On 29 June, an exclusive story came out about how a minister had barged into the international arrivals hall at KLIA to apparently rescue a Chinese national who was being detained from entering Malaysia.
There were many speculations flying around about who the minister was and if it really happened. However, they were put to rest as Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Tiong King Sing has admitted that it was him.
“Yes, I was indeed the Minister mentioned in the exclusive report. Let me give some clarity to that story.”
In a Facebook post, the minister said that the female traveller from China arrived in KLIA and got in line for immigration clearance. However, due to the language barrier and “a poor choice of words”, she was brought to a room by the officers who proceeded to lock her there.
In order to be released, her employer was offered “a deal” to release her, the deal costs RM18,000.
- RM3,000 for an air ticket to allow the woman to leave the country,
- A second RM3,000 for an air ticket to re-enter Malaysia, &
- RM12,000 as the application processing fee for the required visa.
The minister added that the officers also took away the traveller’s mobile phone which allegedly contains detailed records of her round-trip air tickets and hotel stays prepared in advance.
“These officers do not have the authority to confiscate passengers’ mobile phones but they took hers away anyway.”
Hence, after he had caught wind of what happened, he went straight to KLIA with a team of investigators from his ministry to “understand and resolve” the situation.
In the last part of his explanatory post, he adds that the netizens have accused him of only helping the woman just because of her race.
“This is absolutely not true. If the Immigration officers followed the procedure and regulations, I would support their actions.”
“I hope that the general public will stop looking at this matter from a racial perspective.”
He talked about how a Vietnamese person was detained there too but the detention was done following rules and regulations as she was blacklisted.
Hearing the minister’s explanation certainly cleared up some questions, however, we hope that the other relevant authorities will get to the bottom of the case.
