Lim (centre) with Dyana Sofya (left) and her mother Yammy Samat during a press conference last week in Teluk Intan. - The Malaysian Insider pic by Afif Abf Halim, June 3, 2014.The Education Ministry has been criticised for ordering a teacher to remove her Facebook page after she posted campaign posters of DAP's Teluk Intan by-election candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, claiming it was anti-government.
The party's adviser Lim Kit Siang said it was ironic that Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor had urged teachers to return to politics but the teacher was reprimanded for supporting Dyana Sofya.
"It is indeed the height of irony that on one hand, Tengku Adnan is urging teachers to return to politics under Barisan Nasional’s fold, conceding that the headmasters, principals and teachers were the 'real movers' of Umno, MCA, MIC and BN in the past, but on the other hand, high-ranking officials from Education Ministry were reprimanding a teacher for posting campaign posters of Dyana Sofya on Facebook," Lim said in a statement today.
"Is this what (Prime Minister Datuk Seri) Najib Razak meant when he boasted that he wanted to make Malaysia the 'best democracy in the world' – where teachers have only the right to take part in politics if they become the 'prime movers” of Barisan Nasional but not Pakatan Rakyat – becoming practitioners of hypocrisy and double standards?"
In was reported today that high-ranking officials in the Education Ministry had called a teacher since last week, "advising" her to remove Facebook postings on Dyana Sofya which they deemed as “anti-government”.
The teacher told the Malaysiakini news portal that a special officer to the Education Ministry director-general had told her to close down her Facebook page and that she will be “watched”.
“It is really silly. There are teachers involved in sex scandals, teachers who don't go to class, schools without facilities and they want to spend time monitoring Facebook," she was quoted as saying by the news portal.
Lim questioned if Najib will put an end to what he described as "Dyanaphobia" which is "beginning to sweep the education ministry" or whether he would succumb to the Dyana-bashing.
"Is Dyanaphobia the inevitable result of what has been described as “Dyanamania” which swept Teluk Intan and the country during the Teluk Intan by-election," he asked.
"During the Teluk Intan by-election, Umno pulled out all the stops to launch the dirtiest by-election campaign of lies, falsehoods and calumny against the candidate and the DAP not only in the history of Teluk Intan but probably in the country."
Umno, the Gelang Patah MP claimed, had feared that Dyana Sofya would be elected as Teluk Intan parliamentarian, as she represented what Barisan Nasional (BN) was not – youthful and self-less.
"It is an idealism for an united Malaysian nation transcending the politics of race and in pursuit of justice, freedom, accountability, incorrupt leadership and good governance."
Dyana Sofya is not the only one person Umno BN should fear, he warned, but the "tens and hundreds of thousands of Dyana Sofyas in Malaysia" whom he said have been inspired to take a stand for a moderate Malaysia.
"If the Umno/BN government succumbed to Dyanaphobia, there is no clearer signal of the impending end of Umno/BN rule in Malaysia," he added.
In last weekend's Teluk Intan by-election, Dyana Sofya lost to Gerakan's Mah Siew Keong by a slim majority of 238. Prior to the election, the 27-year-old was subject to severe sexist and racist slurs by BN ministers and politicians.
Photos of a bikini-clad Filipino actress, which her detractors claimed was Dyana Sofya, spread on the Internet and were distributed in Malay villages in what has been seen as an effort to deter the votes of conservative Muslims.
- TMI
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