Winners of The 6th Civil Society Award 2017

A sane society needs NGO to provide checks and balances to the state and is the important element in the pluralism and democratic system.

—— Mr. Yong Yew Wei, Vice-President of KLSCAH

The 6th Civil Society Award received 10 nominees, they are Lawyers for Liberty, DART Delineation Action and Research Team, Siti Kasim, Anis Syafiqah Md Yusof, Hue Shieh Lee, Tan Ean Nee, Datuk Thasleem Mohamed Ibrahim, Jaringan Kampung Orang Asli Kelantan, Kampung Hakka’s Action Committee and Chong Ton Sin.

At the ceremony, Mr. Yong mentioned that the unfair 13th General Election brought negative impacts among civil society. Hence, he emphasized that civil society organizations have to look for changes, not claimed all the democratic movement just towards political parties but lead from bottom to top for reformation.

First Winner: DART & BEYOND – Delineation and Research Action 1.1 Team

Reason for award:
DART & Beyond started as a project designed to empower citizens in Malaysia to challenge any unfair or unconstitutional redelineation proposals by the EC. The DART & Beyond project was able to re-construct seemingly complicated information on delineation and made it more accessible and understandable for ordinary citizens to use the tools that DART has developed and to fully participate in the campaign.

Second Winner: Jaringan Kampung Orang Asli Kelantan

Reason for award:
The Temiar in Gua Musang, Kelantan started the blockade since 2012, but repeated dismantling by the government authorities and logging companies forced them to compromise. However since deforestation seriously affected their life, the temiar started again blockades in five locations to protest the illegal logging on 27 September 2016 to prevent logging companies from entering the forest reserve.