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WILL THE AUTHORITIES ACT?
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The photographs, which went viral the past week, showed a group of people wearing the Muslim headscarves holding candles in a church.
One showed the group taking photographs with the church’s priest.
The photographs were captioned “the ritual might have taken place somewhere in northern Malaysia, and the people involved were all students.”
Star
Friday June 6, 2014 MYT 1:41:42 PM
Bukit Aman: Photos of Muslims praying in church not taken in Malaysia
PETALING JAYA: Police confirmed that photographs that have been circulating on social media showing Muslims praying in a church were not taken in Malaysia.
Asst Comm Asmawati Ahmad, the assistant chief at the Inspector-General of Police secretariat, said police never received any report regarding the matter.
“The distribution of these photos that depicted a group of Muslims involved in prayers at a church have sparked anger and unrest among the Muslims in the country.
“It is confirmed that these photos were not part of any recorded rituals in Malaysia,” ACP Asmawati said in a statement posted at the police’s Facebook on Friday.
A check by The Star Online showed that the pictures were taken in Indonesia.
Facebook user, Gereja St.Fx. Kebon Dalem, had posted a few photographs of students, said to be from a university called IAIN Walisongo Semarang, on a field trip in Indonesia on May 31.
According to the post, part of the trip’s programme involved taking part in Christian rituals as shown in the photographs.
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/06/06/muslims-pray-in-church-photos-gone-viral/
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武吉阿曼警察總部公關主任拿汀阿斯瑪娃蒂今日透過警方官方面子書發表文告指出，有關照片顯示一批穆斯林參與在教堂舉辦的宗教活動，造成本地穆斯林社群的不安。
China News: police clarification being circulated on the Internet in recent days a group of Muslim youth pictures of candles at the Church to participate in a religious ceremony, was not taken in the Church. Wujiaman Ting asimawadi, public relations officer of the police headquarters issued the proclamation today through the police official Facebook page notes that relevant photo shows a group of Muslims to participate in organized religious activities in churches, from local Muslim communities concerned. (Translated by Bing)
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YAHOO! NEWS MALAYSIA
MCMC confirms probing blog over false apostasy claim
The Malay Mail Online
KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — Local internet regulators and the police have launched a joint probe on a Kedah blog for allegedly spreading false claims of Muslim apostasy.
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) strategic communications director Sheikh Raffie Abdul Rahman confirmed with The Malay Mail Online today that investigations have begun but declined to offer further details.
“We are looking into it seriously and we are working together with the police,” he said when contacted today.
When asked if the blog owner would be called in for questioning, Sheikh Raffie declined to specify.
Instead, he said that MCMC will take appropriate action if the blog’s posts are found to have breached the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
These include shutting down the website or requesting the host, Blogspot, and social networking site Facebook to take relevant action, he added.
http://my.news.yahoo.com/mcmc-confirms-probing-blog-over-false-apostasy-claim-141100622.html
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Malaysian Insider
False blog posting is to raise tension ahead of tomorrow’s Allah hearing, says Muslim group
The picture on a blog that was said to be that of Muslims being baptised when it was actually a picture taken at a forum. – March 4, 2014.
Another person shown in a photograph supposedly of Muslims being baptised in a church said the fictitious post was an attempt to raise tension ahead of tomorrow’s Federal Court hearing on the Allah issue.
The photograph, which was circulated over the Internet last weekend, was actually taken at a forum at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (Istac) but a blogger had posted the picture and said it was taken at a church where Muslims were baptised.
The woman in the picture, Zaiton Ismail, who is an activist with Islam Ikram Malaysia, said the false news was slanderous, adding that she and her family were embarrassed after it was reported that she had supposedly converted to Christianity.
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According to Zaiton, the picture was in fact of her and other participants seated on a wooden bench at the Istac hall on February 29, 2012, in a forum organised by the National Population and Family Development Board where the topic of discussion was the country’s national family policies.
Ikram said it condemned the “irresponsibility” of certain people who had doctored the picture and spread the news of the alleged conversion.
“Whatever his reason was, the blogger had clearly caused a lot of negativity to the individuals involved and to society in general,” said Ikram’s Wanita chief Maznah Daud.
She said there was malice in the action of the person who had spread the news to cause friction between the multi-religious society in Malaysia.
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A women’s rights activist was shocked to learn that a photo of him and several others attending a government function has been circulating in cyberspace as ‘proof’ of the country’s Muslims being converted to Christianity.
The photo circulating in blogs since 2012 shows him among with a group seated on wooden benches, many of them women wearing headscarves.
The allegations were not first spread by blogs in Indonesia as initially thought, but by a blog in Kedah, given the earliest posting of the “news” and the related url address
Malaysian Insider
Activist clarifies photo of ‘Muslim apostates in church’ taken at Islamic centre
March 01, 2014
The photo on the left was used by the blogs alleging it was taken in a church, which is in fact the ISTAC hall in Bukit Tunku. – Pic courtesy of http://www.renchung.com, March 1, 2014
A rights group advocate has earned notoriety when a picture of him supposedly in a church where Muslims were said to have just been baptized surfaced on the internet.
Women’s Aid Organisation advocacy officer Yu Ren Chung said he was shocked when his schoolmate alerted him of the picture, which were in fact taken when he attended a forum by the National Population and Family Development Board at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (Istac) office in Bukit Tunku.
“Recently, two years after I attended the forum, my friend alerted me that there were allegations being spread on certain blogs and forums in Indonesia that many Muslims in Malaysia were murtad (apostate),” Yu said in his blog posting yesterday.
He added that the blog posts carried a picture of him, with his friends and others who attended the forum on February 29, 2012.
According to Yu, the blog postings also implied that the pictures were taken right after Muslims were “baptised” in a church, with some pinning the blame on opposition parties DAP and PAS.
“I was shocked to read the allegations, ISTAC had become a church,” Yu wrote.
He also felt sorry for the government officers who had attended the forum, saying that they were labelled as apostates.
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Malaysiakini
2:52PM Mar 1, 2014
Activist decries apostasy deception in cyberspace
A women’s rights activist was shocked to learn that a photo of him and several others attending a government function has been circulating in cyberspace as ‘proof’ of the country’s Muslims being converted to Christianity.
The photo circulating in blogs since 2012 shows him among with a group seated on wooden benches, many of them women wearing headscarves.
In a statement denying the blogs’ allegations, Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) advocacy officer Yu Ren Chung said that photo was in fact taken at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization’s (Istac) main hall in Bukit Tunku, Kuala Lumpur, and not at a church as alleged by the blogs
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/255763
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weehingthong 