PETALING JAYA, Nov 6: It is clearly an intrusion of privacy, says a lawyer on the police confiscating the phone of MalaysiaNow editor, Abdar Rahman Koya, while he was giving a statement at the Petaling Jaya police headquarters on Tuesday.
“My client was giving his statetment for the third time following a police report made against him for an article he had written on the alleged approval by Sabah Mineral Management Sdn Bhd (SSM) for a mineral exploration license within a large forest reserve,” said Abdar’s lawyer Rajesh Nagalingam.
SSM had made a police report against him, and MalaysiaNow and sought a gag order on them. In the article, Abdar Rahman claimed that a company linked to a political figure received the approval for mineral exploration shortly after the figure took control of the company.
“An editor would have information of sources on his phone and that would be his right as a journalist to keep this information confidential and hence the act of police taking his phone away amounts to an infringement of his privacy,” reiterated Rajesh.
Rajesh also lamented that his client should not be treated like a criminal. In the United Kingdom, defamation cases are not treated like a criminal case but in Malaysia, “we are caught in a timewarp.”
He has written an article, the police should be investigating what he had highlighted in his article and not have him investigated. This is clearly an effort to send a message for the media to stop questioning, Rajesh said.
In July this year, MalaysiaNow carried a series of articles, alleging corruption in the Sabah mining sector.
–WE