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Tanda Putera official trailer…the longer versions..1min 30 sec

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MIC publicity and communication chief S Vell Paari warned that if the script appeared bias towards any particular party or race, then it could lead to an electoral backlash for Barisan Nasional in the next polls

Furthermore, Vell Paari said there were conflicting versions as to what transpired on May 13, and this rendered the director’s claim of it being historically accurate open to dispute.

Free Malaysia Today

Tanda Putera treads on thin ice

A MIC leader point outs that the movie on May 13 will open the scope for directors to explore other sensitive topics like the Kampung Medan violence and the exploits of Chin Peng.

PETALING JAYA: More than four decades ago, the nation was rocked by communal violence and since then the tragic episode is often raised by politicians to strike fear in the hearts of Malaysians.

While the official version pinned the blame on DAP for being the catalyst, there were also those who pointed the finger at Umno, accusing its leaders of masterminding the bloodletting.

The number of fatalities was also uncertain, with the government charged with downplaying the figures.

Now, a movie on the racial riot was set to hit the screens, and this had sparked off a raging debate.

The director of Tanda Putera, Suhaimi Baba, denied that the movie had a political agenda, despite it being partially funded by the government. She also claimed that the script was historically accurate.

Weighing in on the issue, MIC publicity and communication chief S Vell Paari said while art should not be curtailed, a movie on the May 13, 1969 riots was akin to treading on thin ice.

He also warned that if the script appeared bias towards any particular party or race, then it could lead to an electoral backlash for Barisan Nasional in the next polls.

Tanda Putera treads on thin ice

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Lim Kit Siang speaks about May 13, 1969 on Youtube

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MAY 13, 1969 (513) AS I REMEMBER IT

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Tanda Putera official trailer…the longer versions..1min 30 sec

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Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Datuk Shuhaimi Baba’s latest film ‘Tanda Putera’ must be screened uncensored, Malay rights group Perkasa said today despite an uproar from Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders about the movie for allegedly portraying the Chinese community and DAP in a negative light in scenes depicting the May 13, 1969 race riots.

The award-winning director’s controversial retelling about the administration of Malaysia’s first two prime ministers amid the bloody May 13, 1969 race riots has been criticised by some PR politicians for its allegedly historically-innacurate depiction.

But Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali today backed Suhaimi, saying the film was historically accurate.

“The film is about history, even if the plot or scenes were controversial, we cannot change history and PR does not need to make that an issue,” he told a news conference.

“We will negotiate and help Tanda Putera’s film director to screen it without being it being censored,” he added.

Screen ‘Tanda Putera’ uncut or we will make an Anwar movie, Perkasa says

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Trying to demonize Lim Kit Siang. FAIL!

This photograph of Lim Kit Siang being manhandled by the authorities – featured in the Tanda Putera official Facebook as one of the May 13, 1969 photographs of real-life events – can in reality be dated to a 1984 incident in Kota Kinabalu.

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Free Malaysia Today

Tanda Putera: Dishonest or truthful reconstruction?

It invites suspicion that Tanda Putera is just one step short of a propaganda exercise to subtly cast Lim Kit Siang as a hateful, anti-Malay figure.

The Tanda Putera filmmakers are marketing their movie as an educational product on the claim that the events they have depicted are based on established truth.

“My team and I did a lot of research, such as studying documented materials and photographs, to make sure the scenes were backed by historical facts,” its producer-director Shuhaimi Baba told the New Straits Times on Aug 4.

One scene in Tanda Putera is reportedly of Lim Kit Siang urinating at the flagpole (in the compound of) the Selangor Menteri Besar’s residence while at the same time shouting a racial slur.

Lim Kit Siang has said that this was a downright lie and dangerous falsehood in an Aug 4 statement.

He has questioned whether there is an ulterior motive to incite mob anger against him.

Is the canard one that is only recently invented to purpose fit Tanda Putera, and if so to what end? If indeed Lim did commit the act, “why had no one ever seen, mentioned or heard about it during the intervening 46 years until now?” asks one Netizen.

Logic dictates that if the powers-that-be had any concrete evidence of any such episode involving the then DAP organising secretary, this damning detail would never have escaped being made public.

So much for Shuhaimi Baba’s careful “research” or is it that amoral pursuit of socio-economic and political gain is reaching new heights with new recruits?

In fact, the photograph of Lim being manhandled by the authorities – featured in the Tanda Putera official Facebook as one of the May 13, 1969 photographs of real-life events – can in reality be dated to a 1984 incident in Kota Kinabalu.

