False police report lodged against Malaysiakini

A movement calling itself Gagasan Melayu Perak (GMP) has lodged a police report against

MCPX

Malaysiakini over a news report which the website had not published.

In the police report, GMP president Mohd Hilmi Ismail claimed that Malaysiakini had published an article insulting the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, and Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah.

The said article, headlined ‘Raja Nazrin defends monarchy against ridicule’, was allegedly published by Malaysiakini on Tuesday.

But a check revealed that no such report was published by the online news daily.

Its Bahasa Malaysia section had however uploaded a Malay version of the story based on a Bernama report but this was published on April 19.

Mohd Hilmi and his group lodged the report at the Sungai Senam police station near Ipoh at 5pm yesterday.

According to Bernama, Mohd Hilmi had told reporters that the police report was lodged because GMP considered the news carried by the website as rude and discourteous to the monarchy in the state.

He also said GMP hoped that the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture would take action against the website for abusing information technology without considering the implication on national security.

‘I was informed by my staff’

Malaysiakini contacted GMP this morning to seek clarification over the police report and was told by Mohd Hilmi that he was not aware if Malaysiakini had carried such a report before going to the police.

“I didn’t know about the said article. I was informed by my staff and I lodged a report,” he said.

When asked if he realised that he could have tarnished Malaysiakini reputation with his police report, Mohd Hilmi asked: “Isn’t Malaysiakini the same as Malaysian Today or some other blogs?”

Malaysiakini has asked Mohd Hilmi to publicly apologise for making the false report.

The website is also mulling possible action against Mohd Hilmi and GMP.

According to a report in Utusan Malaysia, the offending article was a comment posted by a reader in reaction to ‘Raja Nazrin defends monarchy against ridicule’.

The reader, who used the pseudonym Pasok, disparaged the Perak palace and the sultan.

GMP apologises to Malaysiakini

About an hour after contacting Mohd Hilmi, GMP’s legal advisor Nor Ali Nordin called Malaysiakini to apologise for their error.

“My president (Mohd Hilmi) just spoke to me and we would like to apologise to Malaysiakini for our mistake,” he said.

He also said that he and other GMP members will be going to the Sungai Senam police station at 3pm today to rectify their original police report.

“We will do the necessary thing to remove Malaysiakini‘s name from the report and replace it with the website which had carried the offending article,” he added.

He also said that GMP has informed the local dailies of the mistake and got their assurance to publish a correction.

Bernama and Utusan Malaysia (above), among others, today published the story about the police report against Malaysiakini.

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } And in a statement faxed to Malaysiakini at about 3.40pm, GMP made a conflicting claim that it only lodged a police report against “an Internet user called Pasok” who appeared in a website.

The movement also blamed Utusan Malaysia for confusing the issue and naming Malaysiakini in its report.

“We have informed Utusan Malaysia to make the necessary corrections,” said the unsigned statement from the movement’s legal advisor. Mkini