Constitutional law professor Abdul Aziz Bari and a Malaysiakini reporter have been questioned by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission, on the academic's statements linked to a decree by the Selangor sultan.

NONE “Maybe this is after pressure from Awang Selamat in Mingguan Malaysia ,” he had said in an email at 9.30am today.

Abdul Aziz later said the meeting with two MCMC officers lasted about two hours today, with the officers following up on a report lodged against him last Friday.

"Besides questions on my personal information and career, they asked about the accuracy of Malaysiakini 's report," he said.

He added the officers, Syukri Jamaluddin and Mazlan Othman, also asked about his areas of research, his mobile phone and ICT skills.

The officers then came to Malaysiakini 's office in Kuala Lumpur at 3.30pm and questioned reporter Jimadie Shah Othman for more than an hour.

The officers wanted to know who had written the report quoting the lecturer and how the reporter had obtained the information for the piece.

Yesterday, the Sunday edition of Utusan Malaysia , through its 'Awang Selamat' column, had taken potshots at the MCMC for allegedly being soft on Abdul Aziz and Malaysiakini , which had published the academic's views.

The ‘Awang Selamat’ pseudonym is used by Utusan editors to anonymously air their views on current affairs.

In yesterday's commentary, Awang Selamat claimed that Malaysiakini appears to have “immunity” despite setting a “trap” by publishing news meant to ‘advocate the setting up of a republic’ in Malaysia.

Last week, Abdul Aziz had said that the Selangor sultan's decree on the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department search of the Damansara Utama Methodist Church in August was “uncommon and inconsistent”.

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