Who’s the real cyber-bully victim now?

I wish to draw your attention to an FMT report dated April 2, 2020 which has sparked continuous abuse in the social media against me.

I feel that I have been unfairly targeted and accused of being a cyber-bully as a result of the FMT report based on my Facebook posting on the distribution of government aid to people.

To give you the background, on March 31, a few people forwarded pictures of persons getting aid from Zuraida Kamaruddin’s ministry to me, over WhatsApp.

The recipients’ faces were covered, and they were posing in front of the rather nice-looking houses.

A few days earlier, the government had announced that NGOs would no longer be allowed to distribute aid directly to the poor as they had done in the past but would have to send it to the nearest Welfare Dept instead.

This of course upset most NGOs which have been diligently buying groceries using donated funds, cooking the food and sending it directly to the poor and the marginalised, especially families depending on daily-rated single income earners.

I am a member of one of the groups, but I did not become a volunteer because I have been holed up in Melaka after a bout of asthma, since the start of the MCO on March 18.

When I saw those pictures, I asked the obvious question that was in the minds of all those  who saw them: Why is aid meant for the poor being distributed to the affluent? I was wondering if the aid for the needy was being randomly distributed instead.

Like many others, I was concerned that this aid could be misused.

I also sent the pictures to a newspaper in the hope that the matter is investigated or, at least, an explanation is given by the ministry.

At that time, I was unaware that one of the recipients was a single mother who had recently lost her husband to cancer and that she was staying in a rented house and the two cars belonged to her husband and were in the process of being auctioned.

For the record, I never mentioned her name in my post as I did not know who she was because her face was painted over, just as I did not name the other person, a man in a sarong.

Two days later, FMT ran a story about the single mother being cyber-bullied, attributing the attacks to my post and the reactions it garnered.

Before I go on, can we determine what is cyber-bullying?

The Oxford dictionary defines it as “the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.”

Was this the case here? The impression given by the FMT report was that I had singled her out and cyber-bullied her.

On its part, the ministry made no attempt to clarify the situation, neither did anyone from FMT, before unfairly accusing me of cyber-bullying the woman.

As soon as I found about the FMT story, I responded with an apology to the widow. I also asked why the need to garner publicity with the minister’s name plastered on the aid package if it was a “sumbangan ikhlas”.

In another post, I also asked the ministry to explain the story behind the aid to the man, lest I was again accused of cyber-bullying.

Since yesterday I have been flooded with hate messages, racist abuse, insults about my skin colour and such.

The FMT story resulted in this. In all fairness, why didn’t FMT make any attempt to contact me, even after I posted the apology? Or simply lift the apology and my comments from my Facebook?

As a responsible news organisation, shouldn’t FMT include my comments before posting the story, or at least, my response to it?

I see no need to preach the core values of journalism to FMT which, as I understand, is helmed by many senior and experienced journalists.

But I do hope that in the pursuit of fair, balanced and unbiased reporting, FMT will at least now, carry my side of the story which contained an apology and my explanation.

In conclusion, I believe that the above definition of “cyber-bullying” actually applies to what I have been subjected to over the past two days.

Regretably, the FMT report was the reason behind the vicious personal attacks I have been forced to endure.

Denying me my right to explain my viewpoints in a story that FMT saw fit to highlight my name, poses serious ethical questions about your organisation. - FMT