Jessie Ooi strikes while the iron is hot, plays the sympathy card: Leave my family alone!

I acknowledge that I did indeed take part in posing questions during the debate between MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek and the DAP Secretary-General YAB Lim Guan Eng on 18 Feb 2012. Due to time constraint, I could not clearly convey my message. I admit that I was emotional by then, causing confusion and misunderstanding to many quarters.

I welcome all constructive criticisms and efforts to correct my remarks. However, I appeal to you not to use words which are humiliating, insulting, or words that can be deemed as sexual harassment, or to post doctored photographs or edited video clips to launch personal attacks against me.

Leave my family alone

There are some quarters who have posted pictures of my family members and children on websites which have severely damaged the image of the members and children of our family. As they are all innocent, please do not target those malicious remarks against them. Should you have any criticisms, please direct them at me and do not harm my family members.

Those malicious remarks including a content in Facebook which implicated: “If she wanted to be popular, we fully supported her. Let’s make her popular throughout the nation!” Those pictures displayed had also shown my family members and children. Such an act poses a severe threat against our safety and has also badly damaged our reputation.

Besides, in an account named “I’m Jessie Ooi. Please do not attack me” has also misused our statements, words, pictures and video clips to threaten, harass and insult us. The contents are all criminal in nature. At the same time, it has also urged a boycott against our family’s company. To protect the safety and reputation of my family members and myself, I have lodged a report on 20 Feb 2012 at the Gombak Police Headquarters. We will certainly take the appropriate actions to protect ourselves.

Will safeguard interest of all Malaysians

To safeguard the interest of all Malaysians, I will take action against those malicious remarks. I respect the rights of critics to make criticisms but such rights should not be abused to defame and slander. If we continue to condone these defamatory remarks, there will be more victims in the future, and our internet will be full of such violent, defamatory and insulting language.

Pertaining to the suspension of my Facebook account, I would say that after the said debate, due to personal commitments, I was forced to suspend it as I was unable to deal with the deluge of comments that had been posted. This was because someone had secretly posted my handphone number on the website and I was really unable to entertain every caller one by one. But later, I reactivated my Facebook account because I am willing to face criticism and listen to the people. I understand that I must explain the truth instead of running away from it. This is the principle of a democratic society.

Therefore, I wish to clarify certain points as follows:-

As the topic of the said debate covered the performances of the Pakatan Rakyat in all the states under their administration, I was forced to pose questions on how Pakatan had alleviated the burden of the rakyat as spoken by Lim Guan Eng. I wish to clarify to the questions posed as follows:-

Assessment rates

1. With regard to my question asked about the “Assessment charges”, it was because that I mentioned that I was “half Penangite”, people thought that I was referring to the assessment charges in Penang. Due to time constraint, I was in fact referring to Selangor when during the General Elections in 2008, Pakatan had promised to lower the assessment rate. However, they did not keep to this promise. Instead, the Pakatan-led Selangor state government reevaluated the land, which in turn increased the amount that ratepayers must pay, thereby nullifying potential savings from a reduced assessment rate. News reports stating that I was referring to Penang are inaccurate.

Vehicles being clamped

2. As parking bays in Penang are very limited, people who want to use the facilities of the banks along the road at night were forced to park illegally outside the bank for security reasons. Some of these vehicles ended up being clamped by local government enforcement officers and later towed away.

Regarding to towing cars as has been raised by netizens, it was in fact a situation which my husband and I had witnessed whereby after a driver had alighted from his car, his vehicle was clamped. Clamping vehicles has already been widely reported in the newspapers. Coverage of vehicle clamping have been highlighted in Facebook accounts too and was also reported in Kwong Wah on 26 July 2011.

As to the scuffles between the local council law enforcement officers, I was referring to a news report on the incident which occurred on 25 October 2011 at 5.30p.m along Burmah Road.

What I actually meant

I wish to emphasise that I do not oppose any local council enforcement officer performing his duties. What I actually meant was to urge the Chief Minister to ask his enforcement officers to allow some flexibility and refrain from hastily issuing summonses to those motorists as a way to reduce their financial burden. This is for the people to reduce their risk of being issued summonses all the time.

Although I did not ask pose question in a proper manner, it does not mean that such occurrences never happened. What I had said are all facts and reality. But unfortunately, my remarks have all been misunderstood.

As Malaysians, we all want our next generation to enjoy a happy and a more democratic way of living here. This has been my concept all along since taking up my political career. As no one is perfect, and also as a young female in the political arena, I am willing to learn from my experience this time and hope that it will become a motivating force helping to push me ahead. I will always want to serve the people.

Jessie Ooi

Barisan Nasional Coordinator for Selayang

Selangor MCA Beliawanis Chairman