The detention of three journalists during a demonstration outside of the Kamunting Detention Centre last Saturday have been questioned by several opposition parties, but for the journalists, the ordeal is not over yet.

In the event that was to mark the 14th anniversary of the Operasi Lalang ISA crackdown, the police went on a swoop arresting 48 people, including three journalists.

The three are scheduled to appear in a Taiping police station this Wednesday morning to find out if actual charges are to be made against them.

"I was not handcuffed or anything but I was placed in a room where I was given food," said Harakah photographer Mohd Nasir Sudin.

Nasir who was detained on Saturday morning was only released 12 hours later at 11.30pm. He was not charged.

"I was not angry at being detained or anything. I was relaxed because I know I had done nothing wrong and I was only doing my job when I was detained," Nasir said.

Nasir told malaysiakini he was arrested when photographing the arrest of another camera man, Hanafiah Hamzah from the Singapore-based Channel News Asia .

'I was in a restaurant'

"I was in a restaurant when this happened. I saw some suspicious-looking characters looking in Hanafiah's direction and they looked like they were ready to arrest him. So I told Hanafiah, 'When they arrest you, I'm going to take a picture of you', and true enough they did.

"When I was about to take a shot, someone from behind came up to me and asked me for my identity card and said balik balai (come with me to the police station)," Nasir recalled.

No questions were asked, said Nasir, and Hanafiah was taken in together with his TV camera.

Hanafiah could not be contacted today.

Another journalist detained at the 300-strong gathering was Sevan Doraisamy who claimed that he overheard police officers saying "still not enough people, still not enough people" before he was detained and placed in a police van.

"At the time I was detained, I was not covering the event as a Radiqradio journalist," said Sevan who is also a member of the Centre for Community Development, a grassroots non-governmental organisation.

Sevan said he was supposed to meet his colleagues to get some recording equipment before he could begin coverage.

"We were dispersing when I received a call that Dr D Jeyakumar from Parti Sosialis Malaysia had been held. Then I received another call that S Arutchelvan of Suaram had also been held.

"After meeting the two of them, Arutchelvam's wife and another friend and I were walking back to the our van to leave the scene when a troop of riot police said that we could not pass through and had to take another route. Just as we turned around, my friends and I were detained," Sevan said.

Police should help journalists

Sevan was detained at 12.30pm and released nine hours later. He also said that another officer, not the one who detained them, recorded their statements.

"It was only later that the arresting officer came in and talked to us," Sevan said adding that he was also placed in a room and given food and drinks.

Radiqradio's editor Sharaad Kuttan today told malaysiakini that journalists in general should be allowed to perform their duties without hindrances from the police.

"Journalists should be allowed to do their job and the police should be assisting them and not preventing them. They (police) should instead negotiate with journalists," Kuttan said

Chairperson for the National Union of Journalists Norlila Daud and NUJ general-secretary Hong Boon How could not be contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi refuted that the 48 'arrests' in Kamunting on Saturday was politically motivated.

"They brought it upon themselves," Abdullah said yesterday.