That Tanda Putera – a movie financed by Finas (Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia) and Multimedia Development Corporation – chose to include such an inflammatory and defamatory scene casts serious doubts on the whole government (read: Umno)-backed enterprise.
………….
t invites suspicion that Tanda Putera is just one step short of a propaganda exercise to subtly cast the opposition stalwart as a hateful, anti-Malay figure.

Demonising DAP

Against this backdrop of political distrust, it is only to be expected that pro-opposition supporters would see what they regard as “the May 13 film” to be part of a pre-election smear campaign against the DAP.

Or in the words of an online news portal subscriber – “The campaign has now recruited the likes of filmmaker Shuhaimi Baba with her blatant lies on celluloid to demonise DAP.”
………….

The Tanda Putera trailer uploaded to YouTube has registered 4,379 ‘dislikes’ by viewers as opposed to a mere 472 ‘likes’ among those who had watched it. Roughly, nine out of 10 who voted have given it a thumbs-down.
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Dr Lim Teck Ghee is the director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives.

Tanda Putera: Dishonest or truthful reconstru…

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Read what Lim Kit Siang wrote in his blog

Malaysians should do a Sherlock Holmes to find out the “who, when and what“ about the origin of the canard of “urination” at the flagpole of the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house provoking May 13 riots in 1969

Yesterday, I categorically denied the preposterous claim which had appeared previously on the official Facebook page of the May 13 movie, Tanda Putra, that I had urinated on the flagpole in front of the then Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence during the May 13 riots in 1969.

The facebook had carried a photo portraying me being manhandled, with the caption:

“Lim Kit Siang telah kencing di bawah tiang bendera Selangor yang terpacak di rumah menteri besar Selangor ketika itu, Harun Idris, (Lim Kit Siang had urinated at the foot of the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag at the then Selangor MB’s Harun Idris’ house)”

The photo was posted in the album in the Facebook titled ‘Peristiwa-peristiwa yang dimuatkan di dalam filem ini’ (Events depicted in this movie).

Although the photo and caption have since been removed from the movie’s official page, Malaysiakini had captured a screenshot of the earlier posting.

I noted two very pertinent postings from the 69 comments since Malaysiakini reported my denial, viz:

RealSoldier witness513 its simply absurd to accuse LKS performing such despicable act because the flagpole is not freely accessable to the public as it is located within the compound of the MB’s house which is fenced and manned by a jaga. BY accident I was at the MB’s on that fateful day from 3.00am to 5.30am on 514 following rescue operations by the security forces.

FREE The picture of LKS being grabbed and manhandled by officers was taken at the Kota Kinabalu old airport terminal. Those officers in white-shirt uniforms were immigration officers when Harris Salleh ordered the deportation of LKS from Sabah. This writer was inside a plane and saw from the window LKS being put put in a wheelchair and wheeled to the plane for deportation back to KL.

What RealSoldier posted made eminent sense, as in 1969 I never knew where was the official residence of the Selangor Mentri Besar, let alone that it has a flagpole “located within the compound of the MB’s house which is fenced and manned by a jaga”.

This posting exposes the downright lie and dangerous falsehood that I or anyone could have urinated at the foot of the flagpole at the then Selangor Mentri Besar’s house – when it was within a confined and guarded compound.

The second posting is an eye-witness account of the origin of the photograph shown on the Tanda Putra official facebook.

The photograph was not taken in 1969 but 15 years later at the Kota Kinabalu Airport old terminal on August 26, 1984.

I had flown into Kota Kinabalu that morning en route to Sandakan in response to a challenge by the then Sabah Chief Minister, Datuk Harris Salleh to repeat my speech in Parliament on July 23, 1984 outside Parliament without the benefit of parliamentary privilege on Harris’ abuses of powers as Sabah Chief Minister in particular with regard to Labuan being carved out of Sabah and made a Federal Territory.

I had challenged Harris to name the place and date for me to repeat my parliamentary speech, and when Harris named the Dewan Masyarakat Sandakan on August 26 at 10 am, I immediately accepted them and flew into Kota Kinabalu with the then DAP Deputy National Chairman and MP for Jelutong Karpal Singh enroute to Sandakan for the occasion.

But at the Kota Kinabalu Airport, I was denied entry on the directive of the Sabah Chief Minister who had challenged me to repeat my parliamentary speech against him in Sandakan later the same morning!

