PETALING JAYA: Police have been criticised for their decision to investigate several journalists over their coverage of a protest by contract doctors recently.
Senior media personnel and veteran journalists pointed out that they were only doing their job when they entered a quarantine centre for a story.
Tan Sri Johan Jaafar, a recipient of the National Journalist Award, expressed dismay over the matter.
“No one should stop them from doing their job and the police should not question them,” he told theSun.
He was commenting on a report that several journalists were under investigation for trespassing into the Covid-19 Integrated Quarantine and Treatment Centre at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (Maeps) on Monday.
Selangor police chief Datuk Arjunaidi Mohamed said six media personnel would be summoned soon to have their statements recorded.
He stressed that Maeps had been gazetted a quarantine and infectious disease treatment centre, making it a restricted area since Dec 6 last year.
He said the management of the centre lodged a police report following the incident.
Johan pointed out that journalists were at the location to cover the protest by contract doctors over their status in the civil service.
“We must uphold their right to cover an issue and protect our brethren who have done so,” he said.
The fact that police decided to question them was a serious matter and it should not have happened.
“I hope this is just a one-off incident,” he added.
Johan agreed that journalists face high risks when they visit places such as Covid-19 treatment centres or quarantine centres, but it is their duty to do so.
Senior journalist R. Nadeswaran said the journalists were simply doing their job at the quarantine centre.
“The decision by the police to question them is tantamount to harassment,” he said.
“We should not be stopped from doing our job, especially when it comes to issues of national interest. On that specific day, contract doctors nationwide, including those at the quarantine centre, were going on strike. The media was there to report on what was happening,” he said.
He alleged that police only used the media to serve their own purposes.
“When the police conduct raids, they take the media along to highlight what they are doing,” he said.
Nadeswaran pointed out that the six journalists did not enter the wards where the patients were in, nor were the patients disturbed.
“They reported from the location where the contract doctors were staging their protests,” he added.
National Union of Journalists president Farah Marshita Abdul Patah said while the journalists understood that the quarantine centre was a restricted area, they were just doing their job.
“We hope the police will not turn it into a big issue,” she said.
“Journalists nationwide were reporting on the contract doctors strike as it was a subject of national interest. Contract doctors stationed at the Maeps area had decided to go on strike, and we were there to report on the strike,” she said.
Farah said the police must realise this was a big issue and it was of public interest. “Just let us do our job,” she added.
