Pertubuhan Minda dan Sosial Prihatin (PMSP) president Ramesh Rao lodged a police report against Malaysiakini today over an article concerning the second statutory declaration (SD) that was allegedly made by programmer Azharuddin Othman.
"I've made a police report today against Malaysiakini because there are some contradictions (in their article).
"There are two different sentences. At first, they said the person who made the first SD had come forth, which made it seem like he was the one who approached Malaysiakini with the SD.
"After that, Malaysiakini spin back, and (edited it to say) 'today he allegedly came forth'.
"These are two different sentences which can cause the rakyat to be confused," Rao said to reporters after lodging the report at the Petaling Jaya district police headquarters.
He added that the news which was originally published, will usually be considered what's "right", and that in the comments, people would assume that the news portal had been pressured into changing the sentence.
His contention was specifically with the Malay version of the article and the word "allegedly" (didakwa) which was only added to the first paragraph of the story later, he said.
As such, Rao said he lodged the report so that the police as well as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will look into the matter.
In his police report, he also erroneously attributed the article to Malaysiakini photographer Lim Huey Teng.
In the original article mentioned, Malaysiakini had included a denial of the second SD from Badrul Hisham Shaharin, also known as Chegubard, who had helped organise the first SD for Azharuddin.
In a text message, he had described the new SD as "slander by Mahathir's team".
Denied making the second SD
In his first SD, Azharuddin had alleged fraud in the Citizens' Declaration petition, claiming that he sold a database of 900,000 names to Syarul Ema Rena Abu Samah for the purpose of the declaration.
On Thursday, a second SD bearing his Azharuddin's name was circulated on social media, including the Facebook pages Otai Bersih and Kelab Mukhriz Mahathir.
In the purported second SD, he supposedly claimed that the first SD revealed to the press on May 26 contained "mistakes".However, he has since held a press conference denying that he made the second SD.
Rao lamented that Malaysiakini's "culture" was that they would publish a story first, and then only correct themselves later.
"They will do the story first, and if there is a mistake later, they will quickly change it. But the damage has been done," he said.
He cited journalistic ethics, saying that an editor's note should have been included in the story, stating that they had added the word "allegedly". - Mkini
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