Malaysian Police Brutality: Press pixmen nabbed over assault pictures


6:40PM Apr 28, 2012  
Several newspaper photographers have been arrested while photographing scenes of alleged police brutality.

It is unclear how many photographers are arrested. Among them is Malaysiakini photojournalist Koh Jun Lin.

“My camera and memory card have been confiscated,” Koh said. "They said they wanted it as evidence."
At 7.50pm, Koh was released unconditonally at the Police Training Centre (Pulapol) where other detainees were being processed.
He was taken to a officer who ordered for his release without any documentation process. 
"The memory card is not here. It is still with the officer that arrested me," he said, adding that he was in possession of the camera.
The police were engaged in a cat-and-mouse game for about three hours with protesters after Bersih 3.0 organisers urged participants to disperse at 3pm.

Violence involving both the police and protesters escalated as the minutes went.
Threatened

One photographer told Malaysiakini that after he refused to delete photographs of a melee, a police personnel removed his memory card and destroyed it.

It was confirmed by Guang Ming Daily that one of their photographers was arrested while taking photographs of the process of an arrest and alleged police assault.
A Channel News Asia video cameraman has vowed to lodge a police report after he was punched.
"Furthermore, they took our tripod," said the cameraman, Kenny Lew.
Meanwhile, a Merdeka Review photographer claimed she was assaulted by four police personnel who attempted to seize her camera and mobile phone. 
"They pulled my media accreditation card and kicked it aside. They then demanded that I leave or face arrest," she said.
Malay Mail has confirmed that its photographer Arif Kartono was punched by a uniformed police personnel and had his camera smashed.
Al Jazeera: Heavy handed violence
In a live crossover interview, Al Jazeera journalist Harry Fawcett reported that he and his cameraman were faced with alleged police violence as well. 
"I'm coming to you via Skype from an iPad because the Malaysian police has just busted our camera," said Fawcett.
"In a number of instances, we saw a policeman grabbing a protester while the other would punch, knee or slap the protester.

"We went to try to film that ourselves, and found ourselves subject to not that harsh treatment but not dissimilar.

"We were shoved and held, our camera pushed to the ground. Perhaps they were under instructions to prevent the media from filming this kind of thing," he added.
Fawcett puts the blame on the protesters for breaching the cordon, triggering the "heavy-handed" violence from the police.

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