Freedom Film Festival 2007 (Penang leg)

Freedom Film Festival 2007’s Penang leg kicked off on Friday, 22nd of September at 7.30 pm at the Actor Studio Greenhall . The opening speech was by a “YB”. You’ll be asking me why I am using inverted commas for the YB next… Well, the reason for it is because the “YB” is NOT a real YB. For my readers who are not familiar with the Malaysian terms, YB means Yang Berhormat a.k.a the representative of the people in the Parliament. In other words, the opening is a parody of who are the people who sponsored Freedom Film Fest. The winners were next introduced. Ong Boon Keong, Fahmi Reza and Indrani.

The first video that was showed that night was “I love Malaya” This video was made by Asia Witness Production. It’s about the struggle of the former Communist leaders of Malaysia who fought for our Independence along side the other leaders. The other leaders used words and sucked up to the British leaders but not these people. They stood firm to their policies.

They are currently living in Thailand, stateless as they ran away from Malaysia but running away from the land they fight for is not because they do not love the country, rather they have no choice but to save their lives that are threaten by the Government that was bent to break them up. The video looks back into the time after the Malaysian Government decided to accept the ex members of the Communist. They said that they are welcome to return back to Malaysia. The media reported that and after that there was no more news about all of these until Chin Peng wanted to returned to visit his parent’s grave. He also expressed his wish to live out the remainder of his days in his hometown of Sitiawan.

Next, we had a documentary by Aljazeera titled, River Kwai. It’s about the infamous Siam- Burma railway was an ugly chapter of world war. This story revolves the untold story of how the majority of sweat and blood spilled on the railway belong to Asian workers, forced to work as slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army. For the first time, some of the survivors of that
horror have brought their case to court demanding compensation and an apology. 101 follows the battle for compensation by the forgotten survivors of the Siam-Burma Death Railway.

Not forgetting also a parody the height of election season and 4 candidates, including the incumbent have a chance to address the nation on television, set in a fictional country called Faltasia. It’s called “Idiot Nation” by Tan Meng Yoe.

The finale of the night is “Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” by Fahmi Reza, one of the winners for the Freedom Film Festival 2007. Unknown to many, October 20th, 1947 was an important and historical day in the people’s constitutional struggle for independence from British colonialism. This documentary chronicles the events that culminated in the Malaya-wide
‘Hartal’ day of protest (a form of non-violent protest) against the undemocratic Federation of Malaya Constitutional Proposals devised by the British Colonial Government and the UMNO. This was the rise of the people’s democratic movement in Malaya, ten years before Merdeka.

There was a short sharing and discussion after the movie screening...

Wanna see the pictures for the event??? Just scroll down~ (coming soon!)

THIS IS MOST UNHEARD OF !!

Well now... What is all this nonsense that University personnel has the power to confiscate personal belongings??? Don't laptops, MP4 player, pen drive, mobile phone and personal documents come under the category of private belongings????? If you ask me, I think it is wrong for them to withhold the belongings of Yee Yang Yang. By confiscating his belongings, it's a breech of personal space and freedom. If we can say the house we stay in and all comes under private property, don't laptops, MP4 player, pendrive, mobile phone and personal documents come under the category of private belongings come under that same category???? Speaking of which, who owns the laptop in the first place??? UPM or the STUDENT???

MalaysiaKini today reported by Syed Jaymal Zahiid on Sep 20, 07 at 12:26pm.

An Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) student activist whose laptop and other belongings were confiscated by university authorities has described the charges against him as being 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 retrieved 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 acknowledgment [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.

For those of you who have have a MalaysiaKini account, do check it out.

Students,

Are you going to sit quiet knowing that your personal belonging does not really belong to you??? Or does it?? Especially after this. Let me ask you this. Who bought the laptop for you and who paid for it?? Did your university purchased and provided it for you or it was bought with your parent's hard-earned money??? So, if they wanna confiscate your personal belongings, NEVER EVER let it go. It's yours to begin with, not theirs; so that does not give them the right to confiscate it at all.

As for the allegations about porn in the laptop, I want to ask the guys, ok... Which guy does not have porn in their laptop or pc??? Okay.... It's generalizing but my point is, which guy does not watch porn??? If you ask me, porn's been around all through the ages but why are we the ones making a fuss about it?? In ancient times, porn was viewed as a form of Art!!! If you see paintings by great masters, aren't they painting naked people and also all sorts of sexual positions?? If they didn't how in the world did we progress to what we are now?? Can you answer me on that??? How on earth did the various names for positions is known to mankind??? Frown all you want on this post but it's the truth or would you like to go against history???

Speaking of which, how long do they want to impose AUKU on the students??? When will they ever wake up??? The advertisements on the media are going on and on about the young being the future leaders of the country but are we treated that way??? Anyone wanna answer that???

Check the video of the incident, people....

50:44 years of Merdeka