Al Jazeera journalist to be called to Bukit Aman this week

The Al Jazeera news channel and one of its journalists will be called up by the police this week for investigation over a documentary that the Malaysian government has slammed for portraying what it claimed to be an inaccurate picture of the treatment of illegal immigrants during the fight against COVID-19.

Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department deputy director (Investigation/Legal) DCP Mior Faridalathrash Wahid said the police had contacted several individuals and they would be called up to Bukit Aman and the Putrajaya district police headquarters to record their statements.

"They will be called up this week or early next week," he told Bernama.

He said the police would also call up a Bangladeshi man, known as Rayhan Kabir, involved in the documentary.

Mior Faridalathrash also confirmed that the police had called up and recorded a statement by a social activist over a Facebook post on alleged mistreatment of refugees at Immigration detention centres.

He said investigation papers on the cases had been opened under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act 1948, Section 500 of he Penal Code and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

Yesterday, Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk Huzir Mohamed said five police reports had been lodged with regard to a documentary produced by international news agency Al Jazeera on how the country treats illegal immigrants during the fight against COVID-19.

This is over a a 25-minute 50-second documentary with the title 'Locked Up in Malaysia's Lockdown' which it claimed to be poor treatment of illegal immigrants in Malaysia during the measures enforced to combat COVID-19.

-- BERNAMA