Press Statement By DAP Secretary-General And MP For Bagan Lim Guan Eng In Kuala Lumpur On 21.7.2013.
The BN Federal government should abide by international laws on treatment of prisoners and on humanitarian grounds, provide imprisoned Hindraf leader P Uthayakumar full medical treatment and facilities to assure his family that he will not be stricken by paralysis. Uthayakumar’s wife, S Indra Devi had said that her husband is suffering from prolapsed disc, a degenerative disc disease of the spinal lumbar, which causes severe back pains.
As a former prisoner in Kajang Prison, I felt sad when S Indra Devi said that “Despite four doctors saying what is happening to Uthayakumar, they have refused to give him a pillow and a chair as advised by the doctors. He is sleeping on the floor with a very thin foam mattress and is in constant pain.” This is familiar to what I had endured when I was imprisoned under the Sedition Act and the Printing Presses and Publications Act in 1998, when I initially did not even had a thin mattress but had to sleep on the cold cement floor.
The BN Federal government should accede to his wife’s request that he be sent to a Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia where his doctors will know what medicine he needs. I will also be writing to the Home Ministry and the Prisons Department to ask for permission to meet him to hear out Uthayakumar’s medical complaint. Whatever political differences there is, our country should not lose one’s humanity by refusing medical treatment for political opponents.
LIM GUAN ENG