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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Wife of Rohingya refugee seeks help from Suhakam

FMT
Samuel Chua
May 10, 2021
Maslina Abu Hassan and her son Muhammad Ridwan at the Suhakam office.

KUALA LUMPUR: Fearful of threats and intimidation, Rohingya refugee Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani has not stepped out of his house for twelve months.

His family received threatening text messages, his wife’s car tyres were slashed recently, and they live in constant worry every day – and the wife is now seeking a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help protect her family.

It began in April last year when hateful remarks and threats against Rohingya refugees flooded Facebook and Twitter, in the wake of fake news that an activist from the community demanded that they be granted citizenship.

The fake news, attributed to Zafar, spread following reports that Malaysian authorities had blocked a boat of starving Rohingya refugees from coming ashore.

Zafar denied that he demanded citizenship for the refugees, but his denials failed to quell the hostility.

Today, his Malaysian wife called on the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) to set up a meeting with UNHCR to help protect her family from further threats.

Maslina Abu Hassan says she can no longer cope with the threats against her husband.

In her memorandum, Maslina Abu Hassan also asked Suhakam to follow up with the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on the results of their investigations and action taken against the perpetrators.

Maslina said she could no longer cope with current conditions, as the false accusations and ongoing threats against her husband had made life unbearable.

“Even now, a year after the incident, the threats still continue. On April 20, someone tried to ‘sabotage’ me by removing the air from my car tyres.

“We still receive text messages from foreign telephone numbers that someone will come to our house at 3am in the morning. There is still a lot of intimidation against us,” she told FMT.

Commissioner Jerald Joseph who accepted the memo said Suhakam would investigate and follow up on the threats.

Jerald said action must be taken by the authorities to protect Zafar’s family as the matter had gone on for a year.

“We will also send more information about his family to UNHCR so that they can take action and follow up with what the police has done so far,” he said.

Meanwhile, Maslina said she did not understand why UNHCR had rejected Zafar’s application for resettlement and protection.

“When we asked UNHCR why my husband did not meet the criteria for resettlement, they said it was confidential.

“Why is UNHCR closing its eyes? I don’t understand. They owe us an explanation,” she said.

Fearing for his safety, Zafar has not left his home for nearly a year.

“Today marks one year since false accusations were made against me on social media platforms on April 21, 2020,” he said in a Twitter post last month.

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