Spin and spin, yet again

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jan 8, 2014

And now Malaysiakini seeks Norian Mai’s opinion regarding the right of Malaysians to hold peaceful demonstrations? So what next is Malaysiakini going to do? Seek Chua Soi Lek’s opinion regarding declining moral values in Malaysia and the importance of the sanctity of marriage?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Ex-IGP doubts Dec 31 putsch claims

Former inspector-general of police Norian Mai says Malaysians are rational and (he) does not feel there will be attempts to overthrow the government, as alleged by certain quarters. – Malaysiakini, 30 December 2013

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Yesterday, I wrote about claiming the moral high ground (READ HERE). Well, it looks like today I will have to continue writing about this same subject seeing that ex-IGP Norian Mai’s statement has been distorted and misrepresented by opposition news portal Malaysiakini.

Norian Mai did not say he doubts that tonight’s rally is meant to bring down the government. What he said was that (1) he is confident the police can handle the situation, (2) he is confident Malaysians are rational enough (hence there is no possibility of this happening: government falling), (3) there is always a danger that peaceful demonstrations can turn non-peaceful as Malaysia has experienced in the past and this may threaten national security, and (4) there are other ways of protesting that will not disrupt public order other than street demonstrations.

Hence ‘Ex-IGP doubts Dec 31 putsch claims’ is not the correct heading for the video below and neither is the caption: ‘Former inspector-general of police Norian Mai says Malaysians are rational and does not feel there will be attempts to overthrow the government, as alleged by certain quarters’.

And this means Norian Mai does not support tonight’s rally rather than the other way around, as what we are being led to believe.

Many Malaysians have a tendency to just read the headings of articles and news items (especially if they are in Bahasa Malaysia like the Malaysiakini video below). Hence they will form an opinion and start posting comments based just on these headings. And many Malaysians will not bother to read the entire article or news item and will begin to post comments after reading just part of it.

This means the heading of any report will influence the conclusion that most Malaysians make even if the article or news item has nothing to do with the heading. And that is why ‘Dog bites man’ will not interest anyone into reading the news item as opposed to ‘Man bites dog’.

The only reason I bothered watching the video was because Norian Mai was the IGP who detained me in 2001 on charges that I was involved in a plot to bring down the government and that we planned to bring in guns, bombs, grenade launchers and Molotov cocktails to start a bloody revolution in Malaysia.

The problem with detention without trial (as opposed to a trial in an open court) is that we have to prove our innocence (while in a trial the government has to prove our guilt). Hence we are guilty until proven innocent and not innocent until proven guilty.

I was actually detained ‘late’, so to speak (five others had been detained before me), because Norian Mai had to first request an audience with the palace so that he could inform His Highness the Sultan of Selangor that the government was going to detain me. They were worried about ‘palace intervention’ so they wanted the palace to know before they detained me to ensure that the palace would not get involved in the matter.

After I was released I was summoned to the palace for an audience with His Highness so that he could inform me about how displeased he was regarding my involvement in politics, especially regarding my support for Anwar Ibrahim whom the palace did not like or trust.

The bottom line is Norian Mai would be the last person on earth I would seek for an opinion regarding tonight’s rally. He was the IGP who accused me of trying to bring down the government through violent means and through the use of guns, bombs, grenade launchers and Molotov cocktails. Hence he is no friend of dissent.