I am disgusted and absolutely appalled by the story in all the papers about the Iranian asylum seeker, Gulam Hassan Anwari, who set himself on fire outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' building in Kuala Lumpur.

I simply cannot believe that the distraught man, who had already attracted attention to himself by alerting the press of his intention and then dropping a five-page letter at the feet of journalists, was not prevented from dousing himself with petrol.

Even as he was dousing himself with the petrol, why didn't someone run over to him and take him down to prevent anything else from happening? There were obviously press people around but it was the taxi driver who initially dropped him off who returned because he knew something was amiss, to put the fire out!

And how could any decent human being take a photo of a man killing himself and not do something to help?

The fact that the man was clearly not in a good state of mind and had notified the press of his intention did not convince them that something terrible might happen.

Sure, I was not there but the signs were there, and nobody reacted quickly enough. It is sad when that happens, but it is worse when people can compose a shot, take the photo and then publish it like it is something to be proud of.

This has got to be a new low for Malaysian journalism.