Malaysia: Al Jazeera Office Raided, Computers Seized And Journalists Intimidated.
Location: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
Date: August 7, 2020
The Coalition For Journalism condemns the act of intimidation conducted by Malaysian police forces on August 4 which targeted six of their journalists.
The police raid came after the airing of a documentary exposing the conditions in which migrant workers live in Kuala Lumpur.
Al Jazeera featured the documentary for the daily show 101 East. The show probed into why Malaysia’s migrant workers are at more risk in the time of Covid-19. Exposing cramped conditions, malnourishment and slave like treatment the show did a great work of journalism championing for human rights of migrant workers.
The authorities’ attempts at intimidation by way of using law as a weapon shows a desire to punish those who point out wrongdoings rather than fixing wrongdoings.
Giles Trendle, the managing director of Al Jazeera English, said the network was "gravely concerned" by the raid and called on the Malaysian government to cease its criminal investigation against the network's journalists immediately.
"Conducting a raid on our office and seizing computers is a troubling escalation in the authorities' crackdown on media freedom and shows the lengths they are prepared to take to try to intimidate journalists," Trendle said in a statement.
"Al Jazeera stands by our journalists and we stand by our reporting. Our staff did their jobs and they've got nothing to answer for or apologise for. Journalism is not a crime."
Following the screening of the documentary, 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". This shows the reluctance of the authorities to provide migrant workers with humane conditions.
This is not the first attack Al Jazeera faced since the screening of the documentary. 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.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism demands the authorities to drop all investigations against media workers and stop all acts of intimidation against media entities, whistleblowers and others associated with the Al Jazeera documentary. We would like to remind the authorities that journalists reporting freely with no fear of repercussion is crucial especially during the pandemic in terms of the public’s right to information.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
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