‘Lady of Liberty’ at Bersih march draws online support

KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 — Quiet has settled over Saturday’s chaos but one image is still making waves on the Internet — the picture of an elderly woman in yellow, drenched in rain and chemical-laced water, walking away from riot police while clutching on to a long-stemmed flower and a near-empty mineral water bottle.
She is Annie Ooi, a 65-year-old retired English teacher who took a bus from Setapak in the early morning of July 9 to join thousands of others in Bersih 2.0’s march for free and fair elections. An unknown man had offered her the flower in the morning and she waved it like a flag throughout the four-hour march.
Netizens have dubbed her “Aunty Bersih”, and even Malaysia’s “Lady of Liberty”, for placing her health and safety at risk to join a march the government had declared illegal.
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