Sacked, And Now Arrested? No End Yet To Troubles Plaguing Former MyBurgerLab COO Andrew Chong

The owner of Twitter account @chongkahtze has been arrested and remanded for 2 days.

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Andrew Chong, who, as of last week, was the chief operating officer of local burger chain MyBurgerLab found himself sacked following a personal remark he made on Twitter using his account @chongkahtze.

In commenting about the new Friday Prayer’s law in Terengganu, Chong’s remark did not sit well with Muslims in Malaysia.

Although he issued a public apology, MyBurgerLab in a statement announced they had terminated Chong’s position within the company.

His troubles did not end there as it would appear that Chong has been arrested by the police and remanded for two days beginning today.

In a statement, the police said they were investigating two Twitter accounts; @chongkahtze and @ifactoreal.

The Classified Crimes Investigation Unit (D5) opened investigations after receiving reports.

After issuing his apology on the same account last week, Chong’s Twitter has disappeared, possibly deleted or deactivated.

The police added that the two accounts are being investigated for allegedly containing seditious elements and criminal intimidation.

The investigation into @chongkahtze’s account referred to Malaysia being “taken over by extremists” and that “there will be a revolution”.

As for @ifactoreal, it was over a comment on an “Israeli attack on the prime minister’s residence”.

With regard to @chongkahtze, it is being investigated for sedition, making statements likely to cause public fear or alarm, and improper use of network facilities.

The other account is being investigated for criminal intimidation as well as making statements likely to cause public fear or alarm, and improper use of network facilities.

Checks on Twitter found that @ifactoreal is listed as Lawrence Teo and the owner of the account has been arrested and remanded for four days beginning today.

What did Chong say?

Chong shared his remark about a rule under the Shariah Criminal Offences (takzir) where Muslim men in Terengganu risk a fine of up to RM3,000, a two-year jail term, or both, should they miss Friday prayers without a valid reason.

His now deleted tweet said: “Wow.. Slowly but surely if Malaysia is taken over by extremism, we will become Iran after the revolution. i.e. what you see today, and that should scare everyone”.

What did @ifactoreal tweet about?

Checks found that @ifactoreal had replied to another Twitter post on 18 July this year, saying “may be Israel should attack Anwar’s residence too.”

The post he replied to has been deleted.

Both posts were replying under Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s post in which the Prime Minister condemned the Israeli airstrikes on Damascus, Syria in July.

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