Maria, Ambiga fume over late night sex calls

For the past three months, phone calls have awoken Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah and her predecessor Ambiga Sreenevasan in the middle of the night.

Fearing an emergency, Maria told Malaysiakini she answered the first call between 2am and 4am in early September.

Instead, it was from someone inquiring about sexual service.

"They ask me how much, when I am available and things like that," Maria said of the calls, which have not stopped since the Bersih 4 rally.

"The requests also come in the form of WhatsApp messages," she told Malaysiakini. "Very sick messages!"

One message sent at 11.30pm read: "Bpe semalam lw kta maen sm awak…" (How much for a night to have sex with you?)

DBKL warns of blacklist

And today, the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) sent Maria (photo) a text message informing her that her number would be blacklisted for putting up unauthorised advertisements.

DBKL also said it would initiate legal action for the unauthorised advertisements.

Sharing her experience, Ambiga said she received "strange phone calls and messages" in the middle of the night.

"I had no clue how this was happening until (Bersih secretariat member) Mandeep (Singh) said it was also happening to him and Maria as well and that he thought our numbers were posted somewhere," Ambiga added when contacted.

Both Maria and Ambiga have decided not to change their phone numbers, and are now more circumspect when entertaining phone calls, especially those that come late in the night.

Maria said they would take action against DBKL if it blacklisted their telephone numbers.

Advertised in Chow Kit

Meanwhile, Mandeep said when he questioned one of the callers on how he obtained the phone number, the man replied it was on a wall in Chow Kit, a red light district in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

"To this day, I still get calls from unknown individuals, asking if I am 'Kim'," he said.

The Bersih secretariat member said he has been inundated with calls from unknown men, who ask him to supply prostitutes.

Mandeep urged DBKL to use its CCTV recordings to pinpoint the culprits who are circulating their mobile phone numbers on the sex advertisements.

He added that his mobile phone was hacked multiple times during rallies, with text messages sent out without his knowledge.

The Bersih 4 rally on Aug 29 to 30 attracted at least 150,000 people, with protesters calling on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to step down.