Mahathir a ‘key proponent of inflammatory’ statements, CIJ says

 

Last month, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad claimed that promoting a multi-ethnic country went against the Federal Constitution.

PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a major contributor of ‘inflammatory’ statements, a preliminary analysis of social media posts ahead of the Aug 12 state elections by the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) has found.

CIJ executive director Wathshlah Naidu said in a statement that in this period of monitoring, Mahathir had emerged as one of the “key proponents of inflammatory statements related to race”.

She added: “Mahathir’s ongoing narrative on challenging the status quo of non-Malays in Malaysia and claiming that Malaysia is not a multi-racial country, but rather a Malay country, produced user generated comments which were both critical of Mahathir as well as those concurring with his position.”

Last month, Mahathir claimed that promoting a multi-ethnic country went against the Federal Constitution. He also asked if the current government was disregarding the rule of law as Malaysia was not described as a multi-ethnic nation in the Federal Constitution.

“These microaggressions have the intent to create an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ narrative built on stereotypes and misinformation by those in power and have the potential to marginalise and oppress ‘the other’ based on inherent racial and power hierarchy,” Wathshlah said.

“Non-Malays had also taken to social media to express how these continuing non-Malay dichotomy and divisive narratives are challenging their sense of belonging and contributing to a polarised nation.”

The statement was released as part of the “Say No to Hate Speech” monitoring project that CIJ is conducting in collaboration with the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Its preliminary analysis of issues discussed on social media from June 24-30 processed 18,721 social media posts and categorised the severity of the hate speech into four levels.

A total of 15,927 of the posts (85.08%) were categorised as level 1 (disagreement or non-offensive language or content) and 2,765 posts (14.7%) were level 2 (offensive or discriminatory language or content).

Meanwhile, 25 posts (0.13%) were level 3 (dehumanising or hostile language or content) while four posts (0.02%) were level 4 (language or content that includes incitement or a call to violence).

CIJ stated that the overall narratives of the social media posts were centred on race and religion as well as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people.

Aside from Mahathir’s controversial statements, CIJ said it had also noticed an uptick in hostility against migrant and refugee communities on social media, as seen in videos containing public information and the last known locations of individuals allegedly on the Malaysian immigration department’s “Wanted List”.

CIJ added that users’ comments reached levels 3 and 4 when they were about refugees and those immigrating, with doxing and calls for violence a recurring trend.

“Conflating information about these marginalised groups of people may even incite violence against them. It’s important for us to understand that crossing borders for gainful employment and seeking asylum are not a crime,” Beyond Borders founder and activist Mahi Ramakrishnan was quoted as saying in the statement. - FMT