In one of those rare moments, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz find themselves on the same page, when it comes to Utusan Malaysia .

parliament gobind singh ban over nazri mistake 251108 04 Yesterday, Nazri reportedly condemned the Umno-owned Malay daily for its outdated racist propaganda, saying it has to accept the fact that Malaysia is a multi-racial country.

He had said that Malays would also be incensed if someone was to ridicule them and therefore the daily should refrain from playing the racial card.

Commenting on this today, Lim said the minister's comments could not have come at a more appropriate time.

"We feel Utusan has crossed the limit in its news reports that tend to instigate racial hatred where at some point they labeled the Indian community as ' keling ' and said that non-Malays are anti-Islam," he added.

Although Nazri and him share different political ideologies, the Penang chief minister stressed this was not a political issue, but "of freedom and being a Malaysian."

"We are on different political platforms, but for the sake of truth, we are with Nazri who urged Utusan to stop all the racist campaign against other races," said Lim.

'We can't be suing them everyday'

On the possibility of initiating legal action, the DAP leader pointed out that the party cannot be doing this on a daily basis.

phee boon poh denied resign 221103 lim guan eng Lim, who himself has sued Utusan for 'misreporting', said: "If we want to, we can sue them everyday. But we can't do that because we don't have the capability, time or financial resources to do so."

"At the same time, we know that some of the journalists are professional but their bosses are the ones who like to manipulate the facts," he added.

According to him, other 'racist' bloggers have followed in Utusan 's footsteps and among others, accused the Penang government of banning the traditional martial art, silat .

"But we never banned it, instead we have promoted silat and even sent athletes to participate in the martial art (competitions)," he said.

In view of this, Lim urged Utusan to heed Nazri's advice and at the same time, called on the police to investigate the paper for ‘inciting racial hatred’.

Last week, two police reports were lodged against Utusan over an article which demeaned the Indian community.