KUALA LUMPUR – The Malaysian Youth Council (MBM) will be lodging a police report over the alleged misuse of its branding in “provocative and inciting” political text messages sent out to the public.
In a statement today, MBM president Mohd Izzat Afifi Abdul Hamid denied the council’s involvement in the text messages, adding that the move is linked with the elections in six states.
“The council strongly condemns malicious and irresponsible actions by any parties throughout the campaigning period for the state elections.
“In fact, any campaign that aims to divide unity among the people should be avoided by all political parties,” said Izzat, urging parties to campaign maturely and avoid actions that go against national laws.
He added that MBM will be taking further action by filing a police report “in the near future” over the matter to avoid the misuse of MBM’s name by linking it to imprudent situations.
Meanwhile, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil said in a tweet that checks by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission with all telecommunication companies confirmed that no ministry or government agency had issued instructions to send out the text messages in question.
“Allegations that public funds were used to spread such messages are untrue.”
Earlier today, Twitter user @najibfazail had taken to the social media platform to question why he had received text messages that appeared to spread “political sentiments” under MBM’s name.
He had also tagged Fahmi in the tweet, where he also shared a screenshot of the text messages from a “68886” service number.
One of the text messages was an invitation to a Madani ceramah event today, while the other contained disparaging remarks against Perikatan Nasional elections campaign director Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, who is also caretaker Kedah menteri besar.
In response to the tweet, several users questioned why they had never received such text messages, while others pointed out that the service number is notoriously used by scammers. – August 5, 2023