PETALING JAYA: A 37-year-old man will be the first ever individual to be charged under the new Section 507A of the Penal Code for stalking.
The man allegedly stalked and sexually harassed a popular female photographer for years, sending her lewd photographs of himself and even followed her to the United Kingdom.
Selangor police chief Comm Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said the man would be charged under the newly minted Section 507A of the Penal Code.
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"He will be brought to the Shah Alam court tomorrow to face the charges," he said when contacted on Wednesday (Aug 9).
Under the new Section 507A of the Penal Code, stalking was defined as a repeated act of harassment intended to or likely cause distress, alarm or fear to anyone’s safety.
Media outlets had reported that police had received reports about online sexual harassment faced by the female photographer since 2018.
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In a series of tweets in July, Acacia Diana spoke about her ordeal of being stalked and sexually harassed by a man for almost eight years.
She said the ordeal started in 2016 when she had a blog to document her travels and projects when she received weird comments on her posts.
She claimed that a year later when she was at a restaurant when a "creepy man" came up to her while she was with a friend and told her that he liked her work.
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"I thanked him and told him to leave us alone," she tweeted.
She also claimed that while she was studying in the United Kingdom in November, she got a call from her family saying that a man came by to her house. He told her dad that he wanted to be her friend.
She claimed that while she was in the UK in December last year, she found out that the suspect had followed her there and also signed up for a class that she was also attending.
She claimed that the suspect also sent her direct messages on Instagram of himself masturbating.
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He was arrested in the United Kingdom and released on bail while police investigated the case there.
She claimed that the police there intended to charge him with sexual harassment and stalking but he left for Malaysia and did not show up for his court date.
She claimed that since April this year the suspect continued to harass her by sending her pictures of his privates.
