Reflections

Over the years,  the number of migrant workers and refugees had been increasing. While many of them settled comfortably, starting life anew, there were also a number of them who ran into problems, when they were abused, marginalized and their basic human rights infringed on. Who do they turned to? Mostly, to NGOs or individuals who have dedicated their time to help migrants and refugees.

In the Northern region of Peninsular Malaysia, there are a number of NGOs that address the problems migrants and refugees faced. Sensing that there is a need for a network that bring together all these NGOs and individuals who are involved in migrants and refugees works, the Northern Migration and Refugee Network was launched in Nov. 2007. (It is better known by its Bahasa acronym – JUMP – Jaringan Utara Migrasi dan Pelarian). (more…)

my fellow citizen journalist (CJ) team-mate, jimmy leow had made two videos before about the plight of the fishermen in pulau betong.  it seemed that their livelihood had been threatened when  commercial trawlers encroached into their fishing grounds within the 5 nautical miles radius.

continue reading at my mental jog blog.

sorry, wanted to blog here but forgot and blog at mental jog instead and since i had already uploaded the photos there, i don’t want to go through uploading the photos here again. anyway, it seems that the admin post page at this blog, have some problems. some words/features over-lapped each other and sometimes can’t scroll up down. something’s wrong with the CJ blog!… well my CJ blog anyway.

james yee, an ex army US officer who was station as a muslim chaplin at the infamous guantanamo bay in 1991. (pic  here show  james taken by me during the Q&A time)

he was invited by the islamic propagation society international (IPSI) to talk about his time at guantanamo bay, at the caring society complex, penang on 19 may.

i was there with friends christina and janet. i notice there were about 20% non muslim in attendance. (total crowd – can’t really say as i was seated right in front and didn’t actually looked back – but maybe a bit more than 100). it’s good to see non muslim attending talks organised by muslim NGO, and there was no sign like ‘not for non muslim’.

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long time i did not made a post here but of course had been blogging at my own personal blog all the time. well since i’m quite passionate on the orang asli issue, i’m going to CnP what i wrote about the orang asli here.

this is my first post, where i copy the article from malaysiakini, including many pictures too. of course i only paste my own say here.

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the march of the real bumiputera…

or supposed to be a march… because they were stopped by the police!… while the pendatang from perkasa and those pendatang cow-head protestors marched/protest, the police did nothing.

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On Deepavali Day, 17 October 2009, residents of Pearl Hill Townhouse and Solok Tan Jit Seng in Tanjung Bungah, Penang, organised a protest against dangerous hill slopes development, which they labelled as ‘Deepavali Tea Party’, because the protest was followed by a tea reception.

About 60 residents turned up, supported by the Tanjung Bungah Residents Association (TBRA). They all hold banners and placards with catchy slogans like ‘Hell on earth with Hill Slopes Development’, ‘Mistakes cost lives’.  However, what was more interesting was that some of them were armed with pots and pans, which they will bang hard, making a noisy din, each time a speaker made a pertinent point.

This was the third ‘Tea Party’ in this year, organised by the Tanjung Bungah residents. The first one was on Valentine’s Day, 14 Feb at Chee Seng Gardens, and the second one was at Solok Tan Jit Seng on 23 March.

In the recent Deepavali Tea Party, the residents hope that the State Government will adhere strictly to the newly Cabinet-approved ‘Guidelines for Hillside and Highland Areas Development’ (12/8/09).  which bans any development on slopes of more than 35 degrees gradient.

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this is my second third project as a citizen/video journalist. the first was during pakatan’s 1st anniversary gathering at the esplanade on 7 march, where 4 of us, lilian, lim and leow were there; second one on 14 march when 5 of us (the same 4 L’s, plust koh) were out on the streets after 11.00am to interview the homeless people. yesterday, there were only 2 of us, lim and i where we went to the tanjung bungah residents association (TBRA) ‘tea party’  hill-slopes protest.

it was actually a ‘coffee party’ as coffee was served instead. this was the 2nd protest the TBRA held. the first one was in feb where they used pots and pans to bang. this coffee party protest was held at solok tan jit seng (behind the tg bungah secondary school) because it was where the dangerous hill-slopes project can be seen. seemed that over 20 trees had been cut down for the project and the hill-slope has a gradient of 68 degrees!

TBRA members wants the penang government to ban class 3 (a gradient of 25 – 35%) and class 4 (a gradient of over 35%) it seemed that, this hill project’s gradient is 68%! imagine! so much higher than class 4! can’t blame the residents for living in fear that some disaster is waiting to happen.

there were a number of press present for this protest. the VIP present ere YB teh, the assemblyman from tanjung bungah and YB phee, exco for social welfare and environment department.  the CM was invited but he sent YB phee instead. YB phee said that halfway through, the CM called him to check if the turned up!

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