Malaysiakini says its reporter detained by MACC, blocked from contacting him
KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — News portal Malaysiakini said today that its reporter B Nantha Kumar was detained last night by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
It wrote that an alleged MACC officer said it would apply with the Putrajaya Magistrate's Court for the reporter to be remanded.
Malaysiakini said the detention was due to an article on an alleged Pakistani cartel smuggling migrant workers into Malaysia.
It also said it was refused access to the reporter.
Malay Mail is seeking to verify the detention and request more details from MACC.
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When I returned to Pakistan, I was immediately charged with sedition, and treated as if I had returned from an ISIS camp in Syria or Iraq rather than one of the most peace-loving countries in the world. In October, the government's smear campaigns amplified with my inclusion on the TIME100 Next Emerging Leaders. I was called 'Malala 2' and a Western puppet. Surveillance around me intensified, and I was placed on the Fourth Schedule, an anti-terror watch list typically reserved for hardened militants, and which restricts the movement and activities of the listed. I was barred from travelling abroad. I am learning the price of peaceful activism. For decades, Pakistan has kept the rest of the country, and the world, in the dark about Balochistan. It remains an information black hole. Among those the military and intelligence agencies have forcibly disappeared, killed, or forced into exile are journalists who dare to write about these atrocities. According to the Balochistan Union of Journalists, more than 40 have been killed since 2000. Foreign media are denied access to the region. From this darkness, a woman leading a grassroots movement for Baloch rights was unacceptable. The hostility of the state intensified with the BBC's 100 Women list, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. But if international pressure has prevented my being killed, I face psychological warfare, threats, and the constant spectre of danger. I write this the day my sister told me that the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K) released a 100-page Urdu-language booklet accusing me of being a Western agent. Their "evidence"? The TIME honor and Norway trip. Other BYC leaders are in jail with me: Sabghat Ullah Shah Jee, Beebarg Zehri (a disabled man), Gulzadi, and Beebow. I tell them: We are not the first to be imprisoned for demanding peace, justice, and rights. From Nelson Mandela to Narges Mohammadi, we walk the same path. We draw strength from their courage, intellect, and defiance. Our movement is rooted in peace. We speak against enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, forced displacement, and the systematic denial of basic rights to the Baloch. We are the rightful owners of the Saindak Copper-Gold Project (worth billions of dollars, but the profits are not shared with the local population), the Reko Diq mine (estimated to hold copper and gold reserves worth over $60 billion, but the benefits are not reaching the Baloch people), and Gwadar — the gateway to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Yet, 70% of Balochistan's population lives below the poverty line. Read more: Pakistan Bars Activist From Traveling to TIME Event Honoring Her The state is offended and brands us terrorists and violent. But we are not violent. The state is armed, powerful, and ruthless. It uses violence to silence those who ask for justice. The practices once reserved for the Baloch, considered lesser citizens, are now expanding to other parts of Pakistan. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party are now under the military's wrath. He is jailed. Is Imran Khan also a terrorist? Are members of his PTI party now "agents of hostile agencies"? If the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies are as competent as they claim to be, why have they failed to present a single piece of credible proof? Why have they not held a fair, transparent trial? Because this isn't about the law; it's about fear, their fear of our truth. This prison is more than bricks and bars. It carries the memory of my father. As a child, I visited him here. I didn't grow up playing with toys. I grew up holding posters of my father, who was detained and then disappeared. When I turned eighteen, I received his lifeless, tortured, bullet-riddled body. This is not just my story. It's the story of every child in Balochistan. Childhood here is shaped by grief, fear, and posters of the disappeared. When our generation came of age, those of us raised in the shadows of state violence, we vowed: No child after us should suffer the same fate. We are fully aware of the power imbalance between us and a nuclear-armed state. It controls the media. It runs smear campaigns. It weaponizes the judiciary. It deploys overwhelming force. It controls the parliament. It operates proxy groups and armed militias. Our confinement is part of a war of narratives. Speaking up for justice is not a crime. Raising our voices against state violence is not treason. Demanding rights is not terrorism. It is humanity. And one day, we believe, this struggle will succeed.
