In the wake of arrests of various cosplay artists participating in the recent debacle that was Cosplay Festival 4, ticket-holders, cosplayers, community enthusiasts and netizens have been waiting for the event director Syafiq Nizar Razdi to make a clear statement.
So far, he hasn’t delivered anything substantial. But an official report has not been produced.
Read about the eleven people arrested during the Cosplay Festival 4 police raid.
A now-deleted post alluding to the events on Syafiq Nizar Razdi’s Facebook account said that, “I will not rest until my friends are safe.” With the vast negative response on the post growing, it was taken down. He then posted this new, vague, update.
Some of the comments showed that they appreciated his efforts in helping the people involved in the cancelled event, other opinions were negative since the update is still unclear, and that the two cosplayers mentioned were allegedly not part of the group arrested.
Some said that people have to be warned off from engaging Syafiq in business deals and other events in light of the cancellation and arrests.
Some commenters said that the two cosplayers he mentioned in his status were Taiwanese, and reports have shown that no Taiwanese artists have been detained in any official report as of publishing.
The same commenter also pointed out that the term “VIP” was rather loose, and that didn’t allay any fears or give information on how the artists were doing. As of publishing, there have been no official reports on the identities and current statuses of the arrested individuals.
Others called for more truthful and substantial updates.
As no official report has been produced as to the fate and identity of the arrested cosplay artists, some members of the cosplay community have posted their own opinions and unconfirmed reports on the matter. Take a look:
Joshua Zen, who owns the Zen the Geek website, says that the people arrested have finally received legal help, and hope that the situation continues to resolve. The rest of the post lists several allegations against a person related to the event, which include supposed tax evasion, fraud, human trafficking.
The post from Joshua Zen said that the alleged person’s action in not securing permits for cosplay artists in Malaysia has given the latter the status of undocumented foreign workers. Different instances with various gaming and geek communities were listed, as well as the allegation that he has been embezzling event funds into his personal bank account.
In a report from KDU University College website, Syafiq organized a Nintendo 3DS, Pokemon Go and cosplay event in 2016.
Read about Singaporean laws and guidelines for cosplayers here.
The event director for Cosplay Festival 4 has been organizing geek and gaming events for quite some time. He was a Bachelor of Game Development student from the School of Computing and Creative Media (SCCM), KDU University College in 2016.
The Straits Times had also interviewed him previously about his opinion on the explosion of Pokemon Go in Malaysia, where some workers had een fired over playing the game during office hours.
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Japanese netizen are mostly blaming the arrested 5 Japanese nationals as arrogant, naive and “they should have known better about the visa status when traveling oversea”. I think you will be amused with their comments if you can read Japanese languge:
http://jin115.com/archives/52251754.html#comments