By Razak Ahmad KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Malaysia's opposition said on Sunday that it was being targeted by police after a protest in which some 600 people were arrested, including its third most senior official. Malaysian police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse a crowd of around 10,000 protesters on Saturday, arresting almost 600 people in the biggest demonstration in the country's capital in almost two years. Most of the protesters had been released by Sunday, but among the 31 still detained was Sivarasa Rasiah, an opposition MP who is also the top defence lawyer for Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader who has been charged with sodomy. "We are very concerned because Sivarasa is also the most senior counsel (for Anwar)," Latheefa Koya of Malaysia's Bar Council told reporters on Sunday after around 150 people gathered to protest outside the police station at which Sivarasa was being held. No one at the police was immediately available to comment on why Sivarasa had been detained. Anwar denies the sodomy charge and says it is politically motivated. Malaysia, a mainly Muslim nation of 27 million people in Southeast Asia, was thrown into political turmoil after the government that has ruled for 51 years lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority in elections last year. Anwar was dismissed as deputy prime minister in 1998 and served six years in jail for sodomy and corruption. He returned to parliament last year and now leads a three-party opposition alliance that has threatened to unseat the National Front government. But new sodomy charges that could land him in jail for 20 years could end the political career of a man once seen as a future leader of the country. The opposition's success in national and state elections in 2008 and a run of by-election wins prompted the governing coalition to pick a new prime minister in April. New leader Najib Razak has pledged to open Malaysia's economy to foreign investment. Malaysia is set for its deepest recession since the Asian financial crisis of 1998, with the government forecasting the economy to shrink up to 5 percent this year. The government has accused the opposition of fomenting discontent and of hurting Malaysia's investment prospects. "They (the opposition) always do things for themselves," said Khairy Jamaluddin, the leader of the youth wing of the United Malays National Organisation, the main government party. (Reporting by Razak Ahmad; writing by David Chance; editing by Robin Pomeroy)
A helicopter dumps water on a forest fire which is burning out of control in Mazo municipality on the southern part of La Palma island in Spain's Canary Islands, August 2, ...
