Malaysian Students Want Voices Heard - Article Review

Malaysian Students Want Voices Heard

Published: December 3, 2010

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KUALA LUMPUR -- In many countries, university campuses, brimming with youthful enthusiasm and impatience for change, have long served as hotbeds of political activism and training grounds for future leaders.

In Malaysia, however, it is illegal for students to join political parties or take part in political campaigns or protests. Students who do so risk expulsion from their university and other penalties, including fines.

Now, four political science students at the National University of Malaysia are challenging the decades-old law, which they argue violates their constitutional rights to free speech and association.

While the government and judiciary have resisted previous calls for changes to the 1971 Universities and University Colleges Act, the students, who have vowed to take their fight to the country's highest court, have attracted a broad range of sympathizers, including some within the governing party.

Under the law, students in Malaysian universities are barred from expressing "support, sympathy or opposition" to any political party, domestic or foreign. A 2009 amendment allows a vice chancellor to grant permission for students to join a political party, but the students from the National University of Malaysia said they had found no case where this had happened.

The catalyst for the legal action by those four students came earlier this year when they were detained at a police station for nine hours on suspicion of campaigning in a by-election in the district of Hulu Selangor, north of Kuala Lumpur.

One student, Woon King Chai, said that after the police stopped the students at a routine roadblock during the April by-election, university officials arrived and urged the police to "charge them with whatever you can."

"We were very shocked," Mr. Woon said.

The students admit that they were traveling in cars that contained brochures for the opposition People's Justice Party. But they maintain that a member of the party had offered to show them around the district so they could conduct research for their studies.

The police released the students without charge, but several weeks later, the university summoned them to an internal disciplinary hearing to respond to allegations that they had engaged in political campaigning. One of the students, Hilman Idham, 21, said the university also insisted that he had violated the law by being in the vicinity of a by-election.

"My right as a citizen to move anywhere was taken by the state," Mr. Hilman said.

Upon learning that they would not be entitled to legal representation at the disciplinary hearing and faced possible expulsion, the students obtained a court injunction to prevent the hearing from proceeding. They also filed a suit to have the section of the law that bars students from political activities ruled unconstitutional.

On Sept. 28, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed their suit. The students have filed an appeal and are now awaiting a court date.

A spokesman said the university could not comment as the case was pending.

Mr. Hilman says the law conflicts with students' right to vote once they turn 21, noting that casting a vote might reasonably be construed as support for a political party. "We have the right to be in politics," he said.

Mr. Woon argues that the ban on political activity also stifles students' educational development.

"The act has to go, not just because we want political rights for students, but because we want the best learning experience," he said. "If you look at our