Syed Jaymal Zahiid
An Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) student activist whose laptop and other belongings were confiscated by university authorities has described the charges against him as baseless.
In a memorandum to the Bar Council human rights committee yesterday, student Yee Yang Yang outlined several contradictions in the accusations made by UPM vice-chancellor Nik Mustapha R Abdullah.
Accompanying Yee was UPM Progressive Students’ Movement (GMM) external coordinator Lee Song Yong.
Lee said the accusation that pornographic material were found in Yee’s laptop was “baseless” since the laptop, which was confiscated by UPM security personnel, cannot be accessed without his password.
“On Sept 17, when Yee met UPM’s security director, the latter had demanded the password from Yee.
“Without the password, one cannot access the laptop and if you can’t access it, how do you know there is pornographic material in there?” he asked.
Two days before the meeting with the security director, Lee alleged that a security officer had warned Yee to stop making a fuss or he will be penalised for being in possession of pornographic material.
On Tuesday, Nik Mustapha said UPM’s security personnel had also found leaflets produced by an unregistered organisation in Yee’s room.
He said the university authorities had acted according to procedure and dismissed Yee’s claim that he was being targeted because of his ‘political leaning’.
Disturbing manner
Meanwhile, Lee also disagreed with the VC’s statement that Yee had consented to having his belonging taken for investigation.
According to him, Yee had asked for his belongings to be returned immediately but this was denied.
Lee also disputed the allegation that security personnel had conducted a room-to-room search because of a complaint regarding a spate of laptop thefts.
He claimed that Yee was only grilled on the leaflets and not once was the theft of laptops mentioned.
As for being accused of ‘lying’ about his university ID matrix card, Lee said the student activist did lose the card.
Upon receiving the memorandum, Bar Council human rights committee chairperson Edmund Bon said the university had acted in a ‘disturbing manner’.
Bon said the excuse to confiscate Yee’s laptop “seemed like a pretext to something deeper.”
“We have reasons to believe that this case is collateral as it is obvious that the case is not of laptop theft but of other reasons,” he explained.
The committee’s deputy chairperson Amer Hamzah Arshad criticized the VC for making a premature and biased statement.
“As a VC, you must take a neutral stand and not take sides. This is in our view an underhand tactic to curtail freedom of expression which is becoming a dangerous trend in all public varsities” he said.
He then assured that the committee will study the memorandum and take the appropriate action.
Present at the press conference were other student groups such as the Malaysian Federation of Islamic Students (Gamis) and Student and Youth Democratic Action Group (Dema).
Caught on tape
Yee’s effort on Saturday to retrieve his items from the university was recorded in a nine-minute video by one of his friends.
It included a tense stand-off between the students and Zamali Samsi, the head of the university’s Special Task Unit, a student-monitoring outfit which is part of the campus security.
The students stood in front and the back of the vehicle carrying Zamali to stop him from leaving until they got their letter of acknowlegement [see video].
Yee had previously claimed that the university authorities had acted against him because of his involvement in the ‘opposition’ camp.
Rival students groups - known as anti-establishment and pro-government factions - are already in the midst of campaign preparations for the soon-to-be held campus polls.
Last year, the anti-establishment group - who are generally regarded to be pro-opposition - had boycotted the election.
