On the behalf of our organization, we (disabled people) wish to bring to your attention an incident in which parish priest, Father Michael Cheah of St Anne's Church in Bukit Mertajam threatened, harassed and tried to order us out of the church through force.

The Independent Living & Training Centre (ILTC) in Rawang is Malaysia's first organisation, which was formed by the disabled and for the disabled. The ILTC is a non-profit organisation, is entirely run on charity and is therefore always seeking funds and volunteers to help us in our aims to help disabled Malaysians live independent lives.

A total of six disabled people (three women and three men in wheelchairs) from Rawang, Selangor, went to the St Anne's Church to fulfil our personal vows in thanksgiving for prayers that have been answered and also to raise funds for our charity during the two-day fundraising for our training centre which concluded on Sunday, July 27.

We started our fundraising on Saturday from 7.30 in the morning with no trouble from anyone in the church. However, a shocking confrontation by Fr Michael Cheah, happened at 4.00 pm.

The six of us were properly sitting in the church compound next to church stall with three donation boxes for people to contribute at their own free will and kindness.

The priest Fr Micheal, who did not introduce himself until much later came towards us in a very hostile manner and rudely asked in front of the congregation who were streaming into the church, who we were and what right did we have to be in his church compound.

He demanded from our ILTC secretary Ms Rina if we had written any letter to ask permission to raise funds in his church. She politely replied that the ILTC had sent a fax two weeks earlier.

That was when Fr Michael burst into a temper and started accusing us in front of a crowd of all sorts of things including that we were "liars". He claimed he never received our fax because he said the fax machine was under his control since he took over the parish six years ago.

We quickly apologised, saying that there must have been a technical mistake for the miscommunication but he refused to hear of it. Instead, he kept raising his voice louder and louder, and began insulting us with harsh and unkind words until the crowd started growing larger and larger to witness the confrontation.

We tried out best to reason with him and calm him down by explaining how important our trip to Bukit Mertajam was since we had travelled 350km to get there, but he only got more angry and started shouting at us to get out of his church.

The crowd by now had grown into more than 700 people or so as the church wardens tried very hard to divert them to their seats and away from the commotion.

However, we could see that some people felt very sorry and sympathetic for us. This was later confirmed by some of the church volunteers and security. In fact, except for Fr Michael's behaviour, no one else complained about our presence in the parish.

Fr Michael suddenly turned around and demanded from his church stall operators as to who had given us one of the parish's stall umbrellas to use.

Nobody replied to him.

This made him even more frustrated and then he suddenly ordered his people to take the umbrella away from us.

Then he took out his walkie-talkie to summon the church security and even the police who were there to oversee the festival to forcibly push our wheelchairs with us in them out of the church compound.

One of the church security even tried to manhandle Ms Rina, causing her to lose balance and almost fall off her wheelchair at one point until she screamed for her life. In her terrified state, Ms Rina yelled back at the "officer" not to touch her body or her wheelchair.

This infuriated and frustrated Fr Michael even more. He next asked the police officers to get us out of the church. But the police refused, clearly because we were disabled people and not some able-bodied criminals with firearms or weapons.

We also caught sight of them trying to put some sense into Fr Michael by asking him why he was picking on us the disabled with our fundraising activity when there were many other non-disabled fundraisers in the premises at the same time.

In fact, we thought the police officers were much kinder and understanding of our situation and plight than the priest - and we truly salute them for not giving in to Fr Michael's cruel intentions.

At one point, one kind leader of the church approached the priest and offered to pacify the situation. He came up to us and very kindly told us to calm down and carry on with what we were doing and that we "could talk things through" once the whole religious event was over so as not to interrupt the mood for other worshippers.

Though we agreed, Fr Michael kept insisting that we be thrown out of his parish. Seeing that he couldn't have his way, Fr Michael eventually gave up and disappeared from the scene.

We at the ILTC are extremely shocked and distressed by what transpired at the St Anne's feast, more so that this victimisation of the disabled took place not only in broad daylight, but in a holy and presumably 'safe' place such as a church.
We are shocked that no one came to our rescue despite the fact of a large crowd being present.

We are shocked that some people would dare to handle our wheelchairs and touch our bodies without our permission.

We are shocked that some people would call for the police to remove us in our wheelchairs especially when we did no harm.

We are hurt, outraged and deeply distressed that we could be victimised in this way in broad daylight - this whilst there is so much publicity and concern currently going on about rape and violence in our society..

We call on the Catholic Church to conduct an investigation immediately into the matter so that justice can be returned to us through an apology for the humiliation we had suffered in the parish.

Francis Siva

President, Independent Living & Training Centre