Datuk Lee Kim Sai asked to explain who is blocking the lifting of the clamp-down of the free movement of inmates and visitors at Sungei Buloh Leprosarium, if it is not Selangor and Rawang MCA?

By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, on Monday, 23rd July 1979:

Datuk Lee Kim Sai asked to explain who is blocking the lifting of the clamp-down of the free movement of inmates and visitors at Sungei Buloh Leprosarium, if it is not Selangor and Rawang MCA?

The Chairman of the Selangor MCA Liaison Committee, Datuk Lee Kim Sai, has denied that the Selangor and Rawang MCA have been using their political connections to block the lifting of the clamp-down on free movement of inmates and visitors at the Sungei Buloh Leprosarium, which has caused great hardships to the inmates, resulting in financial losses from loss of sales of flowers and fruits, and other inconveniences.

In that case, can Datuk Lee Kim Sai let the public know if it is not the Selangor and Rawang MCA which are blocking the lifting the clamp-down on free movement in Sungei Buloh Leprosarium, who is now blocking the lifting of such a clamp-down?

I have met the Chief Police Officer, Selangor, Datuk P. Alagenda and the Rawang OCPD, and they both were very categorical in their statement that with or without such a clampdown, which was imposed by the Leprosarium and Health Ministry authorities, the police would be able to continue to carry out the police duties of ensuring law and order; and to prevent crimes.

Even the Inspector General of Police, Tan Sri Haniff Omar, has made it plain that it is up to the Leprosarium and Health Ministry to take ‘reasonable’ actions to help the police to combat crimes- and clearly the 24-hour clamp down on free movement in the Leprosarium is not ‘reasonable’ action which should be lifted immediately, especially considering the need to rehabilitate leprosy patients as full members of society and to remove the social stigma traditionally associated with this disease.

Can Datuk Lee Kim Sai, the MCA Selangor leader, then explain who is blocking the lifting of the clamp-down, when it is now established that there are no good or ‘reasonable’ grounds for such harsh actions as a 24-hour clamp down on free movement?

I have no doubt that if in this issue, the Ministry involved is an UMNO Ministry, and if it was the Selangor UMNO chairman who intervened, the clamp-down would have been lifted long ago.

Can Datuk Lee Kim Sai explain why in this case, involving a MCA Ministry, the intervention of a Selangor MCA Committee and its leader, the Selangor MCA Chairman, nothing seemed to have been achieved in the way of lifting the clamp-down at the Leprosarium?

Is the MCA so ineffective and important, that even a MCA Ministry and the Selangor MCA could not get a small and simple thing like the lifting of the clamp-down, done? Or is it because, behind the scene, the Selangor and Rawang MCA are blocking the lifting of the clamp-down, for fear of losing political face to DAP?

Let Datuk Lee Kim Sai reply!