Dr Ooi Kee Saik (Feb. 4, 1922 – May 5, 2004) was a scion of the landed gentry in Penang. Like his late elder brother, Kee Wan, Kee Saik also became a medical doctor.

The Ooi family used to have the family homestead, with stables for horses and carriages and even accommodation for servants at what is now Penang Plaza, which is currently located at the junction of Anson Road and Burmah Road.

Both the Ooi brothers practised medicine in Penang. Kee Wan was an ordinary but active member of the conservative Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) while the milder and younger Kee Saik had a rude shock upon entering politics in 1971, the year the two-year moratorium on politics was lifted after the watershed May 13, 1969 riots shook Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur.

In his maiden speech as the chairman of the DAP in his home state which had seen the Opposition Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Malaysian People's Movement) supplanting the Alliance State Government, Kee Saik was cited for sedition under the Malaysian Sedition Act 1971 which had just been amended to extend its application to Parliament itself and thus removed parliamentary privilege from discussion of "sensitive issues" (Government and Society in Malaysia by Harold Crouch).

Found guilty by the Court in 1971, Dr Ooi saw his political career as virtually still-born. The Court had to strike a balance between the competing interests of the right to freedom of speech on the one hand and sedition on the other. In doing so, Raja Azlan Shah (as he then was, but now the Sultan of Perak) justified the conviction by stating that:

"We must resist the tendency to regard right to freedom of speech as self-subsistent or absolute … A line must therefore be drawn between the right to freedom of speech and sedition. … [W]hen does free political criticism end and sedition begin? In my view, the right to free speech ceases at the point where it comes within the mischief of Section 3 of the Sedition Act." (P.P v. Ooi Kee Saik [1971] 2 MLJ 108, at 111-112)

As an observer and later a friend, I can vouch for the fact that Dr Ooi, who went to Britain to do his post-graduate medical studies after the war before returning to Penang to practise medicine, never set out to harm anybody, much less his fellow Malaysians. Indeed, this favourite son of Penang helped wherever he could.

It was well known among the parochial Penangites that the poorer among Dr Ooi's patients received his professional attention and medication free of charge.

I can personally attest to Dr Ooi's generosity.

As a lad of 15, I lost my father, Mr Tan Beng Hock, in 1965 when he succumbed to cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 36. My adoptive mum who was actually my dad's sister sent me to pay his last monthly medical bill amounting to about RM900, a princely sum in those days since I was a few months later to receive a brand new 90 c.c. Honda motorbike for only RM850 for my 16th birthday.

I went to the Esplanade Clinic sited in front of Penang's famous Esplanade, but Dr Ooi told me to keep the money for the family as he knew that my late dad was the sole breadwinner. After explaining that my late dad "would not want to owe anyone any money and my adoptive mum would want to keep the receipt," Dr Ooi reluctantly issued me the receipt.

To me, that was an unforgettable act of kindness to a mere lad, someone he hardly knew. It was an act of kindness for his demised patient and my beloved father.

In later years, Dr Ooi was to return to writing, a pursuit he loved. It was only recently that I discovered that as a 21-year-old medical student, Dr Ooi had won the China-wide National Essay Competition in 1943. In Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years, (508pp H/cover. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, Dec. 31, 1998) Clifford N. Matthews and Oswald Cheung recorded that:

"Hong Kong students were at an advantage, however, in the 1943 National Essay Competition in English, open to students from all universities. The first and second prizes both went to the Hong Kong University students (Messrs Ooi Kee Saik and Hooi Cheng-Wen respectively), both of the National Shanghai Medical College."

Dr Ooi, who fled to the interior of China where he completed his medical studies and served the Chungking-based Koumintang Government as a medical intern, wrote The Shirt, a short story that tied for the third prize in the Asiaweek Short Story Competition I 1988. This short story is now being used in an English language textbook by Singapore secondary students.

Let me end with this categorical statement that I make without fear or favour, though almost ex poste facto and therefore with the benefit of hindsight: "The Sedition Act notwithstanding, I am of the considered view that the Malaysian legal system failed Dr Ooi Kee Saik.

In so doing, it denied whatever contributions that this talented son of Malaysia could have made to the country.

Dr Ooi passed away on May 5, 2004, in his native Penang "unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung" – in the words of Sir Walter Scott, though those words were intended for those who never loved their native land – by a country that has yet to awaken to the fact that it had failed this patriotic but humble Malaysian who had wanted to contribute to his country after the ugly May 13 riots.

Indeed, by the "narrow" interpretation of the Sedition Act 1971, Malaysia lost the services of a man with many bows to his string. The other was Mr Fan Yew Teng, who had to give up his seat and lost all claim to any pension that he truly deserved. Ipoh-based Mr Fan was the editor of The Rocket which carried that seditious article. (By STEPHEN TAN BAN CHENG/ MySinchew)

He is a journalist-turned-lawyer. He runs a small practice in Penang, his hometown.