Dressed in her usual bright attire and showing the same relentless spirit that earned her the admiration of fellow protesters in the past, the 72-year-old approached the wall of policemen holding back some 300 protesters from the Parliament building.
Angrily, she demanded to be let in, asking why they were making her wait.
Holding out her wrists, she challenged them to arrest her.
“I’ve been to jail three times,” she said. “I want to go to jail one more time.”
One of Ooi’s stints behind bars was over the Black 505 rally against the general election results in 2013.
Speaking to FMT on the sidelines of yesterday’s protest, she said her time in jail was an eye-opener as she had seen first-hand how poorly inmates are treated.
On two occasions, she said, she spent a night in jail, while another arrest saw her detained for three nights.
“They just left us to rot,” she said, adding that they were forced to sleep on the cold cement floor.
“I told the officers I was an activist, not their prisoner.”
But despite her multiple trips to prison, Ooi is determined to continue fighting against injustice.
Ooi shot to fame after the 2007 Bersih rally for clean and fair elections when she was photographed in the crowd of protesters, holding a mineral water bottle and a white flower. She was dripping with water, likely from the water cannons used to disperse the crowd.
When asked about the moment which saw her hailed by the people as an icon for Bersih, she said: “I am not famous. They only caught me on camera once, and that was it. I am now Aunty Bersih.”
Ooi, a familiar face at major rallies, said she was at the Bantah1050 protest to uphold the rights of low-income earners.
Carrying a banner which read “RM50 mana cukup” (RM50 is not enough), she said: “We are fighting for the RM1,500 that was promised. And now they are giving us RM1,050. Is that enough for anybody?”
She said the initial promise to increase the minimum wage to RM1,500 was already bad enough.
“You try and live with RM1,500,” she added.
The retired English teacher from Penang told FMT that she had no intention of slowing down anytime soon.
“I protest for many things,” she said. “Whatever protest against whatever they do that is not right.”