Sixteen people, including Teratai state assemblyperson Jenice Lee, were arrested by the police just outside her service centre at about 8.45pm tonight for allegedly holding an illegal assembly.

Those arrested have been taken to the Pandan Indah police station. It looks quite certain that they will be held overnight.

They were arrested after a lightning short police warning for them to disperse.

Ampang Jaya district police chief Abdul Jalil Hassan told reporters that the 16 were arrested for gathering without a police permit.

But Abdul Jalil retorted that her permit application, which was made at 2pm today, was not approved by the police.

Earlier, a small group of people had gathered at Lee's service centre at about 8.30pm to hold a candlelight vigil to mourn the 'death of democracy' in Perak. The vigil was organised by Pandan DAP Youth wing.

About 40 police personnel, along with members from the light strike force unit, were deployed to the area.

Following the arrest, the crowd which had gathered for the vigil started to disperse.

It is the second time this week that Lee was arrested. She was detained by the police for six hours at another candlelight vigil on Tuesday.

'It was a birthday celebration'

Among those detained was Lim Swee Kuan, the personal assistant to veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang.

When contacted by Malaysiakini while he was held at the police station, Lim said that the group had walked to the DAP Teratai service centre with candles and a birthday cake to celebrate his birthday.

"But when we came down to the road, a police officer shouted to us, saying that we were holding an illegal assembly," he said.

Following that, state assemblyperson Lee and several others tried to negotiate with the police for them to gather for awhile to "celebrate Lim's birthday".

"But the police ignored Lee and pushed her away," Lim said, adding that the police gave them 10 seconds to disperse before arresting them.

He said that members of the group were arrested while they were singing 'Happy Birthday' to him.

Lim also accused the police of brutality in physically assaulting the detainees.

Some of those detained were dragged and shoved into the waiting police truck, he claimed.

At about 9.40pm, Lee and party member S Supiramany - who is also a MPAJ councillor - were seen taken from the Pandan Indah police station to the Ampang district police headquarters for their statements to be recorded. The others remained at Pandan Indah police station.

Lee told Malaysiakini when contacted at 10.20pm through her mobile telephone that she was waiting for her lawyer to arrive at the district police headquarters.

Her lawyer Mohd Radzlan Jalaludin arrived at the police station at about 10.35pm. As of 11.30pm, he said, Lee was still waiting for the police to record her statement.

As at midnight, all 16 of those arrested have yet to be released.

150 and counting

In an immediate reaction, DAP Youth wing expressed its disgust over the police action in the arrests.

It said in a statement that among those arrested included the wing's education director Ooi Leng Hang and a member of the public.

The others were all DAP Youth members. Among those were 72-year-old Chong Kong Yin.

"This is another unforgivable assault on our country's dying democracy. We have descended into something even worse than a police state in which the police just arrest citizens for the fun of it.

"We're about to hit the 150 mark on the number of arrests made in relation to BN's coup d'état in Perak," said the statement.

The movement urged the police to release all those arrested immediately. It also wanted the Home Ministry to put an end to the "nonsensical arresting-spree".