Responding to a post on Twitter by Yayasan Chow Kit co-founder Hartini Zainudin, who said the library had refused entry to two of her foundation’s refugee students who just wanted to read, DBKL said the library – which it operates – does not have any such policy.

“Kuala Lumpur Library always welcomes citizens or non-citizens to use the library’s facilities in compliance with the set rules,” said DBKL in a statement to FMT.

“Throughout the library’s operation, it has not issued any written statement, verbal directive or policy that uses the word ‘refugee’ or the like,” said DBKL, adding that this would lead to “racial discrimination”.

Hartini told FMT the incident happened earlier this week when Mathavi Nadarajah, a teacher at Yayasan Chow Kit, brought the two children to read at Kuala Lumpur Library, only to be told they could not enter.

Mathavi told Hartini that Kuala Lumpur Library representatives have since reached out to her and apologised. They said there could have been miscommunication on the part of their temporary staff.

However, in the statement to FMT, DBKL made no mention of the incident – it instead said that a preliminary investigation it conducted on Hartini’s tweet found that the incident occurred in March 2021 when a Malay teacher brought some foreign students to the library.

While Hartini said this was true, she stressed that the same thing happened this week.

Referring to the first incident in March, DBKL said this was when the government had “limited the movement of foreigners in public areas” due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases.

“Kuala Lumpur Library staff informed the teacher to abide by the rules, and the teacher took note of the matter and left,” said DBKL.

“Kuala Lumpur Library was closed on May 8 due to the nationwide movement control order (MCO) and it reopened on Oct 5.

“Since then, there have been no restrictions on the entry and use of the library.”