Malaysian police detain Filipino journalist, news crew in Sabah

CMFR/Philippines – The Manila-based Al-Jazeera news team covering an armed standoff in Sabah was detained for six hours in the town of Lahad Datu by the Malaysian police last 20 February 2013. Lahad Datu is approximately 300 kilometers from Sulu, the southernmost province of the Philippines.

Malaysian police took Al-Jazeera Senior Asian Correspondent Steve Chao, Manila-based producer Jamela Alindogan, and cameraman Mark Giddens off the coast of Tanjung Labian in Lahad Datu for “a day of questioning”. In a 21 February 2013 Al Jazeera report, Chao said that Malaysian police told them that “journalists are not allowed to go into the area out of fear that we would derail political negotiations.”

Alindogan, Chao and Giddens went to Sabah to cover developments in the standoff between Malaysian authorities and a group of armed Filipinos who belong to the “Royal Sulu Sultanate Army”.

According to a statement released by Al Jazeera last February 22, the three were sometimes questioned separately. Alindogan was repeatedly accused of being a member of the Sulu Sultanate Army despite showing her ID as an employee of Al Jazeera.

The statement added that the people in charge of questioning were not wearing uniforms and refused to give their full names,  but were polite at all times.

The Malaysian government said its forces surrounded the armed group in Sabah last February 14. It was later learned that the group was headed by Rajah Mudah (crown prince) Agbimuddin Kiram and the brother of Sulu Sultan, Jamalul Kiram III.

The Sultanate of Sulu has been asserting its rights over a large part of Sabah, saying that it has been part of the Sultanate’s ancestral domain even before Malaysia was formed after the former Malaya’s independence from Britain.

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