From lawbreaker to lawmaker - The Star

April 20, 2008 by June H.L. Wong and Chin Mui Yoon

He is one of Malaysia’s best-known activists for human rights and political reform. Yet little is known about Tian Chua, Parti Keadilan Rakyat information chief and newly elected MP for Batu. He shares his life’s story for the first time.

ON April 14, 1999, images of a young, scrawny Chinese man sitting defiantly before a Federal Reserve Unit water cannon truck sent to disperse pro-Anwar Ibrahim protestors were flashed around the world.

In Malaysia, people wondered who this strange man was. They soon got a name to the face: Tian Chua.


As an activist, Tian Chua has had many brushes with the law, as this 2005 file photo of him in a police truck after a demonstration at KLCC shows.
In the years before and since that incident, Chua – whose real name is Chua Tian Chang, meaning “to fortify” – has consistently fought for justice and human rights, including throwing himself into protests and demonstrations.

In the eyes of the authorities, he was a law-breaker and he was duly arrested countless times, bashed about and even imprisoned.

But all that changed on March 8, 2008. Chua found himself catapulted onto a national platform and respectability when he was elected Member of Parliament for the Batu constituency with a 9,455 majority.

Up close, Chua, 44, displays none of that aggression and indignant anger one would expect in a rebel with plenty of causes. He is still reed-thin and boyish-looking, mild-mannered and soft spoken. He seems more at home buried in some dusty library instead of facing off policemen on the streets.

“I don’t get heated up easily!” Chua says earnestly when we meet in Petaling Jaya over dinner. “And please don’t call me YB (Yang Berhormat). I’m extremely uncomfortable when people address me by any title. Just call me Tian.”

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