Dr Cecilia Ng Choon Sim was a university lecturer and women's rights activist. Brother Anthony Rogers of the La Salle mission was national director of the National Office for Human Development (NOHD) in the Catholic Welfare Services Malaysia.

For reasons still unknown to them, they were deemed to have had links with the underground communist movement circa October 1987 and detained under the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) during Operasi Lalang .