As the former DAP MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng has lodged a police report this morning in Kuala Lumpur against the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for sedition and criminal defamation, I will give the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail the opportunity to arrest and charge Mahathir for sedition and criminal defamation before I instruct my lawyers to institute legal proceedings against Mahathir for defamation in connection with his blog, “Gelang Patah” last Thursday, 11th April 2013.
I had given Mahathir two opportunities to withdraw and apologise for his chauvinistic and seditious blog which made irresponsible and baseless attacks on my reputation and character or face legal action for defamation for his lies and falsehoods, but the former Prime Minister had been totally unmoved and unrepentant.
Mahathir had disgraced and dishonoured the office of the former Prime Minister, which is provided by Parliament every year with a princely allocation from the annual Federal Government budget for its upkeep, by spewing downright lies and falsehoods to make the 13th General Elections the dirtiest in the the nation’s history which is most unworthy and unfitting for a former Prime Minister whose living and maintenance expenses is billed to the public purse.
Two days ago, the latest “black operation” in the 13GE surfaced with the appearance of a sex video purportedly involving the PAS Secretry-General Mustapha Ali, which has been categorically denied by Mustafa who said that UMNO was desperate enough to lie in order to drop him from the country’s arena.
It is on public record that the previous occasion when the country’s general elections plummetted to its lowest depths for being the dirtiest election campaign in the nation’s history was under Mahathir’s premiership in 1990, when Barisan Nasional faced its first serious challenge from two political coalitions, Gagasan Rakyat and Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah (APU) led by Semangat 46, DAP and PAS.
Two dirty tricks were played by UMNO/BN in the 1990 general election campaign from its armoury of the politics of fear and blackmail to incite racial sentiments with highly inflammatory propaganda based on lies and falsehoods, viz:
Firstly, the depiction of Semangat 46 President, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah on radio, television and the printed media as having sold out Malay honour and race and betrayed Islam by showing him with a Kadazan headgear alleging that it bore the symbol of the cross – as final and ultimate proof that Tengku Razaleigh had sold out Islam to Christianity in Sabah.
In fact, the so-called cross on the Kadazan headgear is tapioca shoot (pucuk ubi) and most headgears of this sort are made by the Bajau community which is largely Muslim. A few days before Tengku Razaleigh’s visit to Sabah in the 1990 GE, Dr. Mahathir had worn the same Kadazan headgear with the so-called cross when visiting Sabah.
Secondly, full-page advertisements in the mainstream media to create fear and panic among voters, with the full-page advertisement in Utusan Malaysia under the heading “Sokong Membawa Rebah” while the Nanyang Siang Pao advert carried the heading “Recollection of History” – with both carrying the same picture depicting bloodshed, violence, arson and carnage.
The visual impact of the picture was manyfold greater than the wordings under the picture, which immediately conveyed the message that if the Barisan Nasional and UMNO lost in the 1990 general elections, there would be another May 13 of bloodshed, violence, arson and carnage.
I remember asking Mahathir during the first Parliamentary debate after the 1990 GE whether he had given the “green light” for these two despicable and deplorable UMNO/BN “dirty tricks” in the 1990 GE.
Now, I am more than convinced that Mahathir was behind these two “dirty tricks” when he could now concoct such lies and falsehoods in his blog on “Gelang Patah” which among other things, accused me of wanting to contest in Gelang Patah because
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I want the Chinese in Gelang Patah and Johor to “reject working together and sharing with the Malays”;
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urge the Chinese in Johor “to dislike and hate the Malays” to create “conflict and antagonism between the races”;
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create “an unhealthy racial confrontation” between the Malays and Chinese in Johor, which will be “disruptive and will not be conducive to the development of Malaysia”.
I reiterate that all these three allegations by Mahathir are downright lies and falsehoods, which I had never uttered in Gelang Patah and Johore since the announcement on March 18 that I would be contesting in Gelang Patah, and that I had never uttered such scurrilous lies and falsehoods in my 47 years in politics, as they run counter to the grain of my political beliefs fostering greater inter-racial co-operation to build a united Malaysian nation.
Sections 499 and 500 of the Penal Code on criminal defamation states:
Defamation
499. Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read or by signs, or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person, intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter excepted, to defame that person.Punishment for defamation
500. Whoever defames another shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine or with both.
I await action by the Police and the Attorney-General.