On Friday 3rd February 2017, at Raffles Place MRT station (platform for East-West line heading towards Pasir Ris) at or around 6.30pm, I was attacked by a Caucasian man. He tried to pick a fight and I walked away but he followed me through the mrt station and at the far end near the 3rd door he attacked me leaving me with a fractured nose requiring surgery.
Unfortunately, as the police and mrt staff did not take down the particulars or statements of any of the numerous witnesses present, I was also arrested and now face possible charges.
If you saw something please, I implore you to come forward and help me.
Four Western tourists accused of being part of a group who posed nude at the top of Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu have appeared in court in Sabah state.
Authorities said the two Canadians, a Briton and a Dutchman may be charged with causing public nuisance.
Mt Kinabalu was hit by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake last Friday which left 18 people dead, including children.
A senior minister last week said the tourists had angered the spirits of the mountain, which is considered sacred.
Six people sought
Ranau district police chief Mohd Farhan Lee Abdullah confirmed to the BBC that the authorities had arrested a British woman at Tawau airport in Sabah on Tuesday.
The two Canadians, who are siblings, and the Dutchman turned themselves in to police on the same day.
Their lawyer, Ronny Cham, told the BBC’s Jennifer Pak that he had requested the four be held apart from other detainees in order to ensure their safety.
A candle-lit vigil was held on Tuesday for the victims of the Mount Kinabalu earthquake
The group appeared in court on Wednesday to have their remand extended, according to Malaysian newspaper The Star. They will now be held until Saturday while police continue their investigation.
Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman, Sabah’s police commissioner, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying that the authorities may charge them with causing a public nuisance.
He said they were still looking for six other tourists from the same group “and we will catch them”.
The father of the British tourist who has been arrested, Eleanor Hawkins from the English city of Derby, said he was extremely worried about her. “I have got every faith in [Malaysia’s] judicial system. I just hope they don’t make an example of them,” Tim Hawkins told the Guardian newspaper.
‘Disrespect’
The group of 10 foreigners had allegedly stripped naked and posed for pictures on 30 May. They were also said to have urinated on the mountain.
The Muslim-majority country is socially conservative, and Mount Kinabalu is also considered sacred by Sabah’s Kadazan Dusun tribe.
Pictures posted on social media angered many in Malaysia, but public sentiment intensified after the quake.
Why is Kinabalu sacred?
Sabah’s Kadazan Dusun tribe believe the mountain houses the spirits of their dead ancestors.
The name Kinabalu is derived from the tribe’s phrase “Aki Nabalu”, which means resting place of the dead.
Climbers are told by guides, many of whom are Kadazan Dusun, to treat the mountain with respect and to refrain from shouting, screaming or cursing at it.
Every December the tribe conducts a ritual called the Monolob to appease the spirits and allow climbers to continue visiting the mountain.
A priestess, called a Bobolian, makes an offering of seven white chickens accompanied by seven chicken eggs, betel nuts, tobacco, limestone powder, and betel plant leaves. The Bobolian leads a chant and the chickens are then slaughtered, cooked, and given to the ceremony participants.
In the past, this ceremony was conducted before every ascent, and climbers used the cooked meat as rations for their journey.
Last weekend, Sabah’s deputy chief minister, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, had linked the earthquake to the tourists’ act. He said the tragedy was a “confirmation” that they had showed “disrespect” to the mountain.
Sabah’s tourism minister, Masidi Manjun, said later that this idea was “misconstrued”, but added that the tourists’ actions “were against the people of the largest tribe in Sabah”.
Some officials have demanded that the foreigners be tried in a native court for flouting local customs.
Mr Masidi said on Wednesday that searchers had found the bodies of the last two missing people.
Mourners left tributes to primary school victims in Singapore over the weekend
Singapore’s education ministry identified the two bodies as pupil Navdeep Singh Jaryal Raj Kumar and teacher Mohammad Ghazi Bin Mohamed.
They were part of a group from Tanjong Katong Primary School who were climbing the mountain with guides when the earthquake struck. Seven pupils, two teachers and a guide were killed.
Others killed included Malaysians and citizens from China, Japan and the Philippines.
BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities detained a wife and suspected son of the leader of the Islamic State group several days ago, and she is being questioned, two senior Lebanese officials said today (Dec 2).
A military official said the woman and child were detained about 10 days ago while carrying fake identification cards.
Both officials refused to give further details about the woman who is believed to be one of the wives of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s reclusive leader. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The military official said the woman is a Syrian citizen and is being questioned by authorities.
The announcement of the arrest comes amid attempts to reach a prisoner-exchange deal between Lebanese authorities and the Islamic State group and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syria branch, who have been holding more than 20 Lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage since August.
They have demanded the release of Islamist prisoners being held by Lebanese authorities.
Last night, the Nusra Front threatened to kill one of the soldiers it is holding captive.
The wife’s arrest could be used as a bargaining chip for Lebanese authorities in their attempts to win the freedom of the troops.
A judicial official said the interrogation is being supervised by Lebanon’s military prosecutor, Mr Saqr Saqr. He added that a DNA test is underway to confirm that the child is the son of the detained woman.
The Lebanese daily As-Safir was the first to break the news, saying they were detained near a border crossing point with Syria. It added that the arrest was made in “coordination with foreign intelligence agencies”.
Very little is known about al-Baghdadi’s personal life, including how many wives and children he has. Conservative interpretations of Islam allow for a man to marry up to four wives.
Al-Baghdadi’s first wife is believed to be Iraqi citizen Saja al-Dulaimi, who was reportedly held by Syrian authorities and freed in a prisoner exchange with the Nusra Front earlier this year.
In March, the Nusra Front freed more than a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns, ending their four-month captivity in exchange for Syrian authorities releasing dozens of female prisoners. AP
