush and tree" and recently in the "yellow colour, T-shirts and now, balloons".

"The arrest and interrogation of Bilqis belongs to the 'theatre of the absurd’," he added. – The Malaysian Insider