SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS
Malaysian police raid Al Jazeera’s office, seize computers
August 19, 2020 · By Aljazeera for www.aljazeera.com
Al Jazeera condemns ‘troubling escalation’ in crackdown on press, urges authorities to immediately cease criminal probe.
Police raided the office in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and seized two computers [File: Al Jazeera]
Malaysian police raid Al Jazeera’s office, seize computers
The raid comes nearly a month after Malaysian police questioned seven of Al Jazeera’s journalists over the 101 East episode, titled Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown.
Since the film’s release, Al Jazeera said its staff and the individuals interviewed in the programme had faced abuse, death threats and the disclosure of their personal details on social media.
A Bangladeshi man interviewed for the short film, Mohamad Rayhan Kabir, was arrested on July 24 and authorities said he would be “deported and blacklisted from entering Malaysia forever”.
Malaysian officials have criticised the 101 East investigative report as being inaccurate, misleading and unfair. Saifuddin Abdulla, the communications minister, also said Al Jazeera had failed to seek a permit to shoot the film. But the network strongly refuted those allegations, saying 101 East is a weekly current affairs show that does not fall in the category of films requiring a licence.
Amnesty International Malaysia expressed concern over Tuesday’s raid in a Twitter post, saying: “The government’s crackdown on migrants and refugees, as well as those who speak up in their defense, is clearly meant to silence and intimidate and should be condemned.”
The Committee to Protect journalists, meanwhile, urged the government of Prime Minister Muhyddin Yassin to “stop treating journalists as criminals.”
“Malaysian authorities must stop harassing Al-Jazeera and drop all investigations into the broadcaster’s reporters and staff,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative.
In May, another journalist and an activist were questioned over their reporting on the arrests of hundreds of migrant workers during Malaysia’s lockdown.
Tashny Sukumaran, a correspondent working for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, was questioned after she reported on the roundups, while an activist for refugees, Wan Noor Hayati Wan Alias, was also called in about a Facebook post on the treatment of migrant workers and refugees.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ) have urged Malaysia to drop the case against Al Jazeera and to allow journalists to do their jobs.
“There has been a distinct pattern under the COVID-19 crisis of media workers targeted under Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act and Penal Code for simply doing their job,” the IFJ said in a statement in July.
“It is urgent for Malaysia during the pandemic to prioritise the public’s right to know and for the media to be able to report freely and fairly without the threat of persecution.”
