'Suara Pakatan Rakyat website not linked to Pakatan'
PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has clarified that a website which recently posted an allegedly inflammatory article against the Sabahan culture has nothing to do with Pakatan Rakyat.
PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has clarified that a website which posted an allegedly inflammatory article against the Sabahan culture has nothing to do with Pakatan Rakyat.
The website, Suara Pakatan Rakyat, carried the name of the federal opposition coalition.
A recent posting on the website said the traditional Sumazau dance “looked stupid, like a bird flapping its wings”.
Wan Azizah said the article, as well as a cartoon purportedly linked to the website, is “abhorrent” and is the same sort of “prejudice and bigotry” that Pakatan is fighting.
“I fear this may be only the beginning of a series of masked surgical attacks intended to character assassinate Pakatan, (and) its component parties, with the general election coming ever closer,” she said.
The website was inaccessible at 3.15pm today, but a cache copy of the allegedly disrespectful article posted yesterday shows that it was written in response to a video of the prime minister dancing the Sumazau.
“I am certain that besides myself, the majority of Malaysians are not keen on this dance which originates from a ceremony to worship the rice spirits," the posting reads.
“If the Sabahans like it, that's their problem, but we from the peninsular who are more modern and civilised need not be flapping about like that."
In a subsequent posting earlier today, the writer said he had received 80 death threats on the Sumazau posting and claimed there was “confusion”.
“The article discusses the need for the (prime minister) and cabinet ministers to dance the Sumazau at a Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration at Seri Perdana," he explained.
“The issue is about leaders dancing, and not the dance itself. If it's a traditional Sabah dance, so be it."
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