Immigration denies issuing Aidiladha meat distribution guidelines
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Immigration Department has denied issuing any statement regarding guidelines for the distribution of "Qurban" (sacrificial) meat at mosques in conjunction with the Hari Raya Aidiladha celebration.
Immigration deputy director-general (management) Ismail Mokhtar said the department was aware of the false statement, dated June 5, 2025, that had gone viral.
"For the record, the statement is false and has never been issued by Immigration," he said in a statement here Saturday (June 7).
He also advised the public to always refer to the department's official channels for accurate and authentic information.
"Immigration takes the dissemination of false information seriously, especially when it can lead to public confusion. Any unauthorised use of the department's official emblem and name is an offence and may be subject to legal action," he added.
The fake statement, dated June 5, 2025, that went viral, used the name of Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban.
Among the things claimed in the statement was that only foreign nationals with valid work permits and visas, or those with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards, were allowed to receive Qurban meat at mosques.
It also said that illegal immigrants who collected the meat would face immediate action. - Bernama
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Still starving in Gaza
FOR Abdelhalim Awad, who runs a bakery in the central Gaza Strip, the hope of food arriving for hungry Palestinians was like the endless reports of an approaching ceasefire: constantly rumoured to be just around the corner yet always out of reach. Weeks after Israel announced that it would ease its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, little of the desperately needed food, fuel, and medicine has reached hungry Palestinians. Dozens of trucks ferrying supplies have crossed into Gaza at the Israeli-controlled border crossing of Kerem Shalom, according to Israel. But they were only be a dent in the daily hunger that has become widespread in Gaza under the Israeli blockade. 'Even if we get some flour today, it seems we won't have anything close to what's needed to feed people,' Awad said. In the meantime, Palestinians reeling from Israel's almost three-month ban on food, fuel, and other supplies have been left waiting. 'Today we will mostly eat lentils or pasta,' Riyadh al-Housari, a 25-year-old in Gaza City, said in a phone interview. 'We eat one meal in the late afternoon. It is one meal, and there is no other.' Israel's blockade has rendered the situation so dire that Palestinians in Gaza are at 'critical risk of famine', a panel of United Nations-backed experts said in May. They projected that tens of thousands of children could suffer from acute malnutrition if the restrictions continue. Israel argued the report was based on faulty data and assumptions. The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has ignited growing international opprobrium against the Israeli campaign against Hamas. Even Israel's allies – which offered vigorous support after the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, attacks started the war – have voiced frustration and even anger over the conflict and its cost to ordinary Palestinians. Last month, Britain, France, and Canada denounced the Israeli blockade and planned ground offensive in unusually stark and harsh terms, labelling them 'disproportionate' and 'egregious'. The British government said it was suspending negotiations on expanding the countries' free-trade agreement in protest. The newly anointed pope, Leo XIV, has also joined the chorus calling for aid to be allowed into the Gaza Strip. He described the situation as 'increasingly worrying and painful' and urged 'the entry of dignified humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities'. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the international criticism and reiterated his threat of a huge escalation of the war in Gaza. He described the coming ground offensive as the final and decisive blow against Hamas, adding that by the end of it, 'all of Gaza's territory will be under Israeli security control'. The Israeli ban on humanitarian aid began in early March, as the initial phase of a two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended. Both sides were supposed to be negotiating the next steps in the truce. Israeli officials argued the restrictions aimed to pressure Hamas to compromise. The impact on ordinary people in Gaza is immense: Aid organisations suspended their operations as food stockpiles dwindled, and the price of food skyrocketed. In late March, Israel ended the truce with a massive bombardment and resumed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza. By May, relief officials were warning that widespread hunger had become a daily reality. But for weeks, Israel refused to allow aid agencies to resume operations unless they agreed to new Israeli conditions, purportedly to prevent supplies from falling into Hamas' hands. Israeli leaders publicly insisted that Gaza still had plentiful stockpiles of food. But behind closed doors, some military officials privately concluded that Palesti-nians there could face starvation within weeks. Even the United States – one of Israel's most stalwart supporters throughout the conflict – began suggesting that the humanitarian crisis was spiralling out of control. Even US President Donald Trump said that 'a lot of people are starving' in the Gaza Strip and that the United States was working to alleviate the situation. After those comments by Trump, Israeli authorities relented, announcing that they would begin allowing in small amounts of food. On June 4, however, US vetoed a United Nations security council resolution calling for an 'immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire' in Gaza while the 14 remaining countries on the council voted in favour. Meanwhile, the US backed Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has paused food distribution after soldiers opened fire on Palestinians trying to get some of the aid. With new aid slow to arrive, many in Gaza are trying to make whatever provisions they have last as long as possible. 'We don't plan meals anymore,' said Sabah Abu al-Roos, 63, in the central city of Deir al-Balah. 'We just work with whatever we can find.' Produce like eggplants and tomatoes is often hawked at eye-watering prices, according to several Palestinians. Iman Jundiyeh, a mother of four in Gaza City, said she could only dream of the regular meals she used to enjoy before the war: fragrant sliced lamb; chicken, potatoes and rice; and maftoul, a kind of Palestinian couscous. She now relies almost exclusively on soup kitchens run by charities that still manage to stew pots of lentils and other staples for crowds of displaced Palestinians. Everything else is either unavailable or too expensive, she said. 'Just yesterday, my son begged me for watermelon,' Jundiyeh said. 'I started to cry with him.' – 2025 The New York Times Company This article was first published on The New York Times.
