ICC Note: Malaysian Pastor Raymond Koh was abducted on February 27 last year by masked men in broad daylight. Despite repeated attempts to call for his release, his wife Susanna has only heard ‘silence’ from the authorities. Muslim-turned-Christian couple Joshua and Ruth Hilmy also went missing in November 2016. Together on June 24, the victims’ closed ones gathered to again call for the release of them.

06/26/2018 Malaysia (World Watch Monitor) – Dozens of people came together in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur on Sunday (24 June) to call for the release of pastor Raymond Koh, social activist Amri Che Mat and Christian couple Joshua and Ruth Hilmy, and for further investigation into their disappearances.

At least 60 people met with the families of those missing in the capital’s Merdeka Square, reported local newspaper Free Malaysia Today.

Tomorrow (27 June) will mark 500 days since Koh’s disappearance, while Joshua and Ruth Hilmy and Amri Che Mat have been missing for an additional three months.

“Please investigate… Please release our husbands and [let them] be reunited with our families,” Susanna Liew, Koh’s wife, said at the event.

Liew, together with Che Mat’s wife Norhayati Mohd Afriffin, wrote an open letter to Malaysia’s Prime Minister earlier this month, asking for an immediate and independent investigation into the disappearance of their husbands.

In their letter they also asked for a “safe space for whistle-blowers to come forward with knowledge about our husbands’ abductions”, after a sergeant thought to be willing to testify about police involvement in Che Mat’s husband abruptly denied ever making the claim.

Sgt. Shamzaini Mohd Daud was said to have told Che Mat’s wife in May that the abduction of her husband was done with the knowledge of “some very senior police officers”.

…

For interviews with Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org.