Rights group slams arrest of student at Kota Kinabalu shopping mall

2026-03-16 - 07:13

Mandiri programme officer Wong Kueng Hui said it was worrying that the student was placed in a lock-up without being given the basic right to contact his family or obtain legal aid. PETALING JAYA: Mandiri, an NGO, has condemned the arrest of a student at a charity event held at a shopping mall in Kota Kinabalu yesterday. It said the youth was allegedly handcuffed and taken away to the Kepayan police headquarters without any reasonable explanation despite a teacher’s attempts to clarify the situation. Mandiri programme officer Wong Kueng Hui said it was worrying that the student, a teenager identified only as Niko, was placed in a lock-up without being given the basic right to contact his family or obtain legal aid. “The detention of an underage child is not only inhumane but clearly contradicts the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child Act 2001,” Wong said in a statement. In a Facebook post, Niko’s teacher Sabir Syarifuddin said the teenager was detained at about 2pm while students were at the shopping mall for a Ramadan charity programme. He said Niko is a student at Sekolah Alternatif, a school providing free education for marginalised children in Sabah. Sabir, who is also a programme coordinator at Borneo Komrad, said he tried to show police a permission letter for the programme but claimed officers did not listen to him, instead telling him to go to the Kepayan police headquarters. He said he waited at the police station for updates and was later asked to go to the legal office on the third floor before being told to return to the lobby. “At about 6.05pm, I received a call informing me that Niko was about to be placed in the lock-up. I pleaded to be allowed to see him,” he said. Sabir said he was shocked an underage student was held in a police lock-up without explanation. Acting Kota Kinabalu police chief Syed Lot Syed Ab Rahman confirmed the arrest, saying it was made during a crime prevention operation at One Borneo Mall after the suspect allegedly failed to produce valid identification documents. He said the case is being investigated under Section 6(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 for being in Malaysia without valid travel documents. Syed Lot said a video of the arrest had gone viral on Facebook and police were verifying the suspect’s citizenship status with the immigration department. Sabir later confirmed with FMT that Niko is a stateless Bajau Laut, and that a senior investigating officer from the Kota Kinabalu police headquarters had asked him to provide several documents about the student’s school and family. Wong called for Niko’s immediate release and urged the government to implement a comprehensive solution to statelessness, particularly among the Bajau Laut. He said marginalised communities continued to face oppression, ranging from forced evictions to the arrest of children. “No child chooses to be born stateless. This is a systemic failure that the government must correct.”