Day 7: Malaysia on Headlines (Sept 19)

FREED : Teresa Kok relates her one-week ordeal
NST NEWSDESK (updated 4.20pm)

KUALA LUMPUR, FRI:

Seputeh MP Teresa Kok who was detained under ISA has been released. The assemblyman for Kinrara was arrested at 11.20pm last Friday believed to be over a religious matter concerning a mosque.


Kok called her counsel N. Sankara Nair at 1pm while she was being transported from Bukit Aman to the Travers Police Station.
Sankara met her there.

They are now on their way to DAP headquarters where she will hold a press conference at 3.30pm.

In a phone interview with the NST moments ago, Kok related her ordeal.

“They kept questioning me about the article (Utusan’s article ). I kept denying it," she said. “How can I be considered a national security threat?

"Till today, I don’t know why I was held under the ISA.”
It was a totally ridiculous stuation. Nobody should be held under the ISA,” she told NST.

Utusan Malaysia’s Sept 10 article entitled "Azan, Jawi, JAIS dan ba-alif ba-ya" accused Kok of petitioning a mosque to reduce the volume for azan.

She had vehemently denied the allegation.

Kok has instructed her lawyers to sue the Malaysian government for her unlawful arrest and detention under the Internal Security Act.

“If the police wanted to carry out investigation on me, they can always ask me to give statements in any of the police station and there was absolutely no need to detain me under the ISA for seven days.

“This is a phenomenal abuse of the power of the police under the ISA,” she said in a statement issued after she was released today.

She said the police had failed to produce any evidence or proof of her being involved in the activities causing racial and religious tension.

She said three main questions the investigation officers asked her were:
1. Whether she had mobilised a group of residents at Bandar Kinrara to present a petition to oppose the azan at the Bandar Kinrara mosque;

2. Whether she had made a statement that 30 per cent of the Selangor Islamic Department allocation was to be given to other non Islamic religious bodies, and

3. Whether she had opposed to the Jawi wording of road signages in Kuala Lumpur.

She denied the first two accusations.

On the Jawi road signages, she said this was done early this year at the request and following the pressure of resident association.