Zambo City mayor asks Bureau of Immigration to monitor two Iranians

Reported violations and abuses committed by foreigners in Zamboanga City will not be taken lightly.

Zamboanga City Mayor Beng Climaco said she has asked the Bureau of Immigration to monitor two Iranians in the city after they allegedly harassed journalists and public officers during an operation to close a roadside eatery the foreigners owned.

“I wrote a letter to the BI and we conferred with them today in my office,” Climaco said in a text message to GMA News Online Thursday.

The eatery run by Iranians Abdel Kamal and Mohammad Mohaimi, located near the Zamboanga Children's Hospital, has a videoke bar that allegedly disturbs the patients.

The city government decided to order the closure of the eatery on Saturday due to lack of permit to operate and the complaints from the patients.

Joel Sanson, station manager of RMN Zamboanga, said thier media crew members were covering the operation when the Iranians grabbed cameraman Paul John Gotib by the neck and destroyed his camera in the middle of a heated argument between the foreigners and the officials.

“Nagkaroon ng commotion dun sa operation. Sinisigawan ng Iranians yung pulis kaya nag-cover kami. Bigla na lang sinakal yung cameraman namin at sinira yung camera nya,” Sanson said over the phone.

In an article published on January 14, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility said RMN Zamboanga reporter Merasol Montez also went to the scene with another reporter, Dan Toribio, and cameraman Daryl Canillo to back up Gotib.

Montez said it was Fahad Hamdan, a Lebanese friend of the Iranians, who confronted them.

“(Hamdan) kept slapping my hand until my smart phone fell to the ground. He owns the computer shop beside the eatery. The Iranians said they do not know him and that he was just a customer, but the Lebanese was the one who was at the eatery,” Montez told CMFR.

Kamal and Mohaimi were arrested while Hamdan remains at large.

Sanson said RMN Zamboanga and the police officers on Monday filed charges of malicious mischief, grave coercion, resisting arrest and disobedience to authority before the Zamboanga Prosecutor's Office against the Iranians.

The two foreigners were released after posting bail.

Sanson said it was the first time such assault was done to a member of the media in Zamboanga City.

The Zamboanga Press Club condemned the “physical abuse, grave threats and harassment” the RMN news crew experienced, according to the same CMFR article.

“We, from the Zamboanga Press Club, are demanding (that) the law enforcers… ensure (that) these arrogant and abusive foreigners will languish in jail or be deported back to the place where they came from,” the press club statement said. — Amita O. Legaspi /LBG, GMA News