For the second time in two weeks today, Malaysiakini was barred from entering the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in Putrajaya.
The news portal was there to cover Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's press conference at 10am, which was announced by the national news agency Bernama late yesterday.
Those barred included a journalist and a photographer from Malaysiakini , as well as a video journalist from KiniTV , a company under the Malaysiakini group.
This journalist was queried on his media agency for the registration process at the entrance to the PMO.
The registration officer, upon being informed that the journalist is from Malaysiakini , gestured to an officer-in-charge, who bore the name tag "Vijay".
Vijay then informed that news portals Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider (TMI) are not allowed into the PMO.
When it was pointed out to him that Malaysiakini was allowed into the PMO last Friday for Najib's press conference, he insisted that the ban was effective today.
"No, from today onwards Malaysiakini and TMI are not allowed in," Vijay said.
Malaysiakini was on June 25 also barred from entering the PMD to cover Najib's press conference on his cabinet expansion.
However, in that incident, a KiniTV video journalist and videographer were allowed in but were subsequently told to leave.
An aide to Najib eventually allowed the duo to remain after they protested, but the Malaysiakini journalists were still not allowed in, with "lack of space" cited as the reason.
Meanwhile, Utusan Malaysia reported that Najib announced the restructuring of the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) at the press conference this morning.
He said this is to make Esscom more efficient in dealing with intrusions and abductions in that zone.
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