The Tulawie case: Activist's wife talks about how his arrest changed her and her children

By Asian Human Rights Commission
September 6, 2012

HONG KONG  –  Mussah Sherian, the wife of the falsely accused human rights activist Temogen "Cocoy" Tulawie, thought she would just be "behind the scenes taking care of (their) children," but it all changed after his arrest.

Mussah now looks after their five children, namely Iman, 19; Imir, 15; Carrey, 12; Jihad, 8 and Tasmin, 6; by herself since her husband's arrest on January 26, 2012. In a 30-minute interview by the AHRC, she tells how her husband's arrest and detention affected her and her children, and why she must now be "in the frontline".

"I don't want them (the oppressors) to feel that they are successful. So I continue with the human rights work. That is why I am still continuing," Mussah told Rasika Sanjeewa Weerawickrama, a staff member of the AHRC. She refers to the impact of Temogen's arrest and detention which resulted to a "chilling effect" to "all the human rights defenders" in the province of Sulu.

Mr. Weerawickrama, a human rights lawyer from Sri Lanka, appeared in court to observe Temogen's arraignment for murder charges in Davao City on August 3.

Mussah thought the fear amongst activists after Temogen's arrest was so deep that "human rights workers just stopped their work". Her resolve to come out, taking on her husband's work, was to remind the importance of the work that her husband started: "Who will document the human rights violations now?"

Temogen, as mentioned in our previous appeals and statements, was instrumental in cultivating complaints and documentation in Sulu. His and his colleagues work had helped to draw attention to the human rights situation in a place where social control by power and political influence is deeply embedded.

However, the cost of Temogen's arrest and detention has been heavy, not only on his children and his family, but now as to how the people close to them are treating them. "They put a wall between you, they don't want to talk to you, (they) don't want (you) to be friends," Mussah said.

On Temogen's relationship with his children now, Mussah said "the hardest time, he said, is when we say goodbye and go home and he sees us turn our backs and he (Temogen) is left there alone (in jail)".

When Temogen was arraigned on August 3, his daughter Tasmin was seen with other siblings "very teary eyed," which adds on to her earlier shock when "she saw her father wearing handcuffs" for the first time. Mussah said the 'handcuffing' of her husband did not only shock her children, but created a barrier between him and his children.

Mussah said her daughter would only come to her father only when "police removed one of the cuffs".

After the first court hearing, Mussah said of the murder charges: "everything they read to him is the exact opposite of what Cocoy really is". For her, she knows of her husband as "peace loving (person) and I know that he is a person who values life".