Chew I-Jin arrived when the press conference was beginning:

I'm sorry. I know nothing about this press conference. I'm a member of the exco and... got this call to say that some press conference...You led me to believe I meant to be presenting something to you with...exco right now.

I-Jin, we note your comments and I request that you take a seat.

Do I have a right of reply as we make this on behalf of my association, this presentation?

I-Jin, this is internal matters between us. I think it's best that we settle it outside and separately from the media.

How internal is it If I've been kept in the dark and Josie has not replied any of my e-mails?

When pressed further, the exco replied:

I guess the media has been wanting to hear from the new faces and this meeting is called to address all the questions the media have about the new faces. And as you're an Old Guard, and the Old Guard has had their field day giving the media stories upon stories and info which are totally and utterly inaccurate, so this is our chance to talk to the media. So I would appreciate that you leave this room...

Josie Lau relates her experience:

Friends of the media, thank you for coming at such late last minute notice. I had said in my first and last interview after being appointed as President of Aware that I did not get involved in Aware to be engaged in controversies.

And so far I've kept a very stoic and dignified silence. But with the recent happenings of events, I've no choice, it left me no choice to break this silence and come out publicly to say what's been happening. And this is actually something that cud have been resolved internally between the Old Guard and the New Guard in a very polite and civil way. But that has not happened.

I'll tell you so far I've only been appointed President for about a week and I've only been an exco member for about 3 weeks. But to date I've only been met with hostility, intimidation. I felt so bullied I tell you. I will tell you what's happening. My family received death threats and it's now a police case. Each day I fear for the physical safety of my children, my family. There's even a blog site detailing my children's names and which school they go to.

I don't understand what has sparked this irrational fear of us, the new exco members, and what hatred. If you're a parent you will understand how I feel. I feel so indignant. All I wanted to do is to serve the community and be a member of this Aware, to push for the cause of women. Do I deserve this? Death threat? What has Singapore become? Is this what we want in Singapore? And I'll tell you as President I have an official president@aware.org.sg email. Guess what? The secretariat has locked me out. I have confronted the secretariat. The secretariat has been fired, okay.

I'll tell you I've my fellow committee members here who'll share with you their own experience, how they've been subjected to hostility and uncooperative staff members in the last 3 weeks, and all we wanted is to push and start work and get going with our work. But will they allow us? No. They've just been pushing and pushing us, badgering us all the time.

Jenica, do you want to share your experience?

Jenica Chua: I want to put it forth that I came to join Aware because I felt that when I reach a certain age it's important to contribute to society, to Singapore to help other women. And we're in a difficult economic situation. So I went to Aware. I've been Aware member for over 2 years now.

I went for the executive committee position. And to my utter horror, after I was elected there were a lot of allegations about my link to 377A. I don't know why it came out in the press. But because of, I've written many things to the press. I've written about technology index and other areas, but the only thing that came out on the 10th after the exco was elected was the fact I wrote to 377A and there was a homosexual slant to it.

The next day I received a death threat. They threatened to harm my loved ones. The person said that he has now joined a jihadist. He's anti-Christian and he will find ways to harm my family, my loved ones. And all I did was to join a women's association. It's a women's association to help women.

And I felt very intimidated. Why did this happen? I'm a normal Singaporean like any other of you. Why should this happen to me? And it never stopped. Three days ago my company's corporate communications person called me. Somebody wrote an e-mail to my company to say that because of my involvement in Aware it's bad for the company's reputation and urged the company to take action against me. So now it's evolved to a threat.

And because of that I couldn't sleep for many nights. I felt very harassed. And all I did, the only thing I did was to join Aware. I don't understand this. I thought I joined a women's association to help women. And throughout this difficult period we had a lot of wrestles because the previous president kept changing the timing for the exco to meet. It went to and fro, to and fro, and I was like stuck in between as the secretary. I don't understand.

Josie Lau: I think Lois you may have some experience too

Lois Ng: Members of the press, suddenly I feel that it's a crime to be a Christian and to hold an exco position. I'm a Christian. I've made no bones about it. It's been reported in the paper and it's also reported in my website.

But I've been termed a leper. And this blogger has gone online to garner support to boycott my business. And I run a biz for people with disabilities. They include the autistic, people with below average IQ, people with physical disability. And we make a living by producing creative and quality gifts for the corporate and tourist market.

And this person has gone online and extracted info from the ST and listed my working address, which is at High Point in Geylang and also my customers, their tel nos and their addresses and he's asked people to boycott my business and to even make verbal and written complaints to my clients to stop buying from me.

And he says this is to teach me a lesson for joining Aware because I'm a Christian. I'm shocked. Singapore is a multiracial society. We embrace diversity in religion. My religion is a private matter. It's got nothing to do with my work in Aware.

And I joined Aware because I've been asked to help Aware start up a social enterprise, to create employment for women, esp women with, singles with children, unmarried women and women who are lowly educated. And I come in to create employment for them.

I did not expect to be on their hit list and my life and my staff's lives are also in danger. What is happening to our society right now? What is happening? Can someone explain this irrational and dangerous move by some small group of people?

Josie Lau: Maureen has something to add too.

Maureen Ong: Mine is not as bad as theirs. But really we've been trying very hard to get on with the work and we have been hampered from doing so. We've received numerous complaints from people who are trying to register as members.

Either they cannot get into the website or they get replies from the website saying that...women are registered as students. In the first place there's no category called student membership. You're either an ordinary member who can vote, or you're an associate member who cannot vote. So we really don't know what's happening.

And when we asked the website host company for further info, we're told that we cannot ask them for info because they only will communicate with either Constance Singam or... who is no longer with Aware, or Joanna Wong which is the PR assistant. So there's no recognition of us, either the President, the VP, or any of the new exco members.

There's also an issue of the bandwidth. When we checked further why there was difficulty in accessing the website, we were told that the bandwidth was only 5 gigabytes. And that's quite ridiculous for an association like Aware. And because of that, the website was down from 18 Apr to 19 Apr. And then the website, the bandwidth was increased. So these are some of the instances when we try very hard to do our work and yet we're hampered from doing so. Thank you.