Varsity students tell of heckling and intimidation

PETALING JAYA: Students from three public universities say they were bullied when trying to help new students during the recent orientation session.

At a press conference yesterday, students from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and University Malaya (UM) gave accounts of how representatives of their various organisations, were heckled, shouted at and chased away when they went to help new students.

UPM's Students Progressive Front (SPF) coordinator and student Ooi Tze Min, 22, described how some 50 members of the ruling student body allegedly humiliated him and six others in one of the canteens.

The SPF had set up a counter to assist new students but was told to leave because they were not recognised by the university and its student body.

A three-minute video clip of the incident has been making its rounds on the Internet.

There are also pictures of Ooi pasted at bus stops around the university with a caption blaming him for the student unrest.

“All we wanted to do was to help new students in financial difficulties, and getting the used to their new surroundings and bus routes,” Ooi said.

“We did not do anything wrong, yet we were shouted at and bullied,” he added.

Ooi admitted that the SPF was not a registered body with the university, but felt that the issue was in how they were treated.

“The students could have acted professionally and just told us nicely that we should leave, and not turn it into an ugly situation by surrounding us, behaving like gangsters and shouting at us,” he said.

In UM, Wong Teck Chi, described how three members of the UMANY association were bullied after identifying and helping new students at the 12th residential college.

“Our members had their bags taken and were prevented from leaving by college and student affairs officers,” he said.

He said they had reported the incident to the safety department.

In USM, Lee Huat Seng claimed that university officials had told first-year students on July 12 not to participate in any SPF activities the next day.

“The authorities threatened students with cancelling their PTPTN loans if they were found attending such activities,” he said.

The Star 22-7-2006

Ok, here is my personal story. It happened on last tuesday, I were invited to join a small gathering of UMANY (UM's association of new youth) at a mamak stall inside my refugee camp. I got to know those seniors of UMANY because I have attended their seminar before entered UM, so it is very normal that they wanted to know how well my life in the campus, frankly, we didn't touch on those campus politic stuffs. After the gathering, few seniors from so called "Pro-campus party" came in and looked worrying. They immediately explained these and that, what what UMANY is an "anti-government" societylah, what what support the "Pro-campus"lah and blah blah blah etc etc. They seems trying to brainwash us, insulted UMANY blah blah..... really ridiculous..... sigh sigh sigh.-report from UM-

BooNBoX : I prefer you all to provide info from your personal experience such as the second verse from this post (Kai Yit's experience at the canteen, please not to extract verse/quotes from newspaper into your post since it is long, i know it is news and you wanna let everyone know but you can post it in comments later, in post just write your feelings ok ? More on personal feelings + experience since I don't want this blog to smell "political" .. ok ?? sorry if offended kai-boy- ... ... haha

Kaiboy the Kaitechz: It's really offensive~~~!!!! haha~~~ okokloh... politic-free, racism-free.... but since we already mahasiswa, and "mahasiswa is eye of society", should we really have to close one or even two eyes on those smelled "political" stuffs??!! I am not going to alfraid to that idiotic unhumanism AUKU!! emm.... for those who successfully fleed from the tentacles of AUKU, I strongly urged you guys comments on this issue...