JAG just started a day ago, and already creating problem for Samy Vellu. If these ladies go house to house and campaign, SV will have more headache. Its hard for JAG to be viewed as apolitical since their “targets” all come from one side of the camp only. Does it mean that the opposition MPs were more gender-sensitive. Maybe JAG can add some “targets” from Kelantan’s ruling party (if they can find one) to make it more balanced and apolitical.<\/p>\n
\nWomen activists manhandled by MIC workers<\/p>\n
http:\/\/malaysiakini.com\/news\/79004
\nB Mahendran | Mar 2, 08 3:22pm<\/p>\n
A group of woman rights activists today took their campaign for gender equality right to the doors of MIC president S Samy Vellu in Sungai Siput, only to be forcibly removed from the scene.<\/p>\n
The incident happened this morning when three activists from the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) arrived at the Convention Hall in Sungai Siput after learning that Samy Vellu was to conduct a press conference at the venue. They were originally slated to hold the own press conference in the nearby Jalong Market to highlight their campaign for gender equality among those chosen to contest in this general election as well as to call for the removal of sexist members of parliament.\u00a0 However when they learnt that Samy Vellu, the incumbent Sungai Siput representative, would be holding his own press conference, some of the activists decided to join in and seek the support of the politician for their campaign.<\/p>\n
Samy Vellu was not at the scene when the activists arrived but they were met by a group of angry party workers who were not happy with the presence of these newcomers. These party workers attempted to remove the three activists before Samy Vellu’s arrival and in the process had manhandled at least one of the activists. They also damaged the placards and banners carried by the three women.<\/p>\n
“We are Malaysians who want to meet our MP. We wish to ask him on certain issues of gender equalities… that’s all! Why can’t we?” shouted one of the activists Meera Samanther to the party workers.<\/p>\n
The activists were still there when Samy Vellu walked into the hall but he ignored them. The activists shouted questions to him on matters relating to gender equality but Samy Vellu retorted by stating that he would not answer them. He then went into the hall and the main door was closed, stopping the activists from entering and asking questions at the press conference. At the press conference, Samy Vellu lambasted the group, saying that they did not care about the major issue of single mothers and were creating a scene as a “political ploy”.<\/span><\/p>\n Issue of single mothers<\/p>\n Meanwhile, back at Jalong Market, the remaining members of JAG continued with the press conference, explaining that they were in Sungai Siput to provide education for the voters on gender issues. Stating that they were apolitical, the group said that they were disappointed with the presence of several sexist MPs in Parliament. “We feel that the party political leaders have failed to make the right decision, so we want the rakyat to make it for them instead,” said a spokesperson for the group.<\/p>\n Samy Vellu’s challenger Dr D Jeyakumar, the PSM candidate standing on the PKR ticket, was also at the JAG press conference. He added that in Sungai Siput, the main issue involving women was the state of single mothers. “Most of them earn only about RM18 per day<\/span>, and there is no childcare services here. This causes social problem within the community,” he said, adding that Samy Vellu had not done enough to look into the problems of the single mothers.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, Samy Vellu’s public appearances have been marred by unprecedented mocking and anger shown by the members of the Indian community over his failures to uplift them in his capacity as a party leader and cabinet minister. He is expected to face a tough fight from Jeyakumar in Sungai Siput and faces another challenger in the form of an independent candidate Nor Rizan Oon. Samy Vellu has been the Sungai Siput representative since 1974.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" JAG just started a day ago, and already creating problem for Samy Vellu. If these ladies go house to house and campaign, SV will have more headache. Its hard for JAG to be viewed as apolitical since their “targets” all come from one side of the camp only. Does it mean that the opposition MPs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[130,24,225,27],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-election-2008","tag-mic","tag-politicians","tag-protest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}