Lim says Utusan has gone overboard. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 — DAP today expressed their support for Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz for criticising Utusan Malaysia’s racist agenda.
The party’s secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said Nazri’s criticism of the Umno-owned newspaper is accurate because Utusan has gone "overboard" in its reporting.
“Utusan has gone overboard in its reporting and attacked the non-Malays up to the point of using derogatory terms such as ‘keling’ for the Indian community and calling the non-Malays anti-Islam and anti-Malay. That is the not the spirit of Malaysia supported by the rakyat,” he told reporters in Parliament.
Yesterday, The Malaysian Insider reported that the Umno maverick had condemned the Malay daily for its “outdated” racist propaganda, saying the Umno-owned newspaper must accept that Malaysia is a multi-racial country.
Nazri said Malaysians can no longer accept categorising minorities with derogatory names.
Lim stressed that Utusan was irresponsible for causing racial tension in the country.
“The efforts by Utusan Malaysia are very irresponsible because it causes racial hatred and also publishes false statements like Karpal is anti-Islam. I have also become a victim and that was why I had to sue Utusan but we cannot sue Utusan everyday because we do not have the funds and time to do so,” he said.
The Penang Chief Minister also slammed the Utusan “bosses” for manipulating the news.
“Their reporters are professional but their bosses will change the news and then create false news and false accusations. So we feel that they have gone overboard. I think this is not a political issue but a Malaysian issue.
“Even though we are politically different, the DAP agrees with Nazri in urging Utusan Malaysia to stop this campaign of racial hatred. They will only be satisfied when other races do not have any more rights. If they continue with their campaign of hate, I am scared there will be retaliation that we all will regret,” he said.
Lim hopes that Utusan will accept Nazri’s criticism and change.
“I hope Utusan Malaysia will learn from the criticism made by the minister and also hope that the police will make the necessary investigation to take actions against those who incite racial hatred,” he said.
Utusan has been a mouthpiece for Umno ultra-nationalists and a tool for defending the party’s “Ketuanan Melayu” (Malay supremacy) policy.
The newspaper has also been criticised for being used to attack the opposition and ratcheting up racial tensions.
The Umno-owned newspaper was responsible for running daily stories criticising calls to allow former communist leader Chin Peng to return to Malaysia, linking it to what the newspaper says are moves to question Malay rights.
The paper also suggested that DAP was anti-Islam and said Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was willing to betray the Malays to be prime minister — both incendiary subjects in mainly Malay-Muslim Malaysia.
Its articles have labelled the Chinese community as “pendatang” (immigrants) and the Indian community as “keling”. -MalaysianInsider
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