RELA Officer Seen “Physically Assaulting” A Migrant Worker Walking In Line To Get Vaccinated
There were allegedly 3 other officers on duty and no one said anything.
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The mistreatment of migrant workers in Malaysia is not a secret here in Malaysia. TRP alone has covered several stories about the struggle they’ve had to face since the start of the pandemic:
- Migrant Wearing “I Heart KL” T-Shirt During Raid Perfectly Captures Our Abusive Relationship (10 June 2021)
- Customer Gets Blasted For Complaining TTDI Cafe Is Like “Selayang Market” & “Doesn’t Feel Safe” Because Of Foreign Workers (25 January 2021)
- UiTM Study Reveals Just How Badly Exploited Mamak Workers Are In Malaysia (5 January 2021)
- More Than 90% Of Foreign Workers in Malaysia Live In Squalid Conditions (3 December 2020)
- High Murder Cases Among Malaysia’s Migrant Workers Due To Conflict At Work (1 October 2020)
- Tenaganita: Abuse Of Migrant Workers Widespread Problem In Malaysia (20 May, 2020)
- Tesco Malaysia Found To Be Abusing Migrant Workers (18 May 2020)
- Migrant Workers Plead Locals Not To Blame Them for Spread of Covid-19 (27 April 2020)
We’ve even been downgraded to the lowest rank at Tier 3 in the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report due to the exploitation of migrant workers in plantations and factories.
Another such example has surfaced in a Twitter post by user Sasi Rekha Ravi (@sassyRekha)
It is so sad that foreigners at treated SO BADLY at #PPV #PPVbukitjalil #vaksincovid @JKJAVMY @501Awani @staronline @bharianmy @NST_Online @DGHisham pic.twitter.com/9St1ZSXHDH
— Sasi Rekha Ravi (@sassyRekha) August 19, 2021
The 5-second clip posted yesterday (20 August) shows what appears to be a line of foreign workers queuing to get vaccinated at the PPV Stadium Bukit Jalil.
In view is a RELA officer facilitating the flow but 2 seconds in, the officer literally takes matters into his own hands by physically pushing a man back when he wasn’t paying attention.
“Treat them like human”
In a separate tweet, Rekha shares a letter she’s written that further explains the video in which she describes the RELA officer “literally kicking and punching several foreigners and treating them like dogs.”
Although she did not record evidence of all the other incidences, she did manage to capture the one she tweeted, which has now 607.6k views.
— Sasi Rekha Ravi (@sassyRekha) August 19, 2021
Rekha later claims there were at least three police officers there but none of them said anything. An excerpt of her heartfelt post says:
These are foreigners who WANT to get vaccinated and are willing to wait for hours under the scorching hot such just to receive their vaccination doses. The only walk-in PPV allocated for foreigners is PPV Stadium Bukit Jalil and due to this, the queue extends to several kilometres. The least they can do is TREAT THEM LIKE HUMAN.
Double standards
Although RELA officers are there to ensure SOPs are followed and traffic runs smoothly, Rekha alleges the man seen in the video was shoved and almost kicked/tripped, and then posed the question of whether we would do this to a fellow Malaysia or “orang putih” (Caucasian foreigner).
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