Images as we all know, are often more powerful than words. The images of Nirmala Bonat, like the pictures from Abu Ghraib, have evoked emotions that a thousand words could otherwise not.

The response has resulted in what one commentator has described as 'trial by hysteria'. The press have sadly but largely been true to their sensationalist nature. The fine line between gutter and responsible journalism indeed has never been more evident.

But it is the reported reaction of our ministers, one supposedly learned in law, that in my mind has brought greater shame to Malaysia and for that, shame on them. It may yet be the case, as some have suggested, that Nirmala's employer was mentally unsound. We know she just had a baby, so post-natal depression is certainly possible.

That is not to suggest that what happened to Nirmala was not heinous or that if it was done intentionally by a sound person, he or she should not be properly punished. But the truth is we don't know the full facts and yet we have rushed to judgement, even to sentencing.

One party asked that the accused be charged with murder. And if the attorney-general has his way, she will be in jail for the rest of her life and maybe the husband, too, for good measure. Woe betide a judge brave enough to sentence her to less than 67 years or whatever the number is.

Which raises an interesting point overlooked so far. Should a murderer or a rapist (or worse, one who rapes children or even worse, their own children) also be sentenced similarly or are we suggesting as a society that these are lesser crimes?

And God knows we have had many of these in the recent past. The Star has reported that more than half of reported rape cases in the country involve children. Why are we not similarly shamed as Malaysians? Because the victims are not foreigners? Is it alright as long as we only do to our own and not wash our dirty linen to the world?

Or is it that we need to show pictures of children who have been raped by their fathers or grandfathers before we as a society can express similar outrage? Or indeed, if the corpses of murder-cum-rape victims are splashed across the front pages?

If we do not have a sense of perspective or and are not capable of rationale and objective response even to the most heinous crimes, then what does that say about us a people? More importantly, what can we say of our press editors if they cannot assume the responsibility of providing a platform for rational debate and injecting sanity into what is obviously an emotional situation?

It is not too late. Now that everyone's attention has been aroused, can at least one of our media be brave enough to take up the cudgel and put some rationality back into the discussion? To at least demonstrate that there are those of us who can transcend hysteria?