Blog war: Haris vs Rocky #3

Posted by hartalmsm on July 23, 2010 · 2 Comments 

By Hartal MSM

Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) is helming ‘Project 1805’ to raise concern about custodial deaths.

SABM initiator and leading light, lawyer Haris Ibrahim has been careful and consistent in his phrasing “1,805 lives perished in our remand cells, prisons and detention centres between 2003 and 16th July, last year.”

Haris is imputing that technically, the deaths were not confined to only those occurring in prisons.

The numbers are on Haris’ side. We’re not saying it because this blog is a spin-off from a People’s Parliament initiative, but because the data released by government sources themselves back his contention.

From the media angle, below are some of the developments that worry us:

(1) Last Thursday, a police report was lodged in Putrajaya against Haris supposedly with regard to his statements on custodial deaths.

Earlier, PKR supreme council member Chegubard had a police report made against him for an offence generally classed under the ambit of lese majeste. He was called in for questioning, had to post bail and his laptop confiscated. And in a related incident, the PKR headquarters was ‘raided’.

The PDRM therefore appears to be a tool to intimidate and harass individuals and organizations that are not aligned to or pro-BN.

(2) The action taken against Suara Keadilan, Harakah and Rocket by the Home Ministry. Again, the heavy-handed enforcement is so blatantly one-sided. Meanwhile Suara Perkasa is allowed to publish with impunity. It all goes to show how the apparatus of state is being wielded to bludgeon differing or dissenting voices.

(3) Rocky and his blogger network of Zakhir Mohamad and Shamsul Yunos are framing a picture that Haris is “doing a number with numbers”. Our considered opinion is that, on the contrary, Haris is standing on firm ground here.

Furthermore, while death in police custody has elicited some measure of public outrage, too little attention has been paid to the deaths in the immigration depots. Subtract the supposed official figure of 147 deaths in police lock-up during the material time, and the remaining numbers (subsumed in the 1,805 cited) relating to illegals and asylum seekers – any which where you look for it – are indeed alarming.

(4) Our major area of concern is, needless to say, the misuse of mainstream media.

One reader ‘kassim baba’ commented in People’s Parliament: “abg harris, target audience rocky adalah pembaca yg malas atau tidak akses internet atau yg tidak celik politik, rocky tidak akan peduli dengan jawapan abg kerana tidak menemui sasaran yg dia hendak hebahkan.”

Tons of money is being poured to keep afloat The Malay Mail – of which Rocky is editor. It’s a free paper and distributed in the Klang Valley like that other free crony tabloid, theSun. We have also noticed that since Rocky’s return, Malay Mail has been running down Pakatan, Pakatan state Selangor and its Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim.

Malay Mail serves its owners well in their political objectives and we are afraid that the target audience will somehow succumb to the insidious influence of Rocky’s paper to one extent or other.

(5) From what we can gather from the postings by Rocky and his affiliated bloggers, the trio is trying to pin the charges of sedition and instigation (disturbing public order) on Haris. Evidently, this is only to mask the multi-pronged assault to diminish any faint hope of a substantive, functioning democracy for our country – best encapsulated in the Harakah interview with Khalid Samad ‘Umno ajar perpecahan, benci antara kaum’.

(6) Add to the potent witches brew – the ‘polyustaz’ (read: politicized ulama, poly = many) – such as malicious mischief-maker Mufti Harussani Zakaria of Perak, ustaz Ridhuan Tee through his vicious ‘ultra kiasu’ Chinese-baiting, and the ulama intake into Umno.

The pot is boiling and may soon boil over if the lid is not lifted and the steam given release.

No buy, no lies! The MSM is complicit is sustaining the above scenario. We feel it imperative to reiterate our longstanding call: “Boycott the bloody newspapers!”

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Filed under Icker-tee, Media Matters, Online News, Poodle, You don't say · Tagged with Big Dog, custodial death, haris ibrahim, Hartal MSM, Harussani Zakaria, Icker-Tee, immigration, Perak Mufti, police, PRDM, Project 1805, Ridhuan Tee, Rockybru, SABM, Shamsul Yunos, Zakhir Mohamad