State opposition party DAP said at least two news websites purporting to be party newsletters have appeared online and impersonating party leaders giving out views on various issues.

The newsletters, created on Facebook pages, are the Sarawak Rocket Elections Paper and the Sarawak Dark Insider Exposé . The Mandarin newsletters are still up as of today.

"We don't have such newspapers," DAP state leader Chong Chieng Jen told reporters in Kuching today after lodging a police report regarding the matter.

"These postings are making false allegations and giving false impression that the DAP and I want to to abolish Sarawak's immigration autonomy.

"The articles say that I want to allow West Malaysians to come freely into Sarawak and bring extremism with them," he said.

Chong, who is Kota Sentosa incumbent, said the national online regulatory body, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should look into the matter and assist in taking down the sites.

"These are done by irresponsible characters who do not dare to engage in the open on issues and policies. They resort to such underhand tactics to smear us. They are using anonymous sites to create false statements and spread lies in a way that we have no way to find out who the originators are," he said, adding that the posting had mislead party members.

Chong said the party had never questioned the right to immigration autonomy.

"We have never said anything that goes against the state's right to immigration autonomy. We support immigration autonomy and we will defend it to the end, but we do not condone the abuse of such rights.

At least a dozen DAP leaders have been barred from the state. In total, there are some 40 opposition lawmakers, activists and academicians who have been denied entry. The state immigration had said it will not release the travel ban list .

State DAP does not expect its campaign machinery to be fully staffed and will go at it alone without help from the Peninsula.

"The government has yet to produce a single statement explaining those bans. They cannot point to any act by those banned that can be called racist," said Chong, calling the coming elections "the dirtiest ever".

"We support the barring of racists and religious extremists. People like (Perkasa chief) Ibrahim Ali. Those are the ones we support banning. Those are people who repeatedly make statements of racist in nature, extremist and religious bigotry. These are the ones the government can and should rightfully ban.

"However, Umno ministers who make the incendiary and racist statements (against non-Muslims), these Umno ministers are not banned and are instead welcomed by (chief minister) Adenan Satem with open arms. These are what we call abuse of the immigration autonomy," he said.