She was a People's Justice Party (KeADILan) supreme council member [1] and the director and co-founder of the non-governmental organization Tenaganita, which promotes the rights of migrant workers and refugees in Malaysia.

[3] The report was based in part on information given to her by Steven Gan and a team of reporters from The Sun, who had uncovered evidence that 59 inmates, primarily Bangladeshis, had died in the Semenyih immigration detention camp of the preventable diseases typhoid and beriberi.

[4][5] When Gan and his colleagues were blocked by Sun editors from printing the report in the paper, they passed it to Fernandez.

Released on bail pending her appeal, her passport was held by the courts, and as a convicted criminal, she was barred from standing as parliamentary candidate in the 2004 Malaysian elections.

On 24 November 2008, Justice Mohamed Apandi Ali overturned her earlier conviction and acquitted her, ending the thirteen-year case.