Rais Yatim lodges report over allegations against son
(The Malay Mail) Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim has lodged a police report today against the bloggers behind two blog sites which had alleged that his son was one of the beneficiaries of the ministry’s RM1 billion grant to improve broadband access within the nation.
Rais’ Press secretary, Norazli Noh, confirmed this with The Malay Mail this afternoon.
“The minister has already lodged his police report against the bloggers this morning.”
Norazli declined to elaborate and told The Paper That Cares to contact Rais for comments. Our efforts to do so have been futile thus far.
Meanwhile, sources told The Malay Mail that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has reacted swiftly on the issue and has hauled up bloggers to assist in the investigation.
On Sept 27, two blogs namely Taikors and Taikuns (TnT) and bigdogdotcom had alleged that Rais’ son’s telecommunication company was one of nine companies which had benefitted from the government grant to develop the broadband connectivity access in Malaysia.
The grant, made via the MCMC, is intended to achieve a 50 per cent broadband household penetration rate. The 2.6GHz spectrum would be made for allocation in January 2013.
Yesterday, we reported that Rais had refuted the claims made by the bloggers.
Rais had told The Malay Mail that none of his family members were “even remotely associated with those slanted and ill-intended allegations, and will forthwith assert my rights under the law and report the matter to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) so that an investigation could be under way”.
He had also said he would lodge a police report in reference to the “false” news raised by the bloggers.
The issue of “false news” had made headlines recently, in particular the case of The Malay Mail’s entertainment and lifestyle executive editor Irwan Abdul Rahman, who was charged in court over his blog post ‘TNB To Sue WWF Over Earth Hour’, penned under his blogger name, Hassan Skodeng.
Irwan was charged by MCMC under Section 233 (1)(a) of Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 for improper use of network facilities or network service by making, creating, soliciting and initiating transmission of any content that is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with malicious intent.
The charge has been met with ridicule and disdain by the blogging community as well as the legal fraternity, who have labelled it “frivolous”.
