Bernama photographer handcuffed and detained, threatened by police, without knowing any reason

Hairul Nizam Bahrin, a photographer with national news agency Bernama was detained without any specific reasons by the policemen and was allegedly threatened that he would be thrown out of the new bus terminal building’s third floor. He said that he was riding on his motorcycle home from duty at 11.45am when he was stopped by some plainclothes men claimed to be the police. He was then taken to the new Integrated Bus Terminal in Bandar Tasik Selatan in handcuffs and his head covered all along not knowing what was the reason.

He lodged his report at the Jalan Tun Razak police station where he said "A motorcyclist came close to me and told me to stop. He was not dressed in a police uniform. Several seconds later, several other motorcyclists approached me and asked me to stop, but they too were not in uniform so I ignored them. One of the motorcyclists took my keys, so I took his in retaliation. Then they started yelling at me, telling to remove my helmet and hand over my identity card but I refused. This continued until an auxiliary police sergeant came and started pushing me. When I told him he had no right to touch me, he punched me on the lip. I yelled, saying that they cannot do this to me as I am not a thief. I also called my office to inform them that I had been assaulted and handcuffed, but the sergeant snatched the phone away.”

At the terminal, his handcuffs were removed and he was told to ‘negotiate’ with another officer. "He got angry when I asked if the area that I had photographed is a restricted area, and if there was a letter from the Home Ministry to say so. That's when he threatened to throw me off the third floor. They never told me why they detained me,"

courtesy of Kutu Kurap