Everyone seems to have a field day being anti-Islam nowadays including Malays. I did not use the term ‘Muslim’ on purpose.
The Star is one of the culprits (again) for shining the spotlight on these issues over and over again.
Sira Habibu is one of the culprits in The Star
Without even making an attempt to understand the reason behind the issue. Yes, Muslim male have aurat to cover, and that is between the navel and the knee.
You may think it sounds silly until you find a Anwar Ibrahim-like person rubbing your thighs and crotch. Not all macho guys are attracted to girls if you noticed.
Separation of facilities also made headlines
The issue of the Muslim-only laundry in Muar was also highlighted until His Majesty The Sultan of Johor had to step in and decreed that the owner take down the seemingly-offensive sign.
The anti-Islam league cheered even more when His Majesty the Sultan said that “Johor is not a Taliban state.”
While I disagree with the proprietor of the laundromat for having such rules, I respect his choice. But I fail to understand why one’s choice of limiting his market to only Muslims not being celebrated by the rest? Why get angry? You get money from those who choose to frequent a open-to-all laundromat such as I.
If such a thing is racism in practice, why has the anti-Islam league ever kicked a fuss over this issue? Because the Chinese is the minority and they can get away with reverse-racism?
The other thing that I don’t get is this:
The police said they are not giving out permits for this festival over security reasons
Every day Malaysians drink to glory so much that between 2010 to August 2015, 618 died due to drink driving.
So far, nobody really cared how much they want to drink or if they would still be alive the next day. Suddenly, when the police and DBKL deny permits for Beer Fest and Oktoberfest, everyone screamed in anger as if their 364 days of binge-drinking has been curbed by a Talibanistic government.
The police said that security could be compromised and that lives could be lost if terrorists carry out their threats against the event.
The pro-drinkers wouldn’t have that. They accuse Najib Razak of kowtowing to PAS as part of an election deal.
Look, if that is the only deal that Najib Razak is capable of doing then that is downright stupid. If I were the PM I would just give a state to PAS in exchange for parliamentary seats. What on Earth can stopping a binge-drinking festival earn you?
Just go buy your crates of beer and drink at home with friends and enjoy your own Oktoberfest. If you want more privacy and a spacious venue, I know of a bungalow on Jalan Pinhorn. At least you don’t have to worry about falling into a swimming pool and drown.
Malaysia is far from being Talibanistic. What it is is becoming more idiotic. There are more and more idiots being zombified by both mainstream and social media.
I wonder what they would say to Japan which is also now being very Talibanistic?
A Japanese restaurant with a Muslim-only section. Photo credit: Mohd Mozas
It has been seven days since the Home Ministry had given a seven-day show cause letter to The Star newspaper for being rudely insensitive and for showing disrespect to the Muslims in Malaysia. The Star has been let off so many times for printing insensitive materials, then apologise when people react adversely. Even BigDog has come to remind the Home Ministry why it should not show leniency towards The Star.
Under the guise of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, politically-motivated minorities in countries such as Malaysia use imaginary oppression to justify reverse racism – acts of discrimination and prejudice perpetrated by the minorities against people of the majority race or religion. Of course if confronted with the issue, they will give an excuse saying reverse racism is not real, it is just a reaction by the Malays who are about to lose their political power. I gave a few examples of reverse racism recently.
Of course, if and when The Star gets suspended there will be an outcry by the Malaysians who cannot even remember the lyrics to the national anthem in full or speak the national language properly. They will say that there is no freedom of the press in Malaysia and that oppression is the rule of the day. Everything is bad except when it is done by them.
Let us take for example an incident involving an impatient driver in Johor Bahru whose thoughtless action induced people to commit affray. A certain portal reported the race of the driver, and that he had honked his horn endlessly because the cars belonging to the worshippers had blocked the way. We all know what happened after, and the matter has been resolved.
Then another incident happened involving a family against a driver over a car park lot. In this article, the writer described the race of the the abovementioned family numerous times.
This was not the first time this writer who goes by the pseudonym Xiao Mintx had revealed the identity of a race. In this next article, she wrote about a Malay man who had complained about a group of Chinese men whom had brought their dog to a McDonald’s outlet, totally ignoring the sensitivity of the act.
Xiao Mintx they went on to support the Malay man’s complain by saying it was insensitive on the part of the Chinese customers to bring along their dog to the outlet and that the act was disrespectful of the Muslim Malays. But what hit me was in the next paragraph, Xiao Mintx actually told the Malay complainant to be considerate and also respect the Chinese customers!
A Malay is identified by Xiao Mintx as a Malay in almost any article, but when it comes to the Chinese, they are being referred to as Malaysians.
You may think that the articles above are harmless so why is it not okay for them to be called Malaysians? Let me put this straight – when a Malay does something awful it is a Malay who does it. How about when the perpetrator is Chinese? How does Xiao Mintx identify the person?
So the Malays are not Malaysians then, Xiao Mintx? Is this not subtle racism? Is Xiao Mintx of the DAP generation?
Ask Blogger-turned-Deputy Minister, YB Dato’ P. Kamalanathan, about fake news and he would lament the demise of ethical journalism. He was once asked by a journalist from a local daily to comment on the video of an Indian-looking woman having her head shaved by two Malay-looking men that was made viral.
Being a responsible social media practitioner, Kamalanathan made the effort to verify the authenticity of the video, only to find out that it had originated from a South American nation, and the incident had happen in that particular country.
When we talk about the ethics of journalism, we would easily imagine the responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the journalists’ work; to verify information before releasing an article; and to shun stereotyping. Unfortunately, in the world of today’s journalism, accuracy is no longer a value but sensationalism is. More often than not, an article is conjured to shape the way readers think rather than to allow them to form their own opinion based on a balanced article.
