Malaysia police fire tear gas at language protest

Kuala Lumpur: Riot police fired tear gas to disperse more than 2,000 Malaysians who tried to march to the national palace Saturday to protest the use of English to teach maths and science.

The demonstrators sought to submit a petition to the country's king to demand that the national Malay language be reinstated in schools for the two subjects - a sensitive issue for the ethnic Malay majority.

Many Malay teachers and linguists complain that a six-year-old policy of using English has hurt efforts to modernize their mother tongue and to develop a scientific lexicon in Malay.

The protesters marched through busy traffic, chanting "Long live the Malay language!" for about half an hour after gathering at Kuala Lumpur's main mosque. Police then fired several rounds of tear gas, causing them to scatter.

Authorities warned people earlier this week not to attend the demonstration, saying organizers had not obtained a necessary police permit to hold a public rally.

Reports said police detained 124 protesters.

National police chief Musa Hassan said that authorities "had no choice but to use tear gas to disperse the crowd who refused to listen to police warnings."