Monday, May 24, 2010

Malaysiakini.com again publishes false news. Racist like MSM by blacking out critical Indian problems.

Way back in 2001 during their humble beginnings when all the mainstream print and electronic media including the three Tamil press blacked out the Kg Medan racial attacks specifically targeted at the Indian poor, only Malaysiakini.com dared and in fact carried the true newsreports that it was racial attacks and not racial clashes as had falsely been made out to be by Umno(the real but behind the scene perpetrators of this violence)But today Umno’s and the mainstream media’s(MSM)racism has spilled over even to Malaysiakini.com.

Malaysiakini.com has in fact gone one step forward by even publishing false news.

In their newsreport yesterday (22.5.10) Malaysiakini.com reported that there was a “fight” and that P.Uthayakumar had been referred to as an “extremist”. We had done our own video recording and inquiries but we did not capture this word “extremist” having been uttered.

The last time we were referred to as extremists was by the UMNO Utusan Malaysia and the other MSM just before and after the 25th November 2007 Hindraf Rally to lay the foundation and the eventual justification for the detention without trial under the ISA of the Hindraf lawyers.

Malaysiakini.com also reported that tempers flared as Helen Ang, the moderator had difficulty in controlling the session as there were verbal jostling for 15 minutes.

The fact was what was a boring session with the political rhetorics by the other two politician speakers had turned into a lively discourse when P.Uthayakumar had stated that the Bloggers hardly cover in their writings when the victims of UMNO’s atrocities were Indians and the critical Indian problems in Malaysia .And that their reporting should depart from being race based to being needs based and based on the gravity and severity of the atrocities. The latest and most obvious example was the shooting dead by the Malay-sian police of the two Taiping Indian brothers last month.Just because they were Indian victims they and hundreds of other such Indian victims plight was completely blacked out.But it was the obvious direct contrast in the cases of Teoh Beng Hock and Aminulrasyid’s brutal murder which had rightly caught headlines and extensive media coverage for weeks in a row and the as usual overwhelming championing by the supposedly multi- racial Opposition PKR,DAP,PAS party leaders,NGOs’,Indian elite,bloggers,Malaysian Civil Society, Malaysiakini.com etc.

But for pointing out and speaking up against this racism, we in turn repeatedly get accused of being racists initially only by UMNO as a means to divert attention away from the real racism but now also ably aped by PKR, DAP, PAS, NGOS’, Malaysiakini.com, Indian elite, Bloggers etc. And this brand and definition of racism only exists in Malaysia.

In the Western civil societies ,the majority communities take great pride in championing the causes of the minority communities. But in Umnos’ One Malay-sia and PKR, DAP, PAS, NGOs’, Indian elite, bloggers and malaysiakini.com’s “multi racialism” the majority and the minority would almost always bend backwards to champion the majorities, gallery and populist causes.

The unprecedented moving of an emergency motion in Dewan Negara by Senator Ramakrishnan to debate the police shooting of Aminulrasyid is the latest case on point.Hundreds of Indians had previously suffered the same fate as Teoh Beng Hock and Aminilrasyid but there has never been such a precedent or any other serious championing or serious reporting by Arokiasamy, Ahmad or Ah Chong in Parliament or at any other forums or any other serious news reporting when the victim has and had been an Indian.(Kugan’s case may be the exception and even then to only a limited extent as it was then at the height of the Hindraf rally aftermath, some 5,000 almost all Indians had protested and Kugan’s brutal grievous injuries by some luck unusually passed the police net and was made public and somehow “caught fire”.

Be that as it may we would continue with our struggle against racism by UMNO by commission and also racism by omission by PKR,DAP,PAS,NGOs’, Malaysiakini.com, Indian elite, Bloggers, the Malaysian civil society etc.

We can understand the Malaysiakini Sifu’s definition of “newsworthiness’ has now like the MSM departed to become what appeals to the majority 92% Malay, Chinese and Natives Malaysian population and/or what would appeal to the gallery and which almost always excludes atrocities against the Indians however serious the atrocities are against them.

Now that Malaysiakini.com has like the MSM decided to black out UMNO’s atrocities against the Indian victims, the least they could do is not to come in the way of our struggle by publishing false news like in this present case.

S.JAYATHAS

Information Chief