Coincidentally, twenty years ago this year, the eighteenth James Bond movie was released. It was about a psychopathic media mogul who plans to provoke global war to boost sales and ratings of his news divisions. Although far-fetched, the plot is what many online and print media do nowadays. And what is to be provoked may not be as dangerous as a global war but equally explosive racial or religious clashes.
Yesterday evening, The Star announced the immediate suspension of its Group Editor-in-Chief, Datuk Leanne Goh Lee Yen and executive director Dorairaj Nadason, but not before it sent four editors to face the wrath of the KDN. The KDN had slapped the daily with a seven-day show cause, while the Inspector-General of Police has begun investigating it under the Sedition Act.
Sedition Act may be seen as a heavy-handed response, but not given The Star’s penchant for inciting racial and religious outrage. It has an array of examples of provoking the above.
During the month of Ramadhan in 2011, The Star published three pork-centred advertisements in its Ramadhan Delights pullout. Three pork advertisements in a Ramadhan Delights pullout could not have been unintentional. The KDN summoned The Star and was let off with a slap on the wrist.
A screenshot of justread-whatever.blogspot.com article on The Star’s Ramadhan Pork Fest
A mere two years later, it published a report on the rise in the number of child marriages in Malaysia. The choice of visual display accompanying the report was extremely suggestive.
The suggestive photo used by The Star when reporting on child marriages
What it failed to report was that in the same year, 468 marriages involving non-Muslim minors were also approved. How is that for balanced reporting? I know that the link given is from 2016, but could the The Star journalist filing that story not have gone to the National Registraton Department to seek for the non-Muslim numbers?
What is sad is that the story was filed by a Muslim journalist.
However, not all of The Star’s journalists were dancing the same tune. Joceline Tan whose columns have been taking on the Opposition by the horns, faces the wrath of the DAP and PKR on almost a daily basis. Another was Sira Habibu who, when based in Pulau Pinang, wrote exposés on the DAP and PKR polls.
Things changed for Sira Habibu when Leanne Goh was appointed the Group Editor-in-Chief in 2014. Sira was tranferred to Kelantan and away from being able to do stories on especially the DAP. She had one very notable article ridiculing the DAP polls which was given the title “It’s All In The Family For DAP’s Top Rung.”
This is where Sira Habibu’s article on the DAP line up was
Leanne Goh did not even defend Joceline Tan’s writing when attacked by a former The Star journalists for being anti-Opposition.
Since then, The Star has been pandering to the DAP evangelists and Liberal Muslims on the pretext of promoting a “Moderate Malaysia.”
When Pastor Ramond Koh went missing in February 2017, The Star went to town with the case, reporting at least seven times between March and May this year on the issue with headlines such as this:
The above headline suggests that the Malaysian security forces and indirectly the Malaysian government may be involved in the disappearance of the said pastor. The location of the video is not where the pastor was first said to have gone missing and the speed of the CCTV camera panning suggests that there was someone controlling the camera and that the person knew what to wait for and what was going to happen.
The Star’s coverage of the missing pastor was picked up by foreign portals that have since put Malaysia in a bad light.
All the above quoted The Star. So what is Leanne Goh’s game?
The Star has since suspended Leanne Goh and a senior editor Dorairaj Nadason over the frontpage fiasco, and have returned Datuk Wong Chun Wai to oversee the editorial operations. But mind you some of the examples I mentioned above also happened during Chun Wai’s time as the GEIC which goes to show that he was not in total control back then.
The Star has issued countless apologies especially to the Muslims in Malaysia but has remained remorseless.
So would Chun Wai be able to wrestle the evangelist and liberal monsters who reside within The Star, or would a suspension of its publishing and printing permits that it so deserves be needed to remind not only The Star, but all journalists to be ethical? Maybe only then its habit of promoting racial and religious hatred will stop.
This was the headline on the first day of Ramadhan, 27 May 2017.
It would have read differently had it read Muslims Observe Ramadhan Today and left the ‘terrorist’ headline on Page 3. It cannot be THAT important if its report was on Page 3.
The headline above sparked anger among Muslims in Malaysia from the first day of Ramadhan until almost the end of the second day. A full 36 hours after it was published which prompted The Star to issue a half-hearted apology.
This only further incensed the Muslims.
Veteran journalist Datuk Ahiruddin Atan aka Rocky Bru wrote on his Facebook account:
What is more interesting is the comment left by renowned blogger BigDog:
Joceline Tan, a The Star columnist who writes mostly leaning towards the current government was not defended by her GEIC (Group Editor-in-Chief) when attacked at the Group’s AGM.
It has also come to light that the GEIC, Datuk Leanne Goh, transferred a senior journalist who writes a lot about the DAP out of Pulau Pinang.
Yet when pastors went missing it was The Star that played up the issue religiously, and little was said by the tabloid when one came back from Thailand conveniently after Songkran ended.
We are now made to wonder why is this MCA-owned tabloid pandering to the evangelists in the DAP.
Just two days before the headline was printed media editors were summoned by the KDN and were told to refrain from publishing offensive materials.
Two days later The Star decided to offend the Muslims and called it a mistake. How can it be a mistake if it has eleven prepress workflow before it gets published?
Coincidentally the GEIC fled the country on the day the offensive headline went to press. She is said to be in San Francisco now, avoiding the summon by KDN today.
Instead, a low level Malay has been chosen to face KDN.
Six years ago, The Star published a recipe for Ramadhan feast. It was a pork dish. The Star was summoned by KDN and it issued an apology much like the most recent one promising it would not happen again.
Back in 1987, The Star had its printing license revoked for fanning racial sentiments. It is now seen to do the same and getting the backing of Malay liberals to justify its tasteless articles.
It is about time the KDN slap it with a three-year ban.
SeaDemon Says 
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