Investigations Nail Mahathir’s Lie

Aliran is happy that a  police probe has revealed that the picture that accompanied the story in the International Herald Tribune on the riot at the Semenyih immigration detention centre on 26 March was not supplied by any NGO in the country.

This disclosure effectively debunks Mahathir’s earlier claim that it was the work of the NGOs who were out to tarnish the country’s image.

It has now been revealed that the photograph was taken by a police photographer who handed the picture to a former journalist before it was distributed to the foreign media. This again debunks another claim by Mahathir that it was an old photograph that was published to falsely depict the Semenyih rioting.

It is a pity and a shame that NGOs are so easily targeted as being responsible when things go wrong without due respect for truth and justice.  It is a pity that responsible people can make irresponsible statements and false claims without any consequences. And it is a shame that our media, which are set up to report the truth, do not have the courage to contradict officialdom even when truth is blatantly distorted.

When Mahathir accused the NGOs of being responsible for passing the photograph to the foreign media, no media cared to ask him how it was possible when the Semenyih detention centre was a restricted area, out of bounds to all and sundry. That would have been responsible journalism but instead they gleefully reported the false claims of the Prime Minister.

Now that the truth has been established, wouldn’t an apology from the Prime Minister be in order for tarnishing the image of the NGOs by casting aspersions without any basis?

It will be the hallmark of a civil society to express regret and remorse for an error committed - inadvertently or otherwise. If we don’t, then all the morality that we preach and the values of a civil society that we attempt to promote will appear hollow and hypocritical if we fail to live by this value system.

Hopefully, the media that reported the Prime Minister’s false claims so faithfully will find it within their journalistic ethics and etiquette to publish this statement and apologise as well.
 

P Ramakrishnan
President
16 July 1998