Abdul Qayyuum Rahim, a Singaporean traveler, had his trip to Malaysia on May 20 marred by an unsavory experience with what he described as “impolite” Malaysian customs officers. Taking to Facebook to express his frustration, Qayyuum recounted the unpleasant incident.
After enduring an hour-long wait at the Tuas Checkpoint, Qayyuum and his wife reached one of the two open counters on the Malaysian side of the border. To their dismay, a female officer greeted them with an impolite tone and ordered them to remove their passport covers.
Upon receiving their passports back, Qayyuum and his wife were shocked to discover that the officer had unnecessarily chopped, voided, and re-chopped their passport pages, wasting valuable space. The officer purposefully left a blank page in Qayyuum’s passport and needlessly chopped page 27 in his wife’s passport, only to scribble it out and re-chop on page 28.
Qayyuum was unable to identify the officer as she was not wearing a name tag at counter M8.
Frustrated by the incident, the couple decided to file a complaint at the customs office. However, their experience took a turn for the worse when they approached another officer. This male officer, who was not dressed in proper immigration uniform but instead wore a dri-fit t-shirt and jacket, dismissively told them to file the complaint online without providing any guidance. He even raised his voice and insisted they make the complaint outside of the office.
Refusing to back down, Qayyuum’s wife persisted and asked for instructions on how to file the online complaint, which further irritated the officer. He took hold of their passports and directed them to the second level of the office.
There, they were issued a “Refusal of Entry” letter by a female assistant superintendent named Rexsus. When Qayyuum and his wife questioned the reason for the letter, they were informed that they had been banned from entering Malaysia for at least six months. The officer failed to provide a valid explanation, instead raising her voice and sarcastically asking if they wanted to be banned for six months or a year.
Qayyuum revealed that his friend had faced a similar ordeal when her boyfriend questioned an officer about the chopping of his passport page. This resulted in the officer shouting at them and bringing them to the office, where they too received a “Refusal of Entry” letter.
Expressing his frustration, Qayyuum called for standardized procedures for Malaysian immigration and tighter control over officer conduct and the treatment of foreigners. He emphasized the unfairness of Singaporeans paying for passports only to have officers wastefully use up pages.
Qayyuum stated that he filed an online complaint through the Malaysia Immigration Portal on May 21 but had not received a response as of yet.
