Syed Jaymal Zahiid | May 10, 2011 Free Malaysia Today
A check by FMT showed all posts on the issue have been removed or deleted from the pro-Umno blog.
KUALA LUMPUR: The blogger responsible for Utusan Malaysia’s Malaysian Christian conspiracy report, marahku.blogspot.com, appeared to have deleted all posts related to the allegation amid escalating racial tension between the country’s Christian and conservative Muslim communities.
A check by FMT showed all posts on the issue have been removed or deleted from the pro-Umno blog just as Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein revealed that nine police reports had been lodged against Utusan and those behind the allegation.
The removal of the postings has triggered questions over the veracity of its allegations as seen on the ongoing debate on the microblogging site Twitter.
Pro-Umno Twitter users were also seen questioning the reasons behind the removal:
“@daxmuhammad: Strange. Tarik handbrake? RT @BroJinggo: Knp http://marahku.blogspot.com delete semua artikel dlm blog dia? Dh buat silap ke? Kesian ko BD!”
(Strange. Pulled the handbrake? @BroJinggo: Why (did the blog, address above) deleted all its articles on his blog? Has he made a mistake?)
The posting that accused predominantly Chinese opposition party, the DAP, of masterminding a conspiracy with Christian leaders to “baptise” Malaysia and paved the way for a Christian prime minister, was picked up by Utusan and published as front page news last Saturday.
Dangerous lies
In his blog posting headlined, “Agong under threat? DAP wants to make Christianity the official religion of Malaysia?”, the writer accused the DAP of trying to amend the Federal Constitution to allow a Christian to become prime minister.
“The whole point of changing the official religion is to allow a Christian to become prime minister of this country,” said the blogger.
Both DAP and Christian leaders had dismissed the report, and accused Utusan of spreading dangerous lies with a political motive.
They also said the continued attacks by Umno-owned Utusan on the Christian community have rendered Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s effort to unite a racially divided Malaysia under his 1Malaysia hollow.
This is made worse when right-wing groups like Perkasa and Pembela, known Umno sympathisers, are calling for investigation on the matter and used the report to back their allegations that the position of Islam and the Malays are under non-Muslim threat.
Najib and other Umno leaders have called for calm while some said the Utusan report is unsubstantiated.
The disconnect between Najib’s plural agenda and Utusan’s hawkish attacks suggests a split between Umno’s top echelons and its grassroots which has openly call for maintaining Malay hegemony.