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The mistreatment of migrant workers in Malaysia is not a secret here in Malaysia. TRP alone has covered several stories about the struggle they’ve had to face since the start of the pandemic:

We’ve even been downgraded to the lowest rank at Tier 3 in the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report due to the exploitation of migrant workers in plantations and factories.

Read More: Malaysia Joins Afghanistan And North Korea In The Lowest Rank Of Tier 3 In The Annual Human Trafficking Report

Another such example has surfaced in a Twitter post by user Sasi Rekha Ravi (@sassyRekha)

The 5-second clip posted yesterday (20 August) shows what appears to be a line of foreign workers queuing to get vaccinated at the PPV Stadium Bukit Jalil.

In view is a RELA officer facilitating the flow but 2 seconds in, the officer literally takes matters into his own hands by physically pushing a man back when he wasn’t paying attention.

“Treat them like human”

In a separate tweet, Rekha shares a letter she’s written that further explains the video in which she describes the RELA officer “literally kicking and punching several foreigners and treating them like dogs.

Although she did not record evidence of all the other incidences, she did manage to capture the one she tweeted, which has now 607.6k views.

Rekha later claims there were at least three police officers there but none of them said anything. An excerpt of her heartfelt post says:

These are foreigners who WANT to get vaccinated and are willing to wait for hours under the scorching hot such just to receive their vaccination doses. The only walk-in PPV allocated for foreigners is PPV Stadium Bukit Jalil and due to this, the queue extends to several kilometres. The least they can do is TREAT THEM LIKE HUMAN.

Double standards

Although RELA officers are there to ensure SOPs are followed and traffic runs smoothly, Rekha alleges the man seen in the video was shoved and almost kicked/tripped, and then posed the question of whether we would do this to a fellow Malaysia or “orang putih” (Caucasian foreigner).


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