Malaysiakini | May 12, 11
Utusan Malaysia, which came under heavy fire over its unsubstantiated report alleging a ‘Christian state’ conspiracy, today carried a notice that Bigdog, the blogger who created the controversy, had published an “explanation” on his blog.
Contrary to the earlier approach of highlighting Bigdog’s allegation at its front page, Utusan only published a two-paragraph notice on an inside page, without reporting the contents of the so-called “explanation”.
“Bigdog, who sparked controversy when he revealed the pledge by pastors during their meeting in Penang recently to make Christianity as the official religion of the federation, has come forward to make an explanation about this issue,” read the notice titled “Bigdog’s explanation”. The Umno-owned Malay daily then provided the address of Bigdog’s blog and the title of the “explanation” – May God bless all of us.
However, a check on the blog found that Bigdog, whose real name is Zakhir Mohamed (right), did not provide any further explanation on his allegation.
Besides stressing that Muslims should respect Christianity and its adherents, he reiterated the allegation that “what was maintained as an issue was the pastors’ pledge to bring a ‘Christian’ prime minister to Malaysia and perhaps turn Christianity into an official religion”.
But compared with his earlier allegation which had sparked a public uproar, Zakhir seemed to have toned down this allegation by adding the word “perhaps” in the posting.