Media watchdog RSF calls on Malaysia to explain deportation of Pakistani journalist

Karachi [Pakistan], January 7 (ANI): Media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called upon the Malaysian authorities to provide an explanation for the deportation of a Pakistani journalist who had been living in Malaysia as a refugee for years after reportedly being abducted and tortured by an intelligence agency, according to Dawn.

RSF also called on the Pakistani government to immediately state where the journalist is now. The matter of the journalist's abduction was acknowledged by Malaysia's home affairs minister as he said that he was deported back to Pakistan in August at the request of the Pakistan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

Citing an RSF press release, Dawn reported that Syed Fawad Ali Shah, also known as Fawad Shah, disappeared in Malaysia on Aug 23. On the other hand, according to the Malaysian authorities, they deported Shah because they were informed by his Pakistani counterparts that he was a police officer who was the subject of disciplinary action.

RSF, in its release, refuted the claims by Malaysian authorities and said that Shah has never been a police officer and he had in fact been residing in a completely legal fashion in Malaysia under the refugee status granted him in 2014 by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The release further stated that Shah was held for three-and-a-half months in a cellar and was tortured, probably as a result of his investigative stories about enforced disappearances.

"Due to the fault of the Malaysian authorities, no one knows Syed Fawad Ali Shah's current whereabouts and in what circumstance he survives," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk, according to Dawn. (ANI)