DAP Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang has accused Umno of attacking his Twitter account with multiple cyberattacks over the past week, allegedly to silence his criticisms of the party.

Lim lamented he received four " Twitter carpet-bombing" attacks, allegedly by some 100 multiple accounts in nine days, two related to the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) report on Sabah illegals, and two related to Wanita Umno delegate Mashitah Ibrahim.

He noted he was spammed this on Friday morning after Sabah Umno leader and Minister for Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Abdul Rahman Dahlan remarked that it was not his job to convince Lim of the Sabah illegals issue.

Lim said he was similarly spammed on Dec 3, "when some 100 Twitter accounts, both human but most robotic, launched a ‘carpet-bombing’ of my tweet site, lasting some 90 minutes".

The DAP veteran was not alone. It has been reported that the launch of the RCI report that day was greeted with waves of pro-government tweets from accounts that appear to be set up for that sole purpose.

Lim charged the attacks were aimed at distracting attention from the fact that the RCI report has failed to publish what he said were 5,000 pages of supporting material that would provide incriminating evidence on Project IC in Sabah.

The other wave of tweet attacks took place on Dec 6 and 7, said Lim, in relation to DAP's complaints over Mashitah's claim that some Chinese burned the Quran in Kedah, an allegation Menteri Besar Mukhriz Mahathir has denied.

'Will MCMC act?'

"I have the necessary particulars but very little confidence in the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to deal effectively with the Umno Twitter-bombers, for two reasons.

"Firstly, I do not believe the minister for communications and multimedia Shabery Cheek is unaware of the transgressions and breaches of the law by these Twitter-bombers and cybertroopers.

"Secondly, Shabery Cheek is an Umno functionary first and a Malaysian minister second," said Lim.

He cited how Shabery had not taken action on cyberattackers after Najib, during the Umno AGM last month, admitted the existence of such cybertroopers aligned to the ruling party.

Najib, said Lim, had criticised the Umno bloggers for not realising who pays them, and berated them for blasting Umno instead of the opposition.

"Instead of acting as minister for communications and multimedia to launch a full-scale inquiry into bloggers funded by Umno ... Shabery Cheek chose to act as an obedient Umno functionary by claiming that he did not hear what Najib said and did not know anything about it!" said Lim.

He said he was willing to furnish MCMC with all the relevant records of the tweet attacks, if MCMC was prepared to investigate.