Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Saturday, 1^st August 2009: 

Strange mainstream media behaviour about Tee Keat lodging police report for threat to him – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese press but totally ignored in English and Bahasa media

It is indeed a strange behavior of the mainstream media today – prominent even front-page treatment in Chinese newspapers on the police report lodged by MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat about a threat to him but totally ignored by English and Bahasa Malaysia media (even by MCA-owned Star)!

Why is this? A Cabinet Minister and leader of the third largest Chinese political party in the world receiving threat or death threat but not newsy enough to be reported in the English and Bahasa Malaysia mainstream media, even by MCA’s own Star newspaper?

Is it a farce and all-in-the-know in the media business know that it is a charade – to be played up in the Chinese media but ignored in the English and Bahasa Malaysia media?

This is the first question that intrigued me when I saw the various media coverage of Ong’s police report of a threat to him.

Otherwise, news of Ong’s report to the police would have been good for a laugh, as I had on Monday lodged a police report in Petaling Jaya to protect Ong’s life as well as to ensure that “dark forces” of politico-business underworld combined with certain Barisan Nasional enements do not extend their tentacles to suborn government decision-making all the way to the Cabinet.

Before I lodged the police report, I had given Ong 48 hours to do so himself which he failed to do.

With my police report, Ong is caught – hence the belated story of his lodging a police report on the same day as myself that he had received a threat in the form of a note sent to his house warning “Watch Out”.

But this is not the death threat he talked about when interviewed by Sin Chew Daily on 16th July 2009, where he said:

Q: You said you were threatened by people. How did they do it? And by whom?

A: Someone tried to deliver a message through some friends in the secret society, saying that if some day I suddenly disappear from this world, I should know why this has happened.

Who are this “someone” and who are the “some friends in the secret society” who delivered the message that Ong would “disappear from this world” and Ong “should know why this has happened”?

Ong need not produce any names for the “Watch Out” note sent to his house, but he must name names of the “someone” and the “some friends in the secret society” for the delivery of the death threat that he would “disappear from the world”.

Why didn’t Ong lodge a police report about the death threat to him that he would “disappear from the world”?

Or are these just figments of Ong’s imagination – which appears to be the attitude of the Ong Tee Keat camp in MCA, including the three MCA Ministers and seven Deputy Ministers who came out with a most unusual collective statement to support him, as none of them thought it important or real enough to lodge a police report to protect Ong’s life.

Can Ong throw light on the “someone” who issued the death threat to him and the “some friends in the secret society” who delivered the death threat that “he would disappear from this world”?

If not, the people can draw their own conclusions about the truth or otherwise of the latest MCA drama, although the MCA leaders aligned to Ong have already acted in clear disbelief of the death threat to Ong by not reporting any police report for two weeks.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor