Posted on by Kit

Doctored 709 photo — who’s responsible?

All top journalists as well as management personnel in New Sunday Times and Berita Minggu responsible for the photographic falsification of a PAS Unit Amal volunteer as a violent 709 protestor armed with knife when he was holding a Malaysian flag and not throwing rocks at police should step out and own up.

It is a violation of all the basic tenets of journalism of truth, fair play and responsibility for New Straits Times through the New Sunday Times and Berita Minggua to commit such a blatant and flagrant breach of journalistic ethics – a base and lowly act of irresponsibility not only to the profession of journalism but also a great disservice to the plural Malaysian nation-building.

The Malay daily Berita Minggu had on July 10 front-paged the picture of a heavily-built man in a white T-shirt with a black cloth wrapped around his face.

The man, shrouded in smoke, was depicted hurling an object with his left hand while in his right was what appeared to be a knife handle.

The caption read: “Seorang perusuh membawa pisau dalam perhimpunan haram” (A rioter brings a knife to illegal rally) and another subheadline read: “Perusuh guna senjata, batu, lawan polis” (Rioters use weapons, rocks to fight police).

The same image was also featured on New Sunday Times’ front page with the title: “Peaceful?”.

The person concerned, Abdul Razak Endut, has surfaced to rebut and expose what must be one of the most irresponsible and despicable case of journalistic chicanery in the history of Malaysian journalism.

A PAS Unit Amal volunteer, Abdul Razak denied he had a knife and that he was in fact holding a Malaysian flag and he was not throwing rocks at police.

Abdul Razak said: “When the FRU fired tear gas, I saw the wind blowing towards the demonstrators… I picked up the canister and tossed it to a grass field with the hope that the demonstrators would be safe.”

Abdul Razak explained that earlier, he had joined others in forming a human shield to prevent police advances on demonstrators.

“However, that did not happen. Instead, the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) brought in water cannons and fired on us. What should I do to stop the FRU truck? I asked for a (Malaysian) flag from a fellow demonstrator, he gave it to me and I held it against the FRU’s water cannon barrage.

“I had hoped… these people behind are Malaysians, your people, why are you doing this?” he said in an emotional voice in a PAS ceramah over the weekend.

What has the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein got to say for this blatant and flagrant violation of journalistic ethics to serve the political agenda of UMNO and Barisan Nasional?

Last Tuesday, the Home Ministry hauled up top editors of three Chinese newspapers as the Barisan Nasional Government was irked by their coverage of the 709 rally as allegedly favourable to the Bersih 2.0 organisers.

The Chinese newspapers covered the 709 factually, truthfully and responsibly unlike New Sunday Times, Berita Minggu and Mingguan Malaysia which either doctored photographs or reports or carried tendentious and biased one-sided account of the 709 rally.

It was been reported that the Home Ministry is following up with “show cause” letters to the three Chinese newspapers.

Has the Home Ministry “hauled up” New Sunday Times and Berita Minggu for their “doctored” false photograph on the front page of “a violent protestor” at the 709 rally? Has the Home Ministry hauled up Utusan Malaysia for its daily staple of lies and falsehoods to poison and undermine inter-racial and inter-religious harmony in Malaysia? Will show-cause letters follow suit?

Are all printed news media required to publish doctored photographs and print biased reports turning them as “lies-paper” rather than newspapers under Najib’s 1Malaysia’s Transformation Programme?

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14 Replies to “Doctored 709 photo — who’s responsible?”

  2. Muhyiddin said that the police should get ready the video on 709 procession to counter ‘misrepresentations circulating in internet’. What have been circulating are based on what were captured in the cameras and they were shown without editing. They show what actually happened, and since they contradict what the government claimed, the government has now to substantiate it with a set of video which needed time and inputs to get ready. In time the fact that the video presented by the government did not represent the instant recordings would be forgotten. The government is aware that the people know that the government cheats. But it is the arrogance of the government which announces how it cheats.

  3. ///Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said today that Malaysia is committed to safeguarding and ensuring the continued independence of the judiciary.He said an independent judiciary was a central component…///—Malaysiakini

    The PM certainly thinks that the judiciary in Malaysia is independent now and so that independence needs to be safeguarded. If that is the independent judiciary Najib talks about, then there is no need to protect its ‘independence’ because it can’t rot any further.

  4. Muhyiddin is getting the police to show proof & publish in the national papers to let the public to be judge. Now showing doctored photographs to falsely accuse Bersih supporters is a sure backfire. Shame on you Muhyiddin!
    Lets see if Hisham will issue show cause letters to NST & BM.

