Al Jazeera to Astro: Explain the ‘breach’

KUALA LUMPUR: Satellite broadcasting station, Astro, which recently won the Putra Award for Best Brand, has just earned itself a slew of public insults over its high-handed “editing” of British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) and Al Jazeera stations’ news coverage of the Bersih 3.0 rally last Saturday.

While public comments running on the worldwide web have been spewing venom at Astro’s stand to “bow before Umno-BN policies”, Middle East-owned television station, Al Jazeera, is not going to take this “intrusion” into its “editorial process” lying down.

On the back of World Press Freedom Day celebrations today, Al Jazeera in a statement said: “Our news report was a factual account of events that day, and intrusion in our editorial process is unwarranted.

“We have not been censored in this way by another distribution platform anywhere in the world.”

Astro had allegedly snipped off parts of Al Jazeera’s news coverage of the Bersih rally by its onground reporter Harry Fawcett.

Al Jazeera said they will be “asking Astro for an explanation” as to why Fawcett’s report of the rally was allegedly censored.

“If Astro is indeed saying that it breached local content regulations, it would need to outline exactly what these alleged breaches were and how it arrived at its decision,” the statement said.

It also noted that the “censoring was not made clear to viewers when it happened” and that Al Jazeera was not notified of the incident by Astro.

Earlier, BBC had demanded that Astro explain itself after it was reported that the Malaysian station had edited out 30 seconds of BBC senior reporter Emily Buchanan’s two-minute news clip of the rally which turned violent after Bersih had called for the crowd to disperse.

Three frames sequences were taken off from the BBC clip in the doctored version. Among them were one sequence showing a policeman allegedly firing at demonstrators.

The other two sequences were interviews with demonstrators who gave first-hand accounts of why they took to the streets demanding for clean and fair elections.

In a terse demand note to Astro, BBC “strongly” condemned “any blocking of the trusted news that we broadcast around the world including via distribution partners”.

However, BBC’s affront which was articulated on Sarawak Report (SR) was trivialised by Astro and Malaysia’s Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim.

Rais, who incidentally described the Bersih rally as “kotor” (dirty), defended Astro’s right, saying it was the satellite television’s prerogative to air the “best parts” of the poll reforms rally.

Said Rais: “(Astro) has to be given credit for knowing which part of the news is newsworthy and therefore they should exercise that within their rights as a broadcasting firm.”

Astro, meanwhile, simply said they had to “comply with local content regulations”.

Said Astro’s senior vice-president for Broadcast Operations, Rohaizad Mohamad: “As a licensed broadcaster, Astro is required to comply with the national content regulations.

“When it comes to international content providers, Astro reserves the right to edit its international channels for the purposes of complying with the content regulations.”

Astro’s comment was in response to BBC’s demand letter which “condemned” Astro’s censorship of its news clip.

Astro’s response will no doubt put it on a warpath with BBC, which is already smarting with embarrassment over an earlier issue involving London-based FBC Media Ltd and several paid-for public relations spins on Malaysia and its leadership, which were passed off as genuine documentaries and aired over BBC’s World News.

BBC had publicly apologised in February for breaking “rules aimed at protecting our editorial integrity” following an expose by online investigative portal, Sarawak Report.

Two months before the extraordinary apology, the BBC admitted that there had been 15 breaches of editorial guidelines, eight of them in documentaries about Malaysia that were produced by FBC, a company that has done public relations work for foreign governments, including the regime of Hosni Mubarak during the Egyptian uprising.

BBC said FBC had failed to declare to them that the Malaysian government had paid the PR company RM85 million for “global strategic communications” campaign.

While Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz admitted in Parliament last November that the government had indeed engaged FBC to improve Malaysia’s image, Prime Minister Najib Tun Tun Razak however recently said otherwise.

In a written reply to opposition MP Mahfuz Omar, Najib told Parliament last month: “We (government) have never contracted a foreign news company to make ourselves look good.”

Chinese Man Caged for 20 Years

Is mental illness enough reason for someone to get locked up?

Wei Yun, a 23 year-old-man who has suffered from mental illness since he was young for many years, comes from a rural Chinese village.

When he was nearly three years old, he knocked over a pot of boiling water and almost died. As a result, his parents decided to lock him up in a wooden cage.

Apparently, there is no one to look after Wei as his father works away from home and his stepmother also works during the day.

People who live near him say that Wei can’t walk. Instead, he just crawls on the ground whenever he is let out of the cage–a result of being locked up in a very small cage.

