Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing denounced as "an inexcusable outrage" the showing on public TV yesterday of a snippet from the sex video allegedly portraying an opposition leader in an encounter with a sex worker.

bishop paul tan chee ing A snippet from the video that has become a cause célèbre since the time of its viewing to a select audience last month was shown on TV3 and uploaded on YouTube yesterday.

In remarks made to Malaysiakini today on the phone from Kuching where he is chairing a conference on migrants and itinerants, Bishop Paul, who is head of the Melaka-Johor diocese and president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Malaysia, said:

"From the start, a permissive attitude has characterised the attitude of the authorities towards this sordid episode.

"Now that permissiveness has led to this outrage: the showing on public TV to audiences that comprise children and women of material that is vile and putrid.

"This is an inexcusable outrage for which the laxity of the authorities in not acting firmly to nip things in the bud is at grave fault.

"No person of conscience can fail to deplore this permissiveness, this inaction in the face of a puerile voyeurism that has now reached a nadir."

Police told to act swiftly

Bishop Paul Tan called on the authorities to act swiftly to bring the culprits who procured and featured the sex video to book before "evil begets more evil."

NONE He added: "This permissive attitude, this relativism in the face of evil actions is an obvious contributor to the moral turpitude we see before us.

"Guardians of law and morality cannot afford to equivocate in the face of insolent evil. They must act or society is at grave risk."

Echoing Tan’s outrage over the matter, Islamist party PAS’ youth wing said the recent developments suggest that the parties behind the video scandal had received license from the authorities.

This given their failure to prohibit or even warn against the distribution of the clip, said the wing’s information chief Suhaizan Kayat ( below ) in a statement.

Given the greater extent of flesh exposed in the second part of the sex video shown yesterday as compared to the first video uploaded earlier this month, Suhaizan said it would not be impossible that even more revealing clips would be uploaded if there was no action by the authorities to prevent it from happening or to investigate and punish those responsible.

anti ppsmi english languange science math gmp pc 120209 suhaizan kaiat He also called on parents-teachers associations, teachers, educationists, and NGOs to 'rise up' to save the youth from further being exposed to the manner in which sex scandals have been screened into the homes and on the frontpages of the media.

As the young nowadays are exposed to a borderless world by means of Internet and other  communication technology, it is not impossible that this episode will provoke even more to access lewd images and videos in addition to the other ‘fitnah’ available, Suhaizan said.

All of this goes against Islam and the culture and values of the East, he added.

“They need to unite to protest against this. Hopefully, such protests can save our youth from such immoral activities,” said Suhaizan, citing fears of the youth’ susceptibility to experimenting and indulging in risky behaviour.

If the issue is treated as trivial, it will have serious repercussions on the morality of Malaysian society, he said.

The 1.47-minute video shows a woman walking out of the bedroom into a bathroom and a man putting on his clothes in front of the hidden camera after the couple had sex.     

Another portion of the 22-minute video, which is believed to be the beginning part of the clip,  was uploaded on the Internet on April 4.

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