University Putra Malaysia security personnel allegedly broke into a student’s room and illegally confiscated a laptop computer and other electrical items and documents. [Malaysiakini]
Friday night, 4 staff members of the student affairs department (HEP) in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, raided the room of Yee Yang Yang, a first-year student in Hostel 13 who is a member of a pro-student grouping.
He was interrogated from 11pm to 1am, and his laptop, handphone, MP4 player, 2 pendrives, leaflets and personal documents were confiscated. [Jeff Ooi]
It may seem as a daylight robbery for some people, but the irony part is that our Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 does allow some sort of action for universities officials to act (in a university compound) beyond what police officers could do in public.
The act itself is stupid in a lot of ways, and it becomes increasingly ridiculous when it is abused by university personnel.
Yee was told that the items would be returned last Saturday, this did not happen – and a 75-minute meeting with unit director Mej Othman Jailani today did not produce results either.
“They (security officials) wanted me to give them the password for my phone and laptop so that they could check the contents,” he told reporters outside the campus security’s office this afternoon (Sep 17).
“I refused. I want them to return my things and to apologise to me publicly because they did not follow proper procedures when they took away my belongings.
“Not only were they not in uniform, but they were also rude when I asked questions.”
Yee’s effort on Saturday was recorded in a nine-minute video by one of his friends.
It included a tense stand-off between the students and Zamali Samsi, the head of the university’s Special Task Unit, a student-monitoring outfit which is part of the campus security.
The students stood in front and the back of the vehicle carrying Zamali to stop him from leaving until they got their letter of acknowledgement [see video].
Yee also said two attempts to lodge a police report against the security unit had failed on Saturday because Sri Serdang police personnel had contacted the security personnel and were told that he would get back his belongings.
As at the time of writing, about 7pm, Yee was at the police station to make another attempt at lodging the report.
If the police cannot do anything about his predicament, Yee intends to serve the university a legal notice. [Malaysiakini]
Update Sep 29 – UPM has finally returned the belongings of Yee [Malaysiakini]
The video…