Doctoral candidate Zaiton Ismail, who unwittingly found herself in the middle of a cyber war on apostasy, is now mulling legal action against the blogger responsible for the allegation.

The blogger had attempted to pass off a photograph at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (Istac), where Zaiton was present, as a church where Muslims were purportedly being converted out of Islam.

“The fact was we were attending a programme by the National Population and Family Development Board Malaysia (LPPKN) in cooperation with Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia’s (UIA) law faculty.

“It was about national family policies, andwe attended the programme as doctoral students in counselling.

“We did not expect the photograph to be manipulated by certain parties to make it seem that we were sitting in a church,” Zaiton was quoted as saying in a Berita Harian report today.

Zaiton, 55, a mother of 11 who is doing her doctorate at UIA, said she had lodged a police report and hopes stern action will be taken against the blogger.

“This slander is very serious as it concerns matters of faith,” Berita Harian quotes her as saying.

‘Blogger removed posting’

Zaiton is a member of Muslim NGO Ikram, which helped to highlight her plight.

The deception was first raised by Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) advocacy officer Yu Ren Chung, who was also present in the photograph posted by the blogger.

Yu, who was attending the same event as Zaiton, had said he was only recently alerted to the blog posting and was shocked to find out the government event was being passed off as a mass conversion in a church.

The posting on a blog called Medan Tempur Kedah , had been around since 2012 was titled Melayu dimurtadkan dalam gereja ’ (Malays converted in church).

The blog posting was removed after Yu’s complaint was highlighted by Malaysiakini .

However, it is still accessible through Google Cache.