Pertubuhan Pembela Nasib Melayu (Gerakan Merah) will not hold a counter demonstration against the ‘TangkapMO1' rally scheduled to be held at Dataran Merdeka tomorrow.

“We, Gerakan Merah, will not hold a gathering or a protest because we respect the decision of the Kuala Lumpur police and Dang Wangi police.

“Gerakan Merah will follow the instructions of the police not to protest,” said its president Mohd Ali Baharom, who is better known as Ali Tinju, in a media statement.

“This (Tangkap MO1) is a gathering organised by schoolchildren who are learning how to demonstrate. So we will leave it to the authorities to take action against them,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sungai Besar Umno chief Jamal Md Yunus, who heads Himpunan Merah, also confirmed that the red shirts would not be involved in any counter-rallies tomorrow.

“If there are groups opposing the rally, it will not be my group,” he told Malaysiakini.

Jamal, however, is confident that the TangkapMO1 rally would fail to gain public support.

“It won’t be like Bersih. If these kids come, they will gather 100 or 200 people. If they manage to gather 1,000 or 2,000 people, that means they are successful,” he said.

The student-led TangkapMO1 rally is to pressure the government to reveal who is ‘Malaysian Official 1’ mentioned in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) court filings last month.

The DOJ alleged that MO1 received at least US$731 million out of the US$3.5 billion allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.

The court filings stated that the unnamed civil servant is related to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s stepson Riza Aziz, and held a position of influence within 1MDB.

Riza and a businessman Jho Low, who is said to be close to the prime minister’s family, were named in the DOJ documents.

Critics claimed that MO1 is none other than Najib himself.

However, Najib has denied allegations of misusing public funds, saying such accusations were part of a plot to topple him.

Attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali also cleared the prime minister of any wrongdoing.

Additional reporting by Lu Wei Hoong.