Malaysiakini
5 hours ago
- Malaysiakini
Immigration denies issuing qurban meat guidelines
The Malaysian Immigration Department has denied issuing any statement regarding guidelines for the distribution of qurban (sacrificial) meat at mosques in conjunction with the Hari Raya Aidiladha celebration. Immigration deputy director-general (management) Ismail Mokhtar said the department was aware of the statement, dated June 5, 2025, that had gone viral.
Free Malaysia Today
7 hours ago
- Free Malaysia Today
US steps up crackdown on foreigners with LA raids, NY arrests
ICE agents have intensified operations in and around American immigration courts in recent weeks. (AP pic) LOS ANGELES : Masked and armed federal agents carried out sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles yesterday, while others pounced on migrants at a New York courthouse in forceful displays of US President Donald Trump's crackdown on people without papers. From courthouses to hardware store parking lots in two of the most diverse cities in the world, federal agents wrestled migrants into handcuffs and unmarked vehicles. Agents used extreme tactics, conducting unprecedented raids on at least three areas of Los Angeles to detain dozens of people. At one sweep less than 2 miles from Los Angeles City Hall, agents threw flash-bang grenades to disperse angry crowds of people following alongside a convoy of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) vehicles as protesters hurled eggs and epithets at the agents, media reported. 'Terror' 'As a mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place,' LA mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. 'These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city.' White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who grew up in LA's Santa Monica, insisted on social media platform X that Bass had 'no say in this at all'. 'Federal law is supreme and federal law will be enforced.' Service Employees International Union leader David Huerta was briefly detained while documenting one of the raids in Los Angeles, according to media reports. 'Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals,' Huerta said in a statement after his release. Homeland security investigations spokesman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe told the Los Angeles Times that federal agents were executing search warrants related to the harbouring of people illegally in the country. Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles yesterday afternoon to demand the release of detainees, broadcaster ABC7 reported. The largely peaceful rally was later ordered to disperse by police, with some violent clashes between protesters and riot police being reported. NY courthouse arrests Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles yesterday afternoon to demand the release of detainees. (AP pic) Across the country, plainclothes agents in New York pounced on two immigrants in the hallway of a courthouse yesterday. AFP saw the officers yell for the men not to move before forcing them to lay face-down on the ground as they were handcuffed and arrested. It was not immediately clear why the two men were arrested. Trump was elected to a second term with broad support for his promise to crack down hard on the entry and presence of undocumented migrants. ICE agents have intensified such operations in and around American immigration courts in recent weeks. The department of homeland security revoked regulations that limited agents' access to protected areas such as courts after Trump returned to office in January. One of the men arrested in New York was Joaquin Rosario, a 34-year-old Dominican who arrived in the US a year ago, registered as he came in and who had his first immigration hearing yesterday, his relative Julian Rosario said. 'He was at ease. He did not think anything was going to happen,' the relative said, adding that Rosario was so unworried he had not brought his lawyer with him. The other detainee appeared to be Asian. He arrived accompanied only by one of many immigration advocacy group volunteers who walk immigrants to and from the courtroom. The volunteers screamed out as the agents arrested the two men but it did nothing to halt the raid. 'Sound the alarm' Human rights groups are outraged by such operations, arguing that they sap trust in the courts and make immigrants wary of showing up for appointments as they try to gain US residency. 'They're illegal abductions,' said Karen Ortiz, a court employee who was demonstrating yesterday against the sudden arrests of migrants. 'We need to sound the alarm and show the public how serious this is and one way we can do that is actually physically putting ourselves between a masked ICE agent and someone they're trying to detain and send away,' she told AFP. Trump has dramatically tested the limits of executive power to crack down on foreigners without papers since he returned to office, arguing that the US is being invaded by criminals and other undesirables.
