Malaysiakini asked to remove ‘cow’s head’ videos

(The Star) – Independent news portal Malaysiakini has been directed to remove footage and videos of the controversial “Cow’s Head Protest” from its website.

In a letter, the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission requested Malaysiakini remove what it described as provocative and offensive videos following “numerous complaints from the public.”

“These videos contain offensive content with the intent to annoy any person, especially Indians,” monitoring and enforcement division senior acting director Abdul Halim Ahmad said in the letter dated Sept 3.

He added that this was an offence under Section 211 or 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

The affected videos are:

Hisham: Don’t blame cow head protesters
Temple demo: Residents march with cow’s head

On Aug 28, a group of demonstrators protested against the relocation of a Hindu temple from Section 19 to Section 23 in Shah Alam. Some of the protestors dragged the decapitated head of a cow, an animal considered sacred under Hinduism, and proceeded to stamp and spit on it.

One of the protest leaders also vowed there would be bloodshed if the Selangor state government went ahead with its temple relocation plan.

Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan, in a statement on the website, said both videos are news events which are of public interest.

“Our intent in putting up the videos was not to ‘annoy’ anyone, but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia,” he said.

Gan added that Malaysiakini had no plans to take down the videos and was seeking legal advice.