Taken from Malaysiakini
Bersih 2.0 chief Ambiga Sreenevasan has filed a suit against Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud challenge the latter's order to deport her from Sarawak during the last state election.
The suit, filed in the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Monday, named Taib, the director-general of the Malaysian Immigration Department and other relevant authorities as respondents.
Ambiga, who is former Bar Council chairperson, told reporters today that a date had been fixed to hear the application for leave in July.
She chose to file the suit in the peninsula and named the Immigration DG as respondent because the Immigration Act stipulates that the latter has overall responsibility over immigration affairs in the whole of Malaysia.
"He can't just wash his hands off," she added.
"I request the court to quash the deportation order because it was an abuse of my constitutional rights and it constituted an abuse of power," she said.
The latest victim was Malaysian Election Observation Network coordinator Ong Boon Keong.
Ong was detained by Kuching Immigration officials during his visit to Bengoh on Tuesday and deported to Kuala Lumpur the same night.
Both Ambiga (second from left) and Ong (left) were present during a press conference in Kuala Lumpur this morning to address the deportation issue and the coming Bersih 2.0 mega-rally on July 9.
Ong said he was in the process of filing a similar suit in Sarawak to challenge his deportation.
"I'm talking to some lawyers in Sarawak who are keen to take it up, but I have no written document on my deportation. Everything was just conveyed to me orally (by the immigration officials).
"They have never made a charge against me or justified their actions. There was no reason, no accountability or whatsoever," Ong added.
Sheer arrogance of the Sarawak government
Ambiga lamented Ong's deportation as a total abuse of power and sheer arrogance on the part of the Sarawak state government.
"None in the government has made comment on this matter. None of them think there's anything wrong with it.”
She said the fact that 10 Immigration officials had been deployed to detain Ong showed how they used the power that they thought they had.
The Bar Council's human rights committee chairperson Andrew Khoo, who was also present at the press conference, demanded that the Sarawak government answers how the five activists had threatened the security of the state that led to their deportation.
"In the context of the federal constitution, the power of deportation is to protect the security of the federation.
"National security is not not keeping the government in power... maybe the Sarawak government thinks keeping itself in power is part of Sarawak's security," Khoo said.
Meanwhile, across the South China Sea, the Sarawak-based NGO Movement for Change Sarawak (MoCS) expressed support for Ambiga's legal action against Taib.
"These NGO activists from the peninsula have every right to enter Sawarak.
“The deportation is another desperate act of Sarawak chief minister to prevent concerned citizens coming to the state to educate the people on the corruption and abuses of the chief minister and his administration," MoCS leader Francis Siah (above, left) told Malaysiakini.
"Ong has been working very hard in Sarawak during the election. His only concern is to ensure free and fair elections. He has no other personal motive, so why should a good man like Ong be deported from Sarawak?
"Ambiga, Wong, Steven and (the human rights lawyer who was barred from entering Sarawak) Haris (Ibrahim), are all forthright Malaysians who care a lot about the country. They have every right to enter Sarawak," Siah added.
The reason why they are block from coming into Sarawak is because they are digging out dirt from the last Sarawak election!
Here is some prove!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LeCq_cgO-A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p56-iCNh9qY&feature=player_embedded
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