Students' Victory: Lee Song Yong unreasonable one-semester suspension withdraw

Below is a letter from DEMA regarding their victory on the case of one of its members. The foundation supported their appeal and petition on this issue.





Dear friends and supporters,

Good news in students' struggle! The one-semester suspension of UPM student, Lee Song Yong had been withdraw, and changed to fine RM 200 with warning letter.

We need to claim here that this is the victory of all of us who involved. This shows that students' and peoples' power can make the changes.

Of course this is not the ideal result that we fight for and fine RM 200 still means Song Yong was doing wrong in the case. Well, we won't make an ending here, we will start another round of student rights awareness campaign start from here, as Song Yong not the only victim of student rights violation.

Thanks for all of you who been supported in our signature campaign and sending out the urgent appeal to give the pressure to the authority to make the decision change.

"Yesterday I dared to struggle. Today I dare to win. ~Bernadette Devlin."

Background

Lee Song Yong was sentence to one-semester suspension by the UPM authority following UPM disciplinary proceeding on 22 November 2007 under infamous draconian law University and University College Act (UUCA) for allegedly obstructing a security guard from confiscating his personal belongings.




The chronology of the case is as follows:


Date
Events

22/08/07
o At 10pm, Lee Song Yong was stopped by two security guards in uniform at the Anjung Putra guard posts when he was on his way out of campus.

o One of the guards requested to examine Lee's bag. Lee enquired as to the the guards needed to examine his bag, but the guard refused to answer. Lee refused to fulfill the guards' request as he believed nothing wrong and he wanted to be cautious.

o After Lee had refused, the guard made a phone call. Not long after that, three men in plain clothes turned up at Anjung Putra and they refused to heed Lee's request for their identification. Lee held out his matric card to show to the men, and immediately the card was snatched from him.

o The guard then forcefully demanded that Lee surrendered his bag. Lee refused, however one of them snatched the bag from him while the other held him. Lee insisted that they return his belongings. The guards mocked back at Lee with foul words. After rummaging the bag, the man took his notebook and matric card away. They drove off in a Proton Wira.

o Immediately, Lee lodged a report at Sri Serdang police station that his belonging had been snatched by three unknown men in the UPM campus. The police then informed him that the men were security officers of UPM and asked Lee to retrieve his belongings at Security Department the next day.



23/08/07
o Lee went to the Security Department but could not retrieve them as the official on duty was not present.



27/08/07
o Lee went to the Department for another time to retrieve his belongings and had also lodged a complaint against the security officers who had acted aggressively on him. Director of the Deparment, Major Othman bin Jailani promised to investigate.

o His matric card was returned to him except for his notebook. According to the Deparment's investigation the notebook was needed to investigate illegal organisations in UPM.

o Lee obtained a letter confirming the retention of the aforsaid book and Major Othman was the person who issued the letter.



14/11/07
o Lee Song Yong received a notice served upon him to attend a proceeding, attached together with a translated copy of his notebook. Lee was charged for not cooperating with the security officer and had disputed as well as prevented the officer from carrying out his duty.

o He was only given two working days to prepare himself to attend the proceeding on 19 November 2007, Monday, 2.30pm, which carries with it the posibility of expulsion.



16/11/07
o Lee was accompanied by his lawyer Mr Sunil Lopez and SUARAM representative Arutchelven, submitted his application letter to adjourn the proceeding to head of Disciplinary Unit Professor Dr Tai Shzee Yew. Without reading the letter, Dr Tai straightaway rejected the application. They requested that Dr Tai to read the letter first and discussed with them before coming to any decision.

o The letter of complaint against the concerned security officer was sent again at the same time to the Vice Chancellor of UPM, Prof Dr Nik Mustapha.

o At 8.30pm, Lee received a reply letter from the officials informing Lee that both his applications to adjourn the proceeding and to have a lawyer present with him during the whole proceeding were rejected. However, he was allowed to be represented by any students so as to assist him.



19/11/07
o Lee Song Yong went to Banguna Pentadbiran UPM at 2.30pm together with 4 student representatives namely Ooi Tze Min, ng Yong Jin, Teh Yee Keong and Neow Ti Hooi.

o However, the 4 students and parents representatives were later not allowed to attend the proceeding.

o Lee had to attend the proceeding alone without any assistance.

o In the proceeding, Lee requested that he be represented by a student, and that he be allowed to call up a witness to testify before the proceeding. The request was allowed.

o The proceeding was adjourned to 22/11/07 at 9.30am.



21/11/07
o SMM sent a memorandum to SUHAKAM with regards to the cases of abuse of power by the security officials in UPM since 2003. kuasa oleh pengawai keselamatan di UPM sejak tahun 2003.

o SUHAKAM requested that the proceeding Nov 22 to be cancelled to allow the commission to investigate the matter.

o If the proceeding were to proceed, SUHAKAM would send its officer as an observer.

o Prof Dato' Dr Khoo Kay Kim stated that whatever laws that are not in line with the Constitution must be deemed invalid.



22/11/07
o Lee Song Yong attended the proceeding in the company of Ooi Tze Min as his representative and Loke Chiu Chee as his witness.

o In the proceeding, the witnesses from Disciplinary Board which comprises of security guards including uniformed officer, special task unit and director of security Major Othman admitted that Lee had shown that he intended to cooperate by showing his matric card and did not attempt to escape. He only refused to allow his bag to be examined until he obtained the security officers' explanation. The officers themselves had admitted that they did not give any reason when they are checking the bag of the students though it was part of the procedure

o Lee Song Yong was given suspension of one semester with a stern warning by the Disciplinary unit headed by Prof Dr Tai Shzee Yew, Deputy Vice Chancellor.



27/11/07
o At least 30 urgent appeals were sent to Ministry of Higher Education by students, lecturers, local NGOs and international NGOs to demand the withdraw of Lee's suspension.



27/11/07
o SMM went to SUHAKAM for the second time to request serious attention about this case.

o Prof Dato' Dr Khoo Kay Kim said that he will further follow up about this case.



04/12/07
o After 3 times of delaying, Lee finally got the minutes of the proceeding. Unfortunately, it was incomplete; most of the points which benefit Lee were left out.



05/12/07
o SMM went to parliament to get support from MP.



11/12/07
o Lee Song Yong handed in appeal letter to the Ministry of Higher Education on behalf of his own name.



14/12/07
o SMM handed in a memorandum to Minister of Higher Education, requesting serious attention from the ministry.



24/12/07
o IVC (Inter Varsity Council) had a discussion on this case at KLSCAH.



26/12/07
o Lee Song Yong had a meeting with youth of Chinese Society groups.



28/12/07
o Meeting with Dr. Wee Ka Xiong from MCA Youth.



30/12/07
o Dr. Wee Ka Xiong from MCA Youth announced to the media that the appeal result was released and the ministry's decision was to change the one-semester suspension to the fine of RM200 and a warning to Lee Song Yong.



09/01/07
o Lee Song Yong received official letter from Ministry of Higher Education through UPM, stating that the one-semester suspension had been changed to the fine of RM200 and a warning

Regards,

Malaysia Youth and Student Democratic Movement

DEMA
demamalaysia@gmail.com
www.demamalaysia.wordpress.com