The Bar Council has slammed the government for allowing the flimsiest of police reports to be used as a basis to launch an investigation without first establishing the truth of the reports.

lawyers at brickfields police station 220509 lim chee wee In so doing, the authorities are making a mockery of the justice system, said Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee ( right ) in a statement yesterday.

"It appears that it is enough for the police to launch an investigation once a report has been made, without first investigating the veracity of such reports themselves.

"The whole process of making police reports has thus been turned into an avenue to invade the privacy of dinner parties and closed-door meetings, without first asking whether the maker of such reports has ulterior motives.

"People are then being made to respond to police investigations launched on the flimsiest of reasons and to defend their freedom of assembly and speech.

"This is a mockery of the principle of justice that someone who is accused of wrongdoing is innocent until proven guilty," said Lim, adding that this was a dangerous trend that must be stopped.

Lim was commenting on the 'Christian conspiracy' storm that Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia whipped up on Saturday that has seen numerous police reports from both sides of the divide being lodged.

The controversial paper had frontpaged allegations that DAP and Christian groups were plotting to replace the official religion of Malaysia with Christianity, based on unsubstantiated postings on pro-Umno blogs.

Authorities pandering to rabble rousers

The Bar president further blasted the authorities for the tendency to jump the gun to investigate the paper's claims, and showing favouritism to the parties who made the unverified reports that he said was aimed at "wantonly" instilling fear and religious conflict.

"All they have to do now is to make unproven and unsubstantiated allegations in any compliant national newspaper, and the law enforcement authorities will do the rest.

"In this way, the authorities are gullibly assisting those who seek to play up lies and falsehoods in order to artificially create religious conflict," he said.

perkasa police report pastor meeting christian state Lim said the authorities should instead be questioning Utusan's conduct for running a story that had not been independently verified and that was highly controversial in nature.

"Instead of questioning Utusan Malaysia's journalistic conduct and ethics, the immediate responses from the ministers in charge of home affairs and communications were to order investigations into the alleged incidents themselves," he said.

Condemning Utusan's "gutter journalism", Lim said what was more troubling was how the paper appears to be given a free rein to print such reports with impunity.

The paper's "naked and blatant act of deliberate provocation" seemed to be beyond the arm of the law, he said, while the independent press bears the brunt of any official action against the media.

Utusan's act of 'mischief'

Meanwhile, several media freedom NGOs also took Utusan to task, detailing numerous examples of irresponsible journalism over the reports.

They cited how Utusan had not bothered to verify the source of the information before splashing it on their headlines, while immediate responses from the alleged parties were not given fair reportage even though the online media had already published them.

utusan malaysia kritsian agama rasmi "Further, the front-page story only quoted Ooi denying the allegation that he had sponsored the meeting. The subjects of the allegation itself - the pastors who allegedly made this call - were not interviewed," read a joint statement by Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), Charter2000-Aliran, 1Muted Malaysia and Writers' Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI).

There was also no apparent attempt to seek the clarification of the parties involved in the meeting, they said.

The paper's unethical journalism, said the NGOs, lent credibility to the story that it did not deserve.

And while Utusan finally reported the Christian groups' denials on May 9 - two days after its front page report - the paper focussed on responses by various authorities such as the prime minister, defence minister and home minister, that weighed on the unsubstantiated allegations, complained the NGOs.

"These comments give further undue gravitas to the ‘discourse' arising from what was a non-issue to begin with," they said, blaming the paper for fuelling the ongoing controversy.

"The fact that Utusan Malaysia is continuing to spin more stories from a completely unverified report implies mischief on their part.

"Already, there are at least seven police reports lodged in response to what was mere rumour," they lamented.

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Must they resort to this every time?