Lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri is taking Umno-linked Utusan Malaysia to court over a report which claimed that she had called for the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) to be recognised.
“They (Utusan) interviewed me, and yet they distorted whatever I had said that day,” said Fadiah, who is being probed by police over a blog article which was allegedly critical of the Malay rulers.
Fadiah told FMT that Utusan’s report had also put her in danger as she had received threats after it was published.
“I received death and rape threats after the news was published,” she said, adding that she regretted speaking to the Malay daily.
“I will never use their platform anymore,” she said. Fadiah also accused the paper of “spreading lies and pushing forth their racist agenda”.
The report was on a forum titled ‘A People’s History of the Malayan Emergency’, where Fadiah was one of the panellists.
There was a brief commotion at the forum when several members of the audience questioned if the event and panellists were trying to justify communist atrocities committed during the Malayan Emergency.
Fadiah said she would not accept an apology from the paper.
She denied calling on the government to recognise CPM, the banned party which was locked in a decades-long armed struggle against the British and later the Malaysian government, before laying down arms following an agreement signed in Thailand in 1989.
Fadiah said she had only asked for historians to give due recognition to left-wing movements which had also joined the struggle for independence. – FMT
Related report: Jul 30, Tempers Flare at Malayan Emergency Forum