Malaysiakini barred from Khairy’s press conference

PETALING JAYA: Is Malaysiakini (Mkini) now persona non grata from functions in which Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin attends?

That is the question that has been raised after an aide to the minister asked a reporter from the news portal to leave the room prior to a scheduled press conference (PC) earlier today.

Mkini reported how the aide had first approached the reporters’ desk to solicit questions that will be brought up at the PC proper.

“The practice of press secretaries or aides approaching reporters for questions before press conferences by government officials is not unusual in Malaysia,” Mkini said in its report.

However, after the aide had completed that task, the same aide is said to have returned to the room and asked the Mkini reporter to leave.

“I apologise. YB does not want to answer questions from Malaysiakini, nor are you allowed to be here. I have to ask you to leave. I apologise,” the aide told the Mkini reporter present.

This is a first for the news portal, which said it has not been ejected from any youth and sports ministry event before this.

Reporters from the portal have previously been banned from attending events under the Prime Minister’s Office, finance ministry, defence ministry and MCA PCs, according to Mkini.

The event which preceded the press conference was on Khairy officiating the “ignition ceremony” for the MyCorps @ South Asia programme, which will see Malaysian youth volunteers being sent to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on humanitarian missions.

There were no details given as to the type of question that the portal had intended to ask, nor any explanation on why the reporter had been asked to leave. -FMT