Undi Sabah questions Undi18's ethics for working with lawyer accused of sexual misconducts

4 Jan 2022

By Wartawan Nabalu News

KOTA KINABALU: Undi Sabah has questioned Undi18 - an organisation within the Sekretariat Solidariti Rakyat (SSR) movement for choosing to work with a legal team comprising a lawyer that has been accused of multiple counts of sexual harrasment.

On Dec 31 last year, SSR announced that they would be pursuing a lawsuit against the government for the forceful and wrongful detention of participants who attended a candlelight vigil dated Aug 19 last year.

However, it was learned that one of the lawyers listed to be working on the suit had been accused of multiple counts of sexual harassment by several women.

This called into question the ethics of organisations within the SSR movement which seemed to choose to move forward with the legal team which included the person whom allegedly involved with multiple sexual harassment conduct.

“Undi18, as part of SSR, also became the subject of scrutiny over this matter, implicating not only the organisation but its campaigns, as well as campaigners and volunteers under the Undi18 umbrella. This includes Undi Sabah and our members.

“We acknowledge the contributions and support provided by Undi18 in the early stages of Undi Sabah's inception and we thank them for it.

“However, we do not support or align ourselves with the decision of Undi18 co-founders (as well as other members of SSR) to proceed with the lawsuit knowing there was involvement of an individual of questionable character,” said Undi Sabah in a media statement today.

According to Undi Sabah, the actions of the alleged perpetrator to be inexcusable and association with him to be unacceptable, especially in a suit which aims to seek justice on the grounds of human rights.

“We would like to establish that our stance is to always side with survivors of sexual harassment, especially when so many have come forward with harrowing experiences relating to the alleged perpetrator.

Undi Sabah, while originally starting out as a campaign powered by Undi-18, was co-founded by Sabahan youths and is independent from Undi18 and its leadership.

“We have maintained autonomy over our programmes, recruitment and operations. We are disappointed to find that these values were not honoured with the recent developments,” they said.