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Friday, 24 October 2014

Human rights lawyer dies at 84

The funeral service will be held at 10:00 am TODAY (23 Oct 2014) at 1 Jalan Jujur 1/2, Taman Bakti, 68000 Ampang, Selangor. The cortege will leave for the crematorium in Cheras at noon.



PETALING JAYA: Former Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia secretary-general S. Thaivasigamany died at his home in Ampang on Tuesday morning. He was 84.

He was better known as “Gamany” to the many detainees and unionists whom he defended after graduating from the Middle Temple in London in 1963 and admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 1964.

“His demise is a loss to the human rights movement in the country,” said Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who had known him since their student days in Britain.

“Even though Gamany was a socialist, he always took the middle road and was very fair and reasonable in his views and actions. He will be sorely missed by his peers and followers alike.”

Lawyer and former Member of Parliament Datuk Dominic Puthucheary remembers Gamany as a pioneer of human rights cases.

“It was long before civil rights became fashionable. Every October, he wrote to the Bar Council to remind them of all these people languishing in jail.”

Gamany was about the only lawyer in the 1960s and 1970s defending such cases, said Sivarasa Rasiah, partner of the law firm, Daim & Gamany, which Gamany set up with Tun Daim Zainuddin in 1968.

Hai-O Enterprise Berhad group managing director Tan Kai Hee said Gamany was “a hero who defended those who were in jail and took care of the families of the detainees”.

Tan was deputy secretary-general of the Labour Party when he was detained under the ISA from 1965 to 1973, and is grateful till today for Gamany’s visits.

Gamany leaves behind his wife Gan Hwee Hong and sons Kapila, Virata and Ushana.

Kapila remembers his father as “always looking out for other people and putting their needs above his own”.

The funeral will be held at 10am today at 1 Jalan Jujur 1/2, Taman Bakti, Ampang, Selangor. The cortege will leave for the crematorium in Cheras at noon.

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