A ROMANIAN female reporter at an Orang Asli blockade at Kampung Sungai Papan in Gerik has been detained by police for questioning.

Gerik district police chief Ismail Che Isa said the journalist has been brought to Gerik police station and will be released after her statement is taken.

‘We are not arresting her, we are just taking her statement for documentation,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The journalist is believed to be Alexandra Radu, a photojournalist based in Kuala Lumpur working for The Diplomat, a US online news magazine about Asia.

The Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC) first raised the alert about her arrest on its Facebook page earlier today.

It said the woman had been at one of the blockades near the Ulu Chepam forest reserve.

Environmental group Organisation for the Preservation of Natural Heritage Malaysia (Peka) condemned the police’s actions, saying that arrests of media personnel was tantamount to threatening press freedom.

Peka added that the blockade at Kampung Sungai Papan was again demolished this morning and that loggers have entered the land escorted by Forestry Department officials.

“We regret that state authorities and loggers are adamant and continuously encroach onto their customary lands despite numerous police reports and complaints have been lodged with the relevant authorities and investigations are ongoing,” said Peka president Sharif Sabrina Syed Akil.

“We call for immediate intervention by the federal government to maintain the status quo at Kampung Sg Papan and Kampung Cunex pending the determination of the Orang Asli’s land rights by the courts. 

A moratorium on the logging must be immediately put in place to halt any irreparable damage or losses in these areas and detrimental to the OA way of life there.” – August 1, 2019.