After many sleepless nights, there is little time to rest for Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah even as she was just freed from detention under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.
But looking at Maria, there is little trace of the fatigue of 10 days in solitary confinement.
Caressing the faces of her sons, the mother of three was above all, overjoyed.
"I'm speechless. We didn't know when she would come out, and suddenly we got the call that she's out. It's quite unbelievable," her eldest son Azumin, 22, said, as his mother rubbed his shoulder affectionately.
"We're really happy that she's back home," he said, giving his beaming mother a hug to the sound of media camera shutters in front of their middle-class terrace home in Petaling Jaya.
"We're finally back as a family."
The first step, his younger brother Aziman, 21, said, is "getting our mother back", as the youngest of the trio, Azemi, 19, grinned beside to him.
Next, the brothers, said, is "dealing with Sosma".
Soon after Maria arrived at 5.30pm, the media and her colleagues from Bersih started arriving, to celebrate her release and to accompany her to Dataran Merdeka tonight.
In thanking her supporters, Maria's pride in her sons was obvious.
"I am amazed by my sons that they persevered and did not give up on me," she said.
The 60-year-old said her detention was disorienting.
She still does not know where she was held as she was blindfolded each time she was moved out of her cell.
The ever shining fluorescent light bulb did not help.
"You don't know whether it was day or night," she said.
The interrogation, she said, revolved mainly on the alleged links to the Open Society Foundation, operations of Global Bersih and details of Bersih's accounts - with each session stretching for more than six hours with only a short break in between.
"The first four days was torturous. I had a back pain from lying down on the wooden board and barely got any sleep," said Maria.
Meals were meagre in detention - breakfast was bread with one blob of kaya, some crackers and tea which "looked like mud water".
Lunch and dinner were rice and "matchbox-sized meat", which occasionally came with a slice of carrot.
"They will also give you air manis that tastes horrible," Maria said, while Global Bersih's Ivy Josiah quipped it was sure to give a person instant diabetes.
In her absence, Ivy was often seen accompanying Maria's three sons, together with her sister Cynthia Chin.
Uncowed by detention, Maria said she was held illegally as she is not a terrorist and neither is Bersih a terrorist organisation.
As such, she intends to file a legal challenge against what she described as her "unjust" arrest.
The arrest had prompted nightly vigils at Dataran Merdeka, where the Bersih 5 rally was initially supposed to take place had it not been for the Kuala Lumpur City Hall's disapproval.
Her supporters vowed to gather every night until she is released, leading the authorities to warn of a crackdown.
Heading there tonight, Maria warned the authorities that any crackdown will only further stoke public anger.
But perhaps anger can wait. For tonight, the vigil gathering is a celebration.- Mkini
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