Below is a letter written by the children of Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah, after her arrest on Friday.
It is the eve of the BERSIH rally, we are sure that everybody is preparing for the rally for what seems to be the next step to achieving a free and fair election for Malaysia. It was around 6.00 p.m., we were at home preparing dinner when we received a call from a family friend asking if we were ok and if we heard about the news. Confused about what was going on, we asked her what happened. She explained to us that our mother has been arrested and was brought to a police station for further processing.
Within the next hour we were at the police station and as we arrived we had to wait for one of our mother’s lawyer to bring us in to see our mother. While we were in the processing room, our mother explained to us that she was being charged for destabilizing the government.
Both Mandeep and our mother were reassuring us that everything is going to be fine in a calm and collective state. We hoped that the charges would be dropped and that she would be released soon.
After everything that has transpired, it is disappointing that people that fight for a fair and clean election have been branded as a threat to the country. Is this the type of country that we Malaysian’s want to live in, where corruption runs a mock and elections are rigged and innocents are placed behind bars?
When we were younger, we did not understand what our parents were fighting for or why our father was protesting strongly against I.S.A. He is gone now. We are old enough to understand the importance and sacrifice of the work that people like them do.
People like our parents, who are willing to speak up against corruption do not to it for their own sake, but for the sake of the future generations.
As we are writing this, we as Malaysian’s are hours away from an opportunity to voice out to make a change in Malaysia. It is why it is so important for us as Malaysian’s to show that we will not tolerate the injustice that government officials have gotten away with. We implore to our fellow Malaysian’s that are attending the rally or are watching it at home, to listen to the speakers and to understand what BERSIH is trying to achieve. We hope that the rally will be peaceful and see you there.
Sincerely,
Azumin, Aziman, Azemi.