CIJ decries the calls for serious action to be taken against Sin Chew Daily, including the calls for the suspension of their licence or police investigation, for their design blunder of the Malaysian flag.
On 15 April, Sin Chew Daily published a front-page illustration of a jong bearing the Malaysian and China flags to coincide with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the country.
However, the Malaysian flag was missing a crescent moon. It has since issued a public apology yesterday along with a corrected illustration in both print and digital today.
CIJ acknowledges this issue as problematic due to the expectation that all media would be ethical and responsible in their reporting. As such, we would expect Sin Chew to be aware of the significance of the Malaysian national flag to the nation’s spirit and history.
Nonetheless, the calls for serious action to be taken are unwarranted as Sin Chew has published the public apology along with a corrected illustration in both the print and digital versions.
Any restrictions to media freedom must uphold international standards, where actions must meet a three-part test – legitimacy, necessity and proportionality.
In this context, the use of any laws, including archaic and repressive laws in Malaysia such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act, would be disproportionate and would further undermine media freedom.
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Any further action taken should fall under the responsibility of the Malaysian Media Council, which will provide an independent mechanism to objectively and neutrally arbitrate complaints against the media, without a political or other external agenda.
We call on all media to uphold the highest ethical reporting standards, ensuring effective training and accountability mechanisms are in place to prevent and avoid such mistakes.
Wathshlah G Naidu is the executive director of the Centre for Independent Journalism.
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