Finally, a weight liftedPublished by the Star news, on Sunday November 30, 2008 by Shaila Koshy
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/30/focus/2681622&sec=focusDr Irene Fernandez made headlines again after the High Court acquitted her of publishing false news on the treatment of migrant workers at detention camps after a trial that stretched over 13 years. Sunday Star catches up with the Tenaganita director on how those challenging years took a toll on her and her family.
Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, free at last!” Those were the first words that came to Dr Irene Fernandez, 62, when the High Court acquitted her on Monday of publishing false news.
Four days after High Court Justice Mohd Apandi Ali set aside the conviction and 12 months’ jail sentence imposed by the magistrate’s court, she was still on a high.
Understandably so, after 13 years of having the case hanging over her head and taking a toll on her family; she is now able to get on with life without interruptions – she reportedly went to court 310 times in the trial that stretched seven and a half years before she was finally convicted on Oct 15, 2003.
“I had no idea that just by issuing a press statement to highlight the abuses Tenaganita had uncovered that I would be subjecting myself to all that. All we wanted was for the Government to investigate the abuses,” said Fernandez.
The Tenaganita Sdn Bhd director was guilty under Section 8A(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 for publishing a memorandum titled “Abuse, Torture, and Dehumanised Treatment of Migrant Workers at Detention Camps” which contained 16 statements that were found to be false.
The memorandum was based on information which was collected through research conducted on migrant workers and HIV/AIDS.
“Those 13 years were very challenging times. I knew the system was not for me even though I had spoken the truth; the Government was in denial (about the abuses) and judicial independence was lacking,” says Fernandez, who has the dubious honour of having “participated” in Malaysia’s longest ever trial after her arrest on March 18, 1996, at her house.
“There were several repercussions for Tenaganita. Immediately after I was arrested, the office was raided by the Registrar of Companies – all because I had not submitted two receipts on EPF that had been paid,” she says.
(The ROC later dropped the charges against her and another director.)
“Tenaganita was portrayed as an anti-government organisation. And because we were registered as a company, we subsequently failed to get any grants. The Health Ministry also cut off our funds for our shelter for people with HIV.”
It has been reported that it took the prosecution three years to make its case. In that time, many of the original interviewees had left Malaysia.
“One of the challenges in my defence was that I had to travel to Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh to find witnesses.
“The time in Bangladesh was the most stressful because I was asking the workers to relive their pain. While some of the women who had been raped when they were here had been thrown out by their husbands, some men who had experienced torture now suffered erectile dysfunction.”
Instead of getting all of them to come back and testify on her behalf, she put her energies into setting up income-generating projects for them.
The financial burden of a long case often causes an appellant to give up but Fernandez, a a diehard activist who started at the age of 23, was fortunate.
“I had to retain my solicitor for documentation and research and travel with me to find witnesses. All that came up to RM1.5mil.
“I was fortunate in that because we had grown as an organisation, we had international support for fund raising. I used to get cards of support from children overseas. That really energises you!
“And I had a great defence team who did not charge professional fees,” she says, touched by their sacrifice of “billable” time.
Asked how she had found the strength to keep fighting, Fernandez, who started her activism in the Young Women’s Christian Association after she gave up her teaching job, says: “It was my faith. I held on to what Jesus Christ struggled for. His life challenged me to struggle for justice and for rights. He gave me strength to live my faith.”
Pending her appeal against conviction and sentence, the court impounded her passport. This put a strain on her professional and personal life.
“In 2003, I applied for my passport to attend a meeting in Beijing but it was refused.
“On appeal, the High Court said I could have it but I would have to report to every Malaysian High Commission whenever I went overseas and I could not tarnish the image of Malaysia while I was there.
“A hilarious thing happened at one place when I called to report in. They thought I was someone important that they had forgotten to pick up at the airport!” she laughs.
“But not having my passport made it difficult for me to travel with my family and when I wanted to get ayurvedic treatment after I suffered a slipped disc,” she says quietly, sobering up at that memory.
The most difficult aspect of being on trial and having a conviction and 12 months’ jail hanging over her head was the impact on her family.
When Fernandez was arrested, Tania was 13, Camverra was 12 and Katrina was only 10.
“I couldn’t have coped if my sisters hadn’t helped with my daughters and son. They did so much.
“Today, my children tell me that they are better off than others because of what happened to me; they know what justice is and what rights are.”
As for her husband Joseph Paul, Fernandez said he was very angry and upset at first and that affected his work.
“He had a government job and when he found he was going nowhere, he left and started his own consultancy. This has been a journey for the whole family.”
While Fernandez was a “convict” at home, her work with Tenaganita and the prosecution got her international acclaim.
She received, among others, the Human Rights Monitor Award by Human Rights Watch in 1996; the Amnesty International Human Rights Defenders Recognition on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1998; an Honorary Doctorate in Social Medicine from Vrije University in Amsterdam, Holland, in 2000; and the Right Livelihood Award, known as the “alternative Nobels” in 2005, sharing the honour with two Canadians and a man from Botswana.
She had another lovely surprise in October last year. Twelve years after she filed her suit, High Court Justice Tee Ah Sing awarded her RM200,000 in damages against Utusan Malaysia and one of its acting editors over an article published in 1995 titled Sikap Irene lengahkan siasatan (Irene’s attitude slows down investigations) that claimed she had failed to cooperate with the police investigations into the memorandum.
In his 104-page judgement which took two hours to read, Justice Tee, among others, ruled that the defendants had not given her an opportunity to comment before the article was published.
“I am for freedom of expression, but in that freedom of expression, you have to be responsible in your writing,” she said then.
Along the way, Fernandez decided to enter politics.
Asked whether her prosecution had been the push, the PKR supreme council member who was attending the three-day PKR congress that ends today, says: “That was part of it. So many of us saw how entrenched corruption was in the system.
“And the reformasi movement in 1998 was incredible because for the first time, masses of Malays joined the Opposition. That was the perfect time to mainstream the struggle.”
Fernandez stood for election in 1999 but lost. She had to sit out the 2004 and 2008 general elections because she was disqualified due to her conviction. Asked whether the delay in getting her appeal heard had cost her in terms of her political career, she laughs and says: “Of course. Otherwise I would be in Parliament now raising issues!”
