It is reported today that NGOs led by Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung (GPMS) have come out in support of former Court of Appeal Judge Mohd Noor Abdullah and claimed that Malaysiakini’s coverage of his remarks was “malicious and intended to threaten racial harmony in Malaysia”.
A GPMS statement alleged that the Malaysiakini report was “one-sided and resulted in the readers feeling uneasy, to the extent that PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim had described (the) statement as racist”.
It said: “It is unfortunate that those who commented in the news portal were not there to hear for themselves and to evaluate the speech as a whole. We question Malaysiakini’s motive in selectively highlighting the speech as well as interpreting it and portraying him as a racist.”
I have seen the video of Mohd Noor’s speech which unquestionably the most divisive, destructive, racist and seditious speech ever made in Malaysia in 44 years. I feel totally uneasy that anyone, let alone a person of Mohd Noor’s stature as former Court of Appeal judge, could spew such racist and chauvinist poison with immunity and impunity, completely reckless of the grave harm they could do to destroy the fabric of Malaysia’s plural society.
I can vouch that Malaysiakini’s report of Mohd Noor’s speech was neither malicious nor unprofessional, but was in fact a fair and reasonable account of Mohd Noor’s speech. It was Mohd Noor’s speech which was an abomination of the concept of 1Malaysia, as it was most vile and inflammatory calculated to incite racial distrust, misunderstanding and conflict, totally unworthy of a person who had held the high office of a Court of Appeal judge.
It is a real shame and most tragic that in the past 10 days since the 13GE results, there had been a spike of the most racist and seditious speeches by former holders of high public office like Mohd Noor and the former Director-General of Education and now Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) pro-chancellor Abdul Rahman Arshad who made the seditious call for the abolition of Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools.
Mohd Noor is not bothered about the failure of the Malaysian judiciary to restore its former international repute and standing for its independence, impartiality, integrity and quality after the first assault on the judiciary by former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir in 1988 followed by a series of judicial assaults nor is Abdul Rahman concerned about the drastic drop in Malaysian educational standards, whether primary, secondary or university as compared to other countries in the past four decades but were only concerned to become new racist champions inimical to Najib’s 1Malaysia signature policy.
But the pertinent question is why the Police and the Attorney-General have not yet arrested, charged and prosecuted Mohd Noor and Abdul Rahman for the grave offence of sedition to undermine and wreck the inter-racial harmony in Malaysia!