Former information minister Zainuddin Maidin has continued his attack on the MCA-owned English daily, The Star .

And in his latest blog posting, the staunch supporter of Dr Mahathir Mohamad also took a potshot at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Responding to an article penned by The Star chief executive officer Wong Chun Wai ( left ), which Zainuddin believes was targeted at him, the latter insisted on his claim that the newspaper is under the thumb of Christian extremists.

He claimed that The Star felt it was free to carry out “subtle evangelism” because it viewed Najib as someone who believes in economic growth and that “time heals everything”.

Hence, he said the prime minister prioritises the “policy of postponing problems instead of solving them”.

In his article 'No Cause for Paranoia' in The Sunday Star , Wong said: “I suppose we have plenty of liberals, secularists and moderates in the newsroom, but Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, I surely can’t detect any.”

“But Christian-bashing has become fashionable in Malaysia, especially among some politicians, retired politicians, writers and some one-man-show non-governmental organisations,” he added.

Wong also noted that as far as he could remember, Singapore had only banned the Jehovah Witnesses.

“Although he did not state my name, I am the blogger that Wong had mentioned in his article because I was the one who said that The Star has links with a Christian extremist sect (that was banned) in Singapore,” said Zainuddin, who is popularly known as Zam.

He claimed that because Wong is unable to identify these Christian extremists, they are able to subtlety preach to the Muslims, for example giving the impression that Christian practices and traditions are observed by Muslims in Malaysia as well.

“For example, Keretapi Tanah Melayu was forced to deny on Feb 16, 2011 that a Muslim couple, where the husband donned a skullcap, had celebrated Valentine’s Day onboard a train heading to Singapore in a report titled ‘Retro Love Couch’ ( The Star - Feb 14, 2011),” he added.

The former Utusan Malaysia group chief editor also accused The Star of running down a national school based on “unsubstantiated claims” that non-Muslim students were made to eat in shower rooms during the Muslim fasting month.

“ The Star also champions sensitive issues related to religion without paying heed to the position of Islam as the official religion, for example in the issue of using the term Allah.

“Only less intelligent people will not be able to see The Star’s struggle in this issue via the play of news and biased commentaries,” he added.

Zainuddin also took the daily to task for publishing the photograph of military attache Muhammad Rizalman Ismail, who is accused of sexual assault in New Zealand.

According to him, this was done because of the daily’s “eagerness to tarnish institutions of Malay power, especially the armed forces”.

He pointed out that The Star published Rizalman’s photograph in uniform on its front-page and in the inside pages although he had yet to be charged in court.

“Due to its chauvinism, The Star ignored journalistic ethics not to show the face or mention the name of an accused before being charged in court.

“Perhaps this is because The Star newsroom, as mentioned by Wong, consist of liberals, secularists and moderates, who uphold the values of globalisation as opposed to local sensitivity,” he added.