Umno blamed for cameraman's death: Somalia the deadliest country for media

As Malaysians mourn the killing of a local journalist in Somalia, Noramfaizul Mohd Nor’s relatives want Umno’s Putera 1 Malaysia Club to be held responsible for his death.

The club — which is headed by Umno supreme council member Datuk Abdul Azeez Rahim — organised a humanitarian mission to the war-torn country that led to the Bernama TV cameraman’s death last Friday.

“They (Putera 1 Malaysia Club) are the ones who organised (the mission). They cannot lepas tangan (evade responsibility),” Noramfaizul’s uncle Abu Bakar Md Yasin told The Malaysian Insider at the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base here today.

“They should have done prior intelligence. Don’t just barge in. This is a foreign country,” added the 64-year-old retired civil servant from the Defence Ministry.

‘Western media no purveyors of truth’

Mahathir snubs Western journalists for being no better than those they criticise.

PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has knocked Western journalists off their “moral high ground”, saying they, too, are not above sidelining human rights to serve their own interests.

His latest blog post referred to the high-profile telephone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom, which involved British tabloid, News of The World.

The 168-year-old paper, owned by powerful media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was forced to shut down after its journalists were accused of being engaged in phone hacking and police bribery.

Mahathir said that Malaysians are so used to the moral high ground taken by the Western press that they cringe when the former criticises Malaysia over its poor human rights records and injustices perpetrated against others.

Rais-ing the ire of media experts

Experts say Rais Yatim is wrong in slamming the foreign and alternative media over their reports on the Bersih 2.0 rally.

PETALING JAYA: Media experts have rapped Putrajaya’s seemingly skewed understanding of journalism, in the wake of the Bersih 2.0 protest last week.

Media Defence South East Asia (MDSEA) executive director HR Dipendra said that Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim had wrongly slammed the foreign and alternative press for its coverage of the July 9 rally.

“It only exposes the minister’s lack of global understanding of how the media in general operates,” he told FMT.

Watch out foreign media: Uncle Najib is coming after you too!

People got hurt. Some bled. Some had fractures. One brave soul even died. Thousands suffocated and gasped and were blinded under torrents of chemical laced water cannons and stinging tear gas. This was the world attention grabbing Bersih 2.0 walk for Democracy in Malaysia.

Now the government of Malaysia has officially responded: No, no do not twist and turn the facts. The people got hurt because they were careless. The ones that bled were because they fell down, lah.

Fractures? The bandage could be a fake just like the case of that one man who once punched his own eyeball, remember? And the one and only death was he died of ‘heart attack’ – also cannot eh?

So stop accusing the government and its faithful police force.