  6. What can we exoectr from a desperate and bankrupt Gomen? They failed miserably to handle a peaceful street walk and now they want to jusitify their hard-headed action. Their mind has not changed in spite of this ever changing world. They are like the dinosaurus of the buried upon layers of changes that they cannot understand the younger voters. Just look at those young men and women who took part, they have out-flanked you! You would be lucky if anyone of them change their mind to support BN!
    They wanted a fair election commssion, if it is clean why all this prevention? Had you allowed them to do the Saturday walk from 8 to 12, the whole darn thing won’t be this bad. You have claerly failed as a Manager!!!!

  7. Can we have yellow tees with Ambiga,Chin Peng,Hitler and whatnot’s pictures emblazoned on them?Would this turn into another series of laughing stocks for our ‘terror’ ‘terror’ government super leaders?

  10. From fremalaysiatodai—-

    After being beaten, bruised and handcuffed, Liew Seng Tat thought that he would be taken to the police station. But what followed shocked the 31-year-old filmmaker. According to him, a policeman allegedly thrust a dirty towel soaked in chemical-laced water into his face. “I heard him say ‘ambik ni’ (take that). I could not see anything. It was horrible. My face was burning from the chemical. I could not open my eyes as it stung,” he said, adding that he did not know why the policeman did that since he was already handcuffed.

    Liew was recounting his ordeal at the Bersih 2.0 rally last Saturday during a meeting with Suhakam at the human rights commission’s office here today. He was also among those who had sought refuge at the Tung Shin Hospital. The police had been accused of firing tear gas and their water cannons into the compound. “I personally witnessed multiple rounds fired into the hospital compound; a group of policemen then rushed in and ambushed us. We tried to run up the slope but we were cornered. I really have no idea why they did this. I thought hospitals were supposed to be a safe place. “There was a group of 10 young girls probably still in college. We men locked arms to protect them. I don’t understand, the police are supposed to be our protectors but now we were protecting ourselves from them,” he said. Liew said when the police charged, everybody ran and he was caught and pinned to the ground. “I was handcuffed and then some policemen started jumping on me and kicked me with their boots. I was slapped around even though I was cooperating. I wasn’t armed, I don’t look threatening. Why beat me?” he asked. As he was being led away, Liew claimed that other policemen had hit him with their batons and punched him when he walked past. ‘They whacked the hell out of me’

    Another protester, K Arun, said that he witnessed several policemen making “violent arrests” and he himself was beaten when he tried to intervene in one case. “The rally finished at about 4pm but the cops were still arresting. I was trying to stop them from hitting one man, asking them not to beat him, but they came after me instead.I was cuffed and then they started whacking the hell out of me. “They even threatened to kill me. ‘Bunuh dia lah’ (kill him), one of them said. Some of them had mercy, some didn’t at all. What I can say is that they were just not instructed to be kind to us,” he added.

    Another victim, Brian Yap, said he was hit multiple times by two or three policemen when he was trapped inside Tung Shin Hospital. “I shouted ‘cukuplah (enough), you already have me’ but they kept hitting and pulled my shirt over my head so I could not see anything,” he said.

  11. What? Only a knife? What about those dozens of parangs and molotovs you umno bustards found?

    And yes back to that picture.

    Anyone here has one of those image editor / software like photoshop? In fact any photo / image viewer with zooming in function would do just as well. Save that picture above and view it using your software. Zoom it up several times.

    Ladies and gentlemen, lelaki tu ada dua tangan kiri!

    Look at the outstretched right arm. The thumb on that hand is clearly out of place. In fact it fits that of the left hand. This is quite definitely, in my view, a photofit. Furthermore, the original colour pixels approximation immediately above that arm (around the elbow region) appears to have been interfered with. It could not be due to the fuzzy impression caused by smoke from the tear gas. Smoke would only throw up a general screen like blurriness. And the degree of blurriness of course is dictated by the smoke thickness. But, to my mind, smoke would not cause colour confusion like what can be seen immediately above the elbow area. So I suspect that both the hand and a good part of the lower arm in the image have been photofited.

    Next, the handle of the supposedly knife which the hand was holding appears to have been highlighted (it appears to have brighter colour pixels in relation to the whole picture). This could be a visual impression caused by the accentuation to the outline of the supposedly knife handle. It can be seen clearly in the enlarged image that the accentuation was applied in the form of a thick dark border. The objective of this exercise, I believe, was to create a more realistic visual impression of a knife handle.

    Hey umno, apa dei?

  14. You see this same picture is a solid argument in the people’s favour why bersih is badly needed.

    Umno used it as proof of violence by marchers on 9th July. In order to win over the people’s opinion umno decided to doctor the picture. Even if umno did not do so, I believe that umno has knowledge that the picture has been falsified and decided to ride on that false representation, anyway.

    This is cheating, umno – putting it mildly. This is no different from cheating during election, umno. This is why we want bersih, umno. Get it?

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