I was told to take the same flight out to return to Kuala Lumpur. In the two-and-a-half-hour standoff with the immigration authorities, I made it very clear that denying me entry into Sabah was a gross abuse of Sabah immigration autonomy powers and I was not prepared to leave my own country on my own free. I told them that they will have to bodily carry up the plane. Finally, they put me in a wheelchair and bodily carried up the flight steps to the waiting plane.

That was the 1984 Kota Kinabalu photograph which Tanda Putra official facebook had used as one of the May 13, 1969 photographs!

The two postings are the real stuff of people’s history, unalloyed and unadulterated by lies and falsehoods.

Let us have more real people’s history on what actually happened.

“RealSolder” has debunked not only the lie that I had urinated at the flagpole of the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house, but that anyone else could have done it as the flagpole is within the confined and guarded compound of the Mentri Besar’s house.

But how did the canard of the “urination” at the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house, provoking the May 13 riots, originate?

Since the Tanda Putra official facebook entry, I had asked around whether anyone had ever heard of any “urination” incident at the flagpole of the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house provoking May 13 riots, and nobody has ever heard of it before.

Neither the White Paper issued by the National Operations Council on 9th October 1969 entitled “The May 13 Tragedy” nor Tunku Abdul Rahman’s book “May 13 – Before & After” made any reference to any such urination incident at the Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence.

This has become the Urine-Gate or Pee-Gate of Malaysia.

Malaysians should do a Sherlock Holmes to find out the “who, when and what“ about the origin the canard of “urination” at the flagpole of the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house provoking May 13 riots in 1969 – for if there is no truth whatsoever, it should put to rest once and for all.

When did anyone first heard of such a canard? Or is it a very recent vintage – just for Tanda Putra?

It is indeed sad and tragic when all efforts should be made on the occasion of the approaching 55th Merdeka Day/49th Malaysia Day to emphasise the unity in diversity of the Malaysian nation, there seems to be anti-national elements out to create racial distrust and dissension and undermine national harmony by spreading the most vicious lies and falsehoods about the history of the nation.

If the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia slogan and policy is to have any meaning at all, I call on all Malaysians to prove that they are Malaysians in heart and soul on the occasion of the 55th Merdeka Day/49th Malaysia Day!

This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 August 2012, 3:46 pm

• • Malaysians should do a Sherlock Holmes to find out the “who, when and what“ about the origin of the canard of “urination” at the flagpole of the Selangor Mentri Besar’s house provoking May 13 riots in 1969
  • Lim Kit Siang

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Malaysiakini

5:33PM Aug 4, 2012

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang has vehemently denied a posting made by the Facebook page of May 13 film Tanda Putera showing the veteran politician urinating on a flagpole outside the then Selangor menteri besar’s residence prior to the 1969 race riots.

“The spokepersons of the movie have said that the film was based on a lot of research, such as studying documented materials and photographs, to make sure the scenes were backed by historical facts.

“Where were the documented materials and photographs that I had urinated at the foot of the flagpole at Selangor Menteri Besar Harun Idris’ house on May 11, 12 or 13, 1969 when I was never in Kuala Lumpur?

“For that matter, where are the documented materials or photographs to show that there was such an incident and that it was not a mere figment of the imagination?” Lim said in a statement today.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/205476

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1 A person involved in making the film told AFP it was “government propaganda” and includes beheadings by communists played by ethnic Chinese actors, and Chinese shouting “all Malays go and die.”

“It only shows one side of what happened,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

2 Half of the movie’s RM4.5 million ($1.5 million) budget was supplied by the government-run National Film Development Corporation (Finas).

Free Malaysia Today

Film on 1969 riots courts controversy

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/08/02/film-on-1969-riots-courts-controversy/#ixzz22SWI2Ngq

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PERKASA ACCUSES LIM KIT SIANG OF BEING THE ‘MAIN FORCE’ BEHIND MAY 13 RIOTS!

Free Malaysia Today

Kit Siang main force behind May 13′

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WHY AREN’T WE SURPRISED?

Malaysiakini

2:02PM Jul 29, 2012

Utusan Malaysia has urged the National Film Development Board (Finas) to release Shuhaimi Baba’s film Tanda Putera as scheduled on September 13.

In a column by Utusan assistant editor Ku Seman Ku Hussain in Mingguan Malaysia – the newspaper’s Sunday edition – the author wrote that the postponement by Finas did not make sense.

According to Finas, the release of the film has been postponed to a date yet to be fixed in order to allow more time for promotional activities.

Ku Seman argued that the film is being shelved for political reasons and should not be victimised.

“Many people see the vague postponement as an attempt to placate certain people in the run up to the general election.

