The fact is that what this journalist was doing here was not only highlighting alleged corruption in his country Pakistan but was also writing about the refugee experience here in Malaysia. This of course is something we cannot have.

Remember someone like Dr Zakir Naik is welcomed with open arms but a journalist like Syed Fawad is just another victim of the way how successive Malaysian governments operate. But really, can we expect anything else from Pakatan Harapan, BN or PN when it comes to human rights issues?

Remember when Harapan deported Turkish asylum seeker Arif Komis, who was critical of the Erdogan regime and the old maverick was sceptical that the Turkish government would torture him despite overwhelming evidence by various agencies worldwide of Turkey’s brutal methods of suppression?

Or how about when Harapan deported four Egyptians to face possible death and torture? Latheefa Koya, who was the Lawyers for Liberty executive director, said at the time: “This has been done secretly, flouting international human rights standards. We would have expected this inhumane conduct on the part of the (previous) BN regime, but it’s outrageous that the Pakatan Harapan government is doing the same thing."

The PDRM investigated Arif and concluded that he should not be in this country. Meanwhile, Zakir is busy suing politicians in this country – politicians from the ruling coalition.

While Zakir has been banned from making public speeches because he makes racist statements, he is defended by not only the ruling coalition but also by far-right personalities who use him (and are used by him) to propagate anti-Malaysian ideas.

Meanwhile, a journalist like Syed Fawad is deported – and many others like him - while a government, headed by reformer Anwar, makes all these excuses. People, especially apologists for Madaniville, like to minimise this issue and claim that there are more important issues to handle.

They are misguided for a couple of reasons. The first is that if the ruling regime can callously disregard the rights of someone seeking shelter in this land at the behest of tyrannical regimes, then nobody in Malaysia is safe.

Human rights, unfortunately, is a zero-sum game. What we have learnt after decades of institutional malfeasances is that the regime always attacks long-hanging fruit which they know will not gain any traction from people who demand accountability and competent governance.

Secondly, people talk about having a functional judiciary and the only way to have a functional judiciary is if it is constantly tested with hard cases like this.

What a functional judiciary does is curtail, within the limits of the law, the excesses of power while disregarding political expediency.

It is abundantly clear that in either Keluarga Malaysia or Malaysia Madani, people who expose corruption or dissent in oppressive regimes are not welcome.