She is Annie Ooi, a 65-year-old retired English teacher who took a bus from Setapak in the early morning of July 9 to join thousands of others in Bersih 2.0’s march for free and fair elections. An unknown man had offered her the flower in the morning and she waved it like a flag throughout the four-hour march.
Netizens have dubbed her “Aunty Bersih”, and even Malaysia’s “Lady of Liberty”, for placing her health and safety at risk to join a march the government had declared illegal.
Pictures of the diminutive Ooi strolling in the war zone that Kuala Lumpur had turned into are all over the Internet, inviting messages of awe and wonderment from netizens across the country.
On Facebook, at least three fan pages were set up in dedication to Ooi immediately after the event. One page called “Malaysian Lady of Liberty” attracted 17,176 “likes” as of 9am this morning.
Ooi was one of the few who dared to turn up in yellow to mark the occasion, despite earlier warnings that those with clothes indicating support for the outlawed Bersih 2.0 coalition would be arrested.
Speaking to The Malaysian Insider through her daughter over Facebook chat last night, Ooi confirmed that she had been tear gassed four times and sprayed with the water cannon once during Saturday’s pandemonium.
She said she was unsure of what time the rally was scheduled to start or where, but was determined to support its cause by participating in it even if she had to do it alone.
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