Police are investigating the Bar Council over funds it received from the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which is linked to American billionaire George Soros.

Asked if the Bar Council is being investigated under Section 124C of the Penal Code as well, inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said, “Yes, correct.”

Section 124C concerns attempts to carry out activities which are deemed detrimental to parliamentary democracy.

Khalid said the Bukit Aman five-member special team that is investigating Bersih and Malaysiakini under the same law, has also been tasked with investigating the Bar Council.

"Once investigations are completed, we will submit our findings to the attorney-general's chambers for further action," he added. 

On Thursday, The Bar Council admitted to receiving RM53,757.13 (US$15,000) as a grant for the research study on migrant workers in Malaysia.

Chairperson of the Bar Council’s Migrants, Refugees and Immigration Affairs Committee M Ramachelvam revealed that the grant was received on Jan 7, 2015.

He said the sum was used for research study, and not for the Bar’s operating or administrative expenses.

Prior to this, Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran also admitted to receiving an OSF grant, which was used by KiniTV to produce Sarawak-related programmes.

“The grant mentioned was to support KiniTV to produce more news bulletins and stories on Sarawak, which is difficult for Malaysiakini given the costs associated to cover the large and difficult to access state,” he said.

He said the grant only constituted a small portion of Malaysiakini’s revenue, which largely relies on subscription and advertising.

“All grants are below 10 percent of Malaysiakini’s total budget to ensure that the website is not reliant on any single source of funds,” he added.

Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah has denied that the funds from OSF were used to organise its rallies.