“The normal practice is that once a film is approved by the Film Censorship Board and the Compulsory Screening Scheme committee, no one can stop a film from being screened.

“But what has happened to to Tanda Putera is extraordinary. Why?” asked Ku Seman.

Utusan wants Tanda Putera released as scheduled

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Free Malaysia Today

May 13: Umno’s election weapon

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Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, July 21 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will work with its political foes in Barisan Nasional (BN) and do all it can to prevent a repeat of the bloody racial clashes of May 1969, Lim Kit Siang has pledged.

But the political veteran, whose enemies have blamed him for instigating the 1969 riots, also demanded the same cooperation from the ruling pact.

He expressed fear that the repeated mentions of the May 13 incident by BN leaders may contain a subtle threat to voters that the tragedy would reoccur should Umno lose power.

Lim pointed to the latest May 13 reference made by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday and asked the Umno deputy president if he had meant to assure Malaysians that a similar clash would not repeat or warn them otherwise.

“I confess I am concerned at the way Muhyiddin raised the spectre of  May 13, which had been used in the past decades to create fear among voters as part of the scare tactics to force voters to vote for Umno and BN,” the Ipoh Timor MP in his speech text from a ceramah last night.

According to news reports yesterday, Muhyiddin had called on the country’s youths to stand united in order to avoid a another bloody racial clash like the 1969 riots, which is said to have claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 Malaysians.

“We don’t want May 13 repeated,” the deputy prime minister had said.

But Lim said Malaysia’s political and social landscape have changed significantly since the clash, pointing to the birth of Pakatan Rakyat (PR), a coalition of three parties – DAP, PKR and PAS – which he said promotes multiracialism.

“So could there be another May 13 in the next general election? My answer would be a strong ‘No’,” he said.

“On behalf of DAP and PR, let me officially respond by declaring that we also do not want a repeat of the May 13 tragedy and we pledge to do all we can to prevent any such recurrence.

Kit Siang: Pakatan will help BN prevent May 13 repeat

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Malaysiakini

Tay Hock Leng 12:50PM Jul 21, 2012

May 13 movie may incite the young

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Challenge to Muhyiddin on raising the May 13 spectre

Challenge to Muhyiddin on raising the May 13 spectre

I challenge the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to prove he is a responsible political leader and Malaysian nationalist when raising the spectre of May 13 wanting to prevent any recurrence and not indulging in the low- class, irresponsible, unscrupulous and contemptible double politics of fear and race to preserve UMNO/Barisan Nasional in power at all costs in the next general election.

It has been reported that at a national youth conference held in Parliament yesterday, Muhyiddin called on the young generation to be united in order to ensure the country remains stable and peaceful and to avoid a repeat of the May 13, 1969 tragedy.

Muhyiddin was quoted as declaring at the conference: “We don’t want May 13 repeated.”

On behalf of DAP and Pakatan Rakyat, let me officially respond by declaring that we in DAP and Pakatan Rakyat also do not want a repeat of the May 13 tragedy and we pledge to do all we can to prevent any such recurrence.

DAP and Pakatan Rakyat offer to co-operate and work closely with UMNO and Barisan Nasional to ensure that there will be no repeat of May 13 in the next general election, and Malaysians are entitled to ask how there could be a repeat of the May 13 tragedy if both political coalitions – Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat – sincerely pledge to work together in the national interest to prevent any such recurrence?

I confess I am concerned at the way Muhyiddin raised the spectre of May 13, which had been used in the past decades to create fear among voters as part of the scare tactics to force voters to vote for UMNO and BN, as it raises the question whether the DPM was giving an assurance that there would be no May 13 recurrence or he was subtly threatening that there could be another May 13 if UMNO loses power!

Could there be another May 13 in the next general election? My answer would be a strong NO.

Without going into the debate as to who should be held responsible for the May 13 tragedy in 1969 (and there are diametrically conflicting accounts and versions of who should be held responsible and this is why right from the beginning after the May 13 riots, DAP and I had called for an independent Royal Commission of Inquiry into its causes) the circumstances today are completely different from those prevailing 43 years ago in 1969.

The most important difference between 1969 and the 13th general election is the emergence of a multiracial multireligious naional coalition represented throughout the country to peacefully and democratically challenge UMNO/BN’s hold to power in Putrajaya -as the Pakatan Rakyat coalition of PKR, PAS and DAP is a Malaysian coalition of all races, religions and regions in Malaysia!

