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Joint Media Statement

Stop Bullying and Victimising USM Students!

The USM Student Affairs Department should stop bullying and victimising their own students.

Almost on the eve of final examinations, which will start on 18 February 2002, four USM undergraduate students have been suspended from the university. Three of them, Lee Yen Ting, Choo Chon Kai and Loke Chee Hoo are final year students and have effectively been ruled ineligible to sit for their final graduating examinations. Although technically suspended for one semester, the three will actually be delayed from graduating by a whole year. Most of the courses which they are currently enrolled in, and which are required for their graduation this semester, will not be taught and examined again until the second semester of the next academic year 2002-2003. A fourth student, Fatin Nor Suhana, a second year student, is also suspended for a semester.

And what might be the infringements that they are supposedly guilty of?

1. Loke Chee Hoo, Fatin Nor Suhana and Lee Yen Ting have been found guilty of participating in an 'illegal demonstration' protesting the Vision Schools that was held in Jalan Sungai Dua, just outside the USM campus (see picture).

   This demonstration occurred on 17 November 2000! We wonder why it is only now, 14 months later, that punishment is being meted out?

   We're not suggesting that more students ought to have been punished, not in the least. But why were these three students singled out for selective punsishment when some 70-80 other students were involved in this protest? The demonstration had involved both Chinese and Malay students - something that reform-minded Malaysians would find most encouraging though those concerned with 'security', apparently, found it alarming and threatening.

2. The infringement committed by Choo Chon Kai would have been hilarious if not for the fact that the secretary-general of the Persatuan Bahasa Tionghai (PBT) will now be delayed from graduating for another year. He was deemed to have sold an anti-ISA badge to a USM security guard who had approached him to buy one while in mufti, under false pretences. His other infringements are that he had in his posession nine other similar badges and that he had put up an anti-ISA poster in the PBT cubicle. The USM security officers and authorities have no evidence that Choo was responsible for putting up the poster and he has strenously denied having anything to do with it.

3. One of the infringements of Lee Yen Ting, the president of PBT, was her participation in the 17 November 2000 anti-Vision Schools demonstration. Besides this, she was supposed to have participated in a second 'illegal gathering' on 1 August 2001 in front of the Student Affairs Department building within the USM campus. This occurred when a disciplinary hearing was being conducted against four other PBT students (who had participated in a debating contest in Singapore without obtaining prior permission. On that occasion, all four students were found guilty, given stern warnings, and fined RM150 each). On this occasion almost 50 people had gathered or passed by in a show of moral support for those attending the hearing. On 6 February, yet another 33 students will be brought before the disciplinary board for having done the same.

   Her third infringement was that she had been disrespectful to the head of USM security in not attending a meeting that he had scheduled. In fact, Lee and others in the PBT had had earlier meetings with the security officers prior to this particular additional one. Lee had explained that they had refused to attend further meetings because the security personnel had increasingly harassed them at their cubicle on several occasions and by investigating all kinds of other matters unrelated to the specific charges. In fact, we understand, the Special Branch of the police force was even brought into the investigations conducted by the USM security personnel. This matter was brought to the attention of the vice chancellor. His deputy had looked into the matter and it was presumed settled. Yet this charge has re-surfaced confirming the harassment of the PBT and its members by the USM security.