Malaysian students in Egypt are angry with the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) for taking their grouses to Queen Elizabeth II and ignoring the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

This was revealed by Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin who is currently in Cairo on a working visit.

According to a Bernama report today, Zainuddin said several groups of students who met him had expressed anger with Hindraf's move to ask the Queen to intervene in Malaysia's internal affairs.

He said the action was tantamount to challenging and showing disrespect to Malaysia's Constitutional Monarchy system and to Malaysians who are loyal to the country.

The minister accused Hindraf of portraying themselves as still being under British colonial rule and not as citizens of an independent and sovereign Malaysia.

On Nov 25, Hindraf had organised a gathering which drew some 30,000 Indian Malaysians to the streets in Kuala Lumpur.

The gathering was called to show support for the handing of a memorandum to the British High Commission urging the Queen to appoint a Queen's Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British government for bringing Indians as labourers to the then Malaya and thereafter exploiting them.

The suit was filed at the Royal Courts of Justice in London by Hindraf chairperson P Waythamoorthy in August.

Negative reports

In another development, Zainuddin said Malaysians should not be taken in by what is shown in the Al-Jazeera satellite television station particularly on issues smearing Malaysia's image and reputation.

He said Malaysia was not the only country facing problems with Al-Jazeera for airing negative and adverse reports but also several Arab nations.

This was told to him by Egyptian Information Minister Anas Ahmad Nabeeh El-Feky in a meeting with him on Wednesday.

Zainuddin said Egypt also had to face several incidents of distorted reports by Al-Jazeera which highlighted some issues that were inaccurate from what actually happened.

"Egypt and several Arab countries are in a similar predicament with Al-Jazeera over certain incidents that happened in their countries. Al-Jazeera showed a distorted scenario of what really happened," he said.

Zainuddin said if Al-Jazeera continued with its distorted reports in Egypt, the Egyptian government would issue a warning to the television station.

In fact, the Egyptian government had taken action, including jailing an Al-Jazeera broadcast journalist, for filing untrue reports, he said.

The minister said El-Feky also told him that several Arab nations had closed down AL-Jazeera's offices in their countries due to biased reporting.

Asked whether Malaysia would follow suit, Zainuddin said the government has no plan as yet to close down Al-Jazeera's operations in Malaysia.