KUCHING, July 2 — Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) Youth today said it is unfair for Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh to question the recent actions of federal Tourism, Culture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing without having the full facts of what transpired at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) recently.

Its chief David Yeo Ang Lim said that if Dr Akmal had looked into the incident, he would have known it was about recurring issues of abuse of power allegedly committed by Immigration officers.

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“Does he suggest that we just turn a blind eye and pretend nothing is happening?” Yeo asked in a Facebook statement in support of Tiong, who is PDP president, to demand that Dr Akmal apologise over his accusation against the minister.

Yeo questioned why the spotlight was on Tiong, who had exposed the abuse of power, but not on the problems at KLIA that had been tarnishing the country’s image for years.

He said the allegations of power abuse had exposed the weaknesses of a government department.

Yeo said it was not the first time that Tiong had laid bare the abuse of power allegedly committed at KLIA.

“The Immigration Department clearly has several questions to answer,” he said, pointing out that the inability of a female Chinese national to get a Mandarin interpreter assigned to her from multilingual Malaysia was laughable.

“Where are the trained interpreters? And what of the allegations of demands of unreasonable fees or has the department determined the fees are not illegal in nature?”

He said he is appalled that political figures such as Dr Akmal would make baseless accusations against Tiong for political mileage without knowing the facts.

“If he believes in the unity government, he needs to withdraw his remarks and apologise to the federal minister,” Yeo said.

Tiong yesterday chided Dr Akmal who accused him of power abuse and demanded the tourism, arts and culture minister be stripped of his Malaysian citizenship over an incident at KLIA recently.

Tiong demanded an apology from Dr Akmal for jumping the gun in claiming the minister had trespassed into the KLIA arrival hall and pressured Immigration officials into releasing a foreign tourist without first finding out the facts of the case.

Tiong had claimed to have been told that Immigration officers were allegedly asking for RM3,000 before releasing foreign tourists from detention.

He claimed that an additional RM3,000 was sought if the tourists wanted to return to their country of origin immediately using a “special lane”, along with RM12,000 as the cost for visa processing.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke had explained that all Cabinet members have security passes enabling them to enter restricted areas at KLIA.

Loke explained that the issue of security protocol breaches did not arise as ministers were allowed entry to such areas even though they were not scheduled for flight boarding. - malaymail