Neighbors do not find fault with the stepmother for doing this to Wei: “It’s a hard choice for her as she, on one hand, has to take care of Wei Yun, but on the other, she has to do field work and other odd jobs to support the family.”

A mother’s reason for taking part in Bersih 3.0

FMT LETTER: From a Mother for a better tomorrow, via e-mail

Why would a mother attend the Bersih’s Duduk Bantah on 28.4? Simple, if Rosa Parks did not sit and Martin Luther King did not walk, Obama could never have run for Presidency. I knew that even one more person would make a difference and so I attended Bersih 3.0 and sat down for a better Malaysia. A better Malaysia for my children and yours so that the voice of our next generation would be heard, that their vote would count.

It all starts with us and we can make that difference, yes my friend, you, me and all other Malaysians hand in hand, we can do it! For beneath our differently coloured skin and despite our ethnicity, the diversity in our ways, in our religions, we all share one thing in common, the Spirit, Heart and Soul of Malaysia, it lives within each Malaysian.

I walked at Berish 1, because one man (RPK) said, don’t talk if you don’t walk!! I was afraid that if I did not walk, I could not do what I loved so much.. talk! It was an eye opener for me, from far away Kelantan, I met many silver haired makciks and pakciks, who came at their own expense as they heeded the call of their Tok Guru. And I, a KLite would have missed an important lesson of standing up and voicing out for what is right.  It was also a lesson on how the news media turned around an event and made it look unsavoury.

When Bersih 2.0 came around, I was overcome by the fear that was created, however better sense prevailed.  Not known to be one to succumb to cowardice, I made my way, though somewhat late into KL.  There I met some young college students who came all the way from Perlis, they admonished me, Auntie you are from KL and you are late! I queried this group of young college going Malay students, how much they were paid to attend the rally?

Angrily they said even the drinks in their hands was paid by their own money.  I continued to query them that they got a good education more easily than our kids and told me, they had no problems and would love to study with Malaysians of all races.  They said they dreamed of a clean Malaysia, free from corruption, a Malaysia where their vote would count and their voice heard, so they came to support the cause of a free and fair election.  A lesson well learned from my young friends.

Come Bersih 3.0, I started checking with friends, as I did not want to walk alone this time and wanted more people to feel the true Spirit of Malaysia.  So a few friends decided to meet up in KL.. Voila.. we must have made for some pretty odd company!! One staid Human Resource Professional, another very conformist office goer, yours truly, a mom of two, before long, were joined by two soon to be priests from East Malaysia.

My two other friends who I was originally to meet, one a lecturer and the other a fitness trainer, joined the rally at Brickfields, however we did not manage to meet up, as the mobile phone service seemed to be jammed.  Did we care that we were, Indian, Chinese, Eurasian or East Malaysian? Wow we are just a great fruit salad of Malaysian friendship!

With our cars parked in the vicinity of Taman Jaya LRT station, we took the LRT to Central Market, the train was bustling with excitement and people updating and getting news of the rally, it was a festive atmosphere.  On the LRT, I met two young college girls who said that their parents were bringing them to the rally. Bravo to such parents! I told these girls, that one day they could proudly tell their kids that they made a stand for a better electoral system and for a better Malaysia.  Though we were apprehensive if the doors of the train would open at Central Market, they did and all the Bersihers eagerly made a beeline for the exit.

At Central Market, we just could not believe what we were seeing, thousands upon thousands of Yellow and Green attired Bersihers.  It looked like a huge carnival of happy Malaysians. Despite the heat and the blazing sun, we joined the long and winding queue of cheerful and happy people.  These were Malaysians with a Mission, who were out there to be counted and make a difference for the country. As we all walked in an orderly fashion, the crowds surged from Menara MayBank on Tun Perak until Dataran Merdeka, even the side lanes had huge spillovers, Lebuh Ampang, Hang Leiku, Tun HS Lee, were just teaming with happy Malaysians.

North Koreans Punished for Not Mourning Enough

When mourning for a dead leader, make sure that you cry and look genuinely sad, especially when you are in North Korea.

North Korean authorities rounded up people who had not shown enough sadness during the death of and mourning period for Kim Jong-Il last December.

Citizens who were suspected of “not mourning enough” were sent to labor-training camps for at least six months. Others were sent to re-education camps.

Those truly unfortunate were sent to remote areas with their families for unspecified punishment.