Screening of video recordings of rally encouraged, says Rais

KUALA LUMPUR (May 2, 2012): The Information, Communications and Culture Ministry encourages the screening of video recordings of last Saturday's protest rally which turned violent so as to give the public an overall picture of what happened that day. Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the ministry had asked television stations like Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), TV3 and others to look at the video recordings in total to show the rally participants' behaviour. "For example, there were participants who smashed police patrol car windscreens. They should watch this video, while there are also videos showing policemen acting inappropriately. "All these can be gathered as evidence on the behaviour and actions of various groups of people at the rally that day," he said after launching what is called as the world's smartest 4G Phone, Eclipse, by YTL Communication, here, today. He was earlier asked by reporters to comment of the move by police to show the video recordings in order to give a real picture of the protest rally. Rais said as demanded by the public, there must be justice and each group involved must be made responsible for their actions. On Astro's censorship of BBC's coverage of the rally, he said each broadcasting house was at liberty to exercise its own right of getting the best news items for its station. "If you look at the length of video recordings of all the news items in the world, they can run into hours. Don't tell me that each station cannot do its own editing of the best for the news items to be broadcast. "In the case of Astro, we could see that they had edited their video recording and taken just the best part that they deemed should be broadcast," he said. On another note, Rais said the country needed a module to enable the people to communicate via broadband while telecommmunication companies would be able to offer the service at affordable rates. He said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission was looking at the matter; how the formula could be implemented soon. He added that the Internet was a necessity where its use would be a culture that was competitive to Malaysia, especially in its drive to become a developed nation by 2020.