Utusan should respect Ramadan

I would like to highlight a matter that is not of any interest in politics, but of interest to the holy month of Ramadan to our fellow Muslims, particularly Malay-reading Muslims in Malaysia who are among the 859,000 readers (claimed by Utusan Malaysia) via the 206,577 copies of the newspaper in circulation according to Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in its July- December ‘09 survey.

I am disappointed and angry as a woman but particularly as a Muslim to find such an influential, Malay mainstream newspaper as Utusan Malaysia would (I believe) PURPOSELY print a nearly quarter-page in a broadsheet newspaper a picture of a woman with her cleavage popping out like nobody’s business!!

What’s more insane and incomprehensible is that the news article is just 1/10 of the whole page! So, why do you need to blow up that picture to such a big proportion? (Utusan Malaysia — Luar Negara — page 23, August 20, 2010)

Another indecent picture in there that I would like to highlight is on page 38 in the sports section featuring tennis player Caroline Wozniacki with her already very short skirt lifted up while playing a game.

Who in their right mind (I am referring to Utusan Malaysia’s chief editor) would allow such an image to be printed out for the mainly Malay-Muslim readers in the holy month of Ramadan? It is not only provocative and controversial but it is disrespectful to women in general.

Yes, no doubt such a photo can be found in other media but in Utusan Malaysia in the month of Ramadan? I would think the people behind this have no sense. Don’t they know how to use the “crop” item in the edit button in their Photoshop software??

What pisses me off further is the fact that the current baby-dumping issue is a hot pisang goreng in ALL the media, and here is Utusan Malaysia printing such photos as if to turn on young boys including matured men? And think about what? Sex? Plus, knowing that their mainly Muslim readers read the newspaper in the morning when they have just started their fasting day?

There goes the rest of their fasting day I suppose?

I don’t want to rant more about the baby-dumping issue, religious rules and all that... I just want the editors in Utusan Malaysia to know that it is such an inappropriate move to print such pictures even at anytime of the year for that matter for reasons of being decent and respectful to their mainly Malay-Muslim readers.

I hope this will not happen again and maybe the Home Ministry should take its licence away or at least suspend it?


To understand the idiotic mentality of Utusan's management, one need only to read the usual rubbish printed. They have no morality, responsibilty and respect for anybody, encouraged and embolden by their masters to spin whatever stories required to sell the papers. Until and unless their masters take the initiative to stop them, nothing can.