The images were far from flattering: neighborhoods enclosed with barbed wire, throngs of residents herded single file into trucks, people sitting on the road handcuffed to one another.
They came from Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown, a 25-minute documentary produced by the Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera and broadcast on July 3 on the weekly program 101 East. The documentary tackled the Malaysian government’s “military-style” raids on migrant communities under the pretext of coronavirus management.
The raids have seen migrants—including children and the elderly—rounded up and “handcuffed and chained together” for hours under the hot sun while they waited for their documents to be verified.
Malaysian authorities, meanwhile, have vowed to take action—against Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday, Malaysian police announced that they would be questioning reporters from the news outlet, and at least one of their sources, amid accusations that they violated local laws, including elements of the Penal Code and the Sedition Act.
“We will see if [the reporters] get charged after they answer our questions," Police Inspector-General Abdul Hamid Bador said.
After the documentary was posted online, indignant netizens were quick to lash out at the news network, accusing it of misleading coverage.
Malaysian police noted that “several reports” had been lodged against Al Jazeera.
On Sunday, Health Minister Dr. Adham Baba called the allegations of discrimination against migrants “incorrect” and “absurd.”
At a press conference one day later, Senior Minister for Security and Minister of Defence Ismail Sabri Yaakob did not mince words on the topic, telling Al Jazeera to stop screening the documentary and “apologize to the people of Malaysia,” Bernama reported.
“Al Jazeera did not wish to know the facts and maliciously accused us of being racist, which is also untrue,” he said.
“I believe there is no country which gives freedom to foreigners with expired visas,” he added.
Immigration Director-General Khairul Dzaimee Daud also piled on, threatening foreigners who make “inaccurate” claims “aimed at damaging Malaysia’s image” with the revocation of their student, employment, or residence passes.
While Malaysia has been hailed as a success in containing the spread of the coronavirus through assiduous contact tracing processes and strict lockdown measures, its policies have raised human rights concerns, especially with regards to its migrant population.
In May, more than 2,000 undocumented migrants were arrested in raids, and before being deported, they could be held in crowded detention centres for months. Some of these detention centres have already become sites of viral clusters.
On May 21, UN experts released a statement urging Malaysian authorities to stop the detention of migrants, citing fears of a coronavirus outbreak in cramped detention facilities. The fear of being arrested may also deter migrants from seeking coronavirus testing and treatment, they said.
The UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, went a step further, expressing alarm over the situation and calling on Malaysia to end the “current crackdown and hate campaign.”
“We urge the Malaysian authorities to refrain from raiding locked-down areas to arrest and detain migrants,” he said.
While Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah has spoken out against discrimination towards migrant workers in healthcare, legislation meant to improve the quality of migrant worker accommodation, initially set to come into effect in June, has been delayed until August.
Meanwhile, the Immigration Department is now looking for an interviewee featured in the Al Jazeera documentary, 25-year-old Md. Rayhan Kabir.
In the documentary, the Bangladeshi migrant showed footage on his phone of other migrants being herded down the street by government officials. He also shared how some migrant workers were arrested when their companies failed to renew their visas, calling the government measures a “clear act of racism.”
The investigation into the Al Jazeera documentary, meanwhile, is just the latest in a spate of incidents apparently targeting media outlets critical of the government.
In May, South China Morning Post reporter Tashny Sukumaran was summoned by Malaysian officials for questioning over a piece about a government raid on migrants in Kuala Lumpur.
Local news outlet Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief are also currently embroiled in contempt of court proceedings over comments posted on the outlet’s website by readers criticizing the judiciary.
Though the outlet’s representation argued that neither party was involved in the publication of the comments, and that it had removed them as soon as it was made aware, a judge ruled against a recent motion to set aside the case.
Proceedings will start later this month in the country’s highest court, meaning the defendants will have no change at appeal if convicted.
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