Haris the latest activist to be barred from S’wak

The lawyer and MCLM president becomes the third
KL-based activist to be barred this month.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement president Haris Ibrahim today became the latest peninsular-based activist to be barred from entering Sarawak.

He was stopped at the Kuching International Airport this evening when he landed from Kuala Lumpur.

“I knew something was wrong when the immigration officials took a long time to clear me to enter… they then told me that I was barred from entering the state,” he told FMT from Kuching.

“They told me arahan atasan (instructions from above), and that they couldn’t tell me the reason. They just said I couldn’t be let in.”

He also tweeted to say that Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud was “buying his return ticket to KL”.

The Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia NGO head is now waiting to catch the 8.15pm flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

It is believed that he is stopped from entering Sarawak under Section 65 of the Immigration Act 1959/1963.

Under the Malaysia Agreement, Sarawak has the power to bar anyone from entering the state, including persons from Peninsular Malaysia.

Haris, a lawyer, is the third activist from Kuala Lumpur to have been stopped from entering Sarawak this month.

Last Friday political activist and academic Wong Chin Huat was sent back to Kuala Lumpur and prior to that, on April 3, independent NCR land rights activist Steven Ng was also stopped from entering Sarawak.

The BN-led state is believed to have barred these activists from entering Sarawak in order to stop them from campaigning for the April 16 polls.

Opposition parties PKR, DAP and PAS are confident that they can do well in this election by highlighting the alleged corruption of Taib and his government.