USM security, hecklers disrupt student forum featuring Fahmi Zainol

Fahmi (seated) is surrounded by a crowd comprising students as well as outsiders, as he sat at a cafe near USM after he was not allowed to speak at the students forum in the university's campus in Penang today. - The Malaysian Insider pic by Looi Sue Chern, November 15, 2014.Campus security and a group of hecklers disrupted a student forum featuring Universiti Malaya (UM) student leader Fahmi Zainol at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang this afternoon.

Forum organiser, USM Students Progressive Front (SPF) president Lee Chung Lun, 21, had barely started speaking into a loud hailer in front of the Kompleks Cahaya Siswa on campus grounds at about 2.30pm when the university's security director Associate Professor Dr P. Sundramoorthy stopped him.

Sundramoorthy told him that the forum could not be allowed to go on because the student group had no permission from the university to hold it.

"I advise you to disperse. To hold this gathering on campus grounds, you would need to get permission. We have to safeguard the safety of everyone, including yours," he told Lee.

Lee tried to argue, saying that students had the right to hold the forum, titled: "The Rise of Graduates: A Threat or Hope", even if they were holding it under a tree.

However, Sundramoorthy insisted that they disperse.

The situation grew tense when a group of people, who were not USM students began to jeer and heckle the student group and Fahmi, who had been standing quietly nearby without addressing anyone.

Lee then announced that the forum would be moved to the Kopitan Classic cafe, a short walking distance from the university's Sungai Dua gate.

Sundramoorthy allowed Lee two minutes to address the press and gather his group before he and campus security personnel escorted him, SPF members and the panel of speakers out.

However, things still did not proceed smoothly at the cafe, where Fahmi, who leads the Universiti Malaya Undergraduates Association (PMUM), became the target of strangers.

After Fahmi sat down at a table, a man sat down opposite him and began to lecture him about the trouble he was causing.

The man, who identified himself as Azmeal Abu Bakar, 42, told Fahmi that as long as he was a student whose education was paid for by the government, he should focus on his studies.

"You have not even graduated. You do not know what life really is. Do you think about what you are doing to your parents? How they feel about you doing all this?

"Did you get your mother's blessing for what you are doing? If not, don't do it," he said to Fahmi, who tried to explain that he just wanted to share his ideas about how a university should function and the role of students.

Azmeal, a father of three, later told The Malaysian Insider that he did not agree with what Fahmi was doing because the young man could potentially influence other youths negatively.

"These days, we have Facebook and other social media platforms. It doesn't take much to influence youths. They shouldn't be derailed from their studies, or be encouraged to be anti-establishment.

"Almost from as soon as you were born, you have depended on the government. If you have graduated, gotten yourself a job, earning your own money, then you can do what you want," he said.

As Azmeal berated Fahmi, a woman was heard shouting "ungrateful" at the student leader.

Another forum panelist Zainulfaqar Yaacob, a former UM student leader, tried to interrupt to defend Fahmi but was shouted at by an angry group of people who had gathered at the cafe.

The commotion in front of the cafe grew heated, obstructing the corridor and making customers uncomfortable.

The cafe manager then came out and shouted for the crowd to leave, using a loud hailer given to her by the group of protestors who had gathered.

Lee then announced that the forum was immediately cancelled due to the disruption, and called the hecklers "samsengs".

His choice of words sparked off another round of protests and riled up some in the opposing group who challenged him to repeat his remark.

There was a little shoving but no untoward incidents happened. Fahmi, Zainulfaqar and the third panelist Bakar Arang assemblyman Simon Ooi Tze Min left the scene at about 3.15pm.

Ooi said it was merely a forum and things should not have come to this, referring to the interruption by the group even after they had moved off the USM premises.

"We only expected a turnout of some 50 students. It could have proceeded peacefully. The students should had been given the freedom to hold the forum," he said.

Fahmi earned a name for himself after he got into trouble with his university's management for inviting PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to give a speech at UM on the eve of the politician's sodomy appeal. Despite UM's ban on the event, Fahmi went ahead with the October 27 programme.

He was also arrested in Sabah twice last Sunday. He was first picked up when giving a speech at Jalan Gaya and then at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

Fahmi is also in trouble with the Public Services Department (PSD) threatening to revoke his scholarship. He was slapped with two charges by the PSD in a letter dated November 6.

The first charge relates to the banned event involving Anwar at UM while the second charge relates to an article, which appeared on The Malaysian Insider on October 26, for which Fahmi has been accused of criticising Putrajaya.

- TMI