Acts of racial discrimination are most of the time suffered in silence or maybe for some, taken to social media.

But now there is a mobile application, called the ‘Report Racism MY’ for Malaysians to report instances of racism.

Developed by Pusat Komas in response to the yearly Malaysia Racial Discrimination Report, its programme coordinator Ryan Chua said previous reports were mostly based on instances of racism as reported in the media.

“The application is a platform for people to submit reports of racial discrimination to us.

“If you feel racially discriminated, instead of going to social media, you can submit these kind of incidents to us,” he said at the 6th national conference on non-discrimination organised by Pusat Komas and the Institute of Ethnic Studies (Kita), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

Those who report a particular racist incident will also get a copy of the report sent via the mobile application.

Reports can be made anonymously as Pusat Komas believes that some may not be so comfortable with sharing their personal details.

“The data will be published in the Racial Discrimination Report next year,” said Chua.

Admitting that Pusat Komas was still in the process of making the application user-friendly, Chua said the group was also thinking of ways to collaborate with government agencies.

The application, meanwhile, will be available on Nov 19 on both Apple Store and Google Play.

Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner Jerald Joseph in a press conference later pointed out how the only way to transform is through knowing how rampant racism is.

“Most of the time we know only of one or two incidents,” he said.

Lauding the application’s significance, secretary-general of the Association for the Promotion of Human Rights Malaysia (Proham) Denison Jayasooria, said acts of racial discrimination were only spoken of in coffee shops in the past.

By documenting such instances, it would be possible to determine whether such acts occurred verbally or were more prone to happening in workplaces or public areas like supermarkets.

“This will give confidence to people to share (such instances).

“As a result, there will be public awareness and public reaction to these sort of things,” he said.