Only the most irrespnsible, anti-national and treacherous elements in our country can try to distort and misinterpret a PAkatan Rakyat victory in the 13GE as victory of one race against another, as to justify wild thoughts tinkering with the idea of anther May 13, when any victory for Pakatan Rakyat will be a Malaysian victory representing all races.

Is Muhyiddin sincere when he declared “We don’t want May 13 repeated”.

If so, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should break his silence and answer the question I had posed to him many times in the past three years – whether he would declare clearly and unequivocally that he would accept the verdict of the people in the 13GE, including the election of a Pakatan Rakyat government in Putrajaya to replace the Barisan Nasional and that he would personally ensure and facilitate a peaceful transition of federal power for the first time in the nation’s history, to tell the world that Malaysia has becoome a normal democracy and even en route to become, in Najib’s own words, “the best demoracy in the world”!

[Speech at the DAP Inanam Sepanggar ceramah on Friday July 20, 2012 at 9pm]

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Is it opportune to look at this book again?

May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969

May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969 is a book published in 2007 and written by activist and scholar Dr. Kua Kia Soong on the May 13 Incident of 1969. It was published by the human rights group Suaram on the 38th anniversary of the worst racial riot in Malaysian history, which took place mostly in Kuala Lumpur. The official death toll was 196, but independent reporters and other observers estimated up to ten times as many people had died. Three quarters of the casualties were Chinese Malaysians, and 6000 of them were left homeless after fires. As the title suggests, the book is based on declassified documents, which have become available at the Public Records Office at London.

The book challenges the Malaysian government’s official position on the cause of the May 13 Incident. At the time, the government stated the cause was opposition parties’ creating tensions after the 1969 elections. In contrast, Kua stated that the “ascendent state capitalist class” in the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the party in power, had intentionally started the riot as a coup d’etat to topple the Tunku, traditional Malay Rulers, from power.^{[1][2][dead link]}

Due to the book’s charges, numerous politicians called for it to be banned.^[3] The Internal Security Ministry seized 10 copies from a major bookstore in Kuala Lumpur several days after the release of the book.^[4] Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi later indicated that the government did not plan to ban the book.^[5]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_13:_Declassified_Documents_on… – Cached

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MAY 13, 1969 (513) AS I REMEMBER IT

Taman Kaya Mob goes amok again and attacks Blogger, 14 July 2012

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Tanda Putera official trailer…the longer versions..1min 30 sec

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Tayangan Media Filem Tanda Putera – Temubual Bersama Shuhaimi Baba 18/7/2012

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Tanda Putera

(P13)

• Release Date: 13th September 2012 (Showtimes)
• Language: Malay
• Genre: Action
• Director: Datin Paduka Shuhaimi Baba
• Cast: Zizan Nin, Linda Hashim, Rusdi Ramli, Faezah Elai
• Local Distributor: Alternate Pictures Sdn Bhd

• Overview
• Cast

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Malaysiakini

4:21PM Jul 20, 2012

Tanda Putera, the latest offering from local director Shuhaimi Baba, has received flak over what some say is a skewed re-telling of what happened during the 1969 race riots.

Some accused the RM4.8 million movie of demonising early leftist movements and more hero-worship than tribute to former premier Abdul Razak Hussein, who is Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s father.

The trailer for the movie – fully funded by the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) and the Multimedia Development Corporation (Mdec) – showed scenes of Chinese mobs marching through the streets of Kuala Lumpur after their success in municipal elections.

One group was depicted bearing the Labour Party flag, while that scene and others also showed Chinese Malaysians bearing banners proclaiming anti-Malay slogans.

The banners written in Chinese characters portrayed slogans that translated into ‘Malays go back to the village’, ‘Malays go die’ and ‘Take revenge’.

Garnering more serious brickbats are snippets from the movie’s official Facebook page which detailed scenes apparently slated to be included in the final cut of the movie.

One apparent scene was that of DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang purportedly urinating on a flagpole in front of the then-Selangor menteri besar’s residence.

“Lim Kit Siang telah kencing di bawah tiang bendera Selangor yang terpacak di rumah menteri besar Selangor ketika itu, Harun Idris, (Lim Kit Sing had urinated at the foot of the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag at the then Selangor MB’s Harun Idris’ house)” read the caption of a photo of the actor portraying Lim being manhandled.

The photo was posted in the album titled ‘Peristiwa-peristiwa yang dimuatkan di dalam filem ini’ (Events depicted in this movie).

However, the photo and caption has since been removed from the movie’s official page, though Malaysiakini had captured a screenshot of the earlier posting.

For more, click here:

New May 13 movie courts controversy

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