The Information Department has taken down a tweet of the king standing behind the prime minister after dozens called it out for being disrespectful to the monarchy.
The photo, which was part of a quote tweet citing Muhyiddin Yassin’s statement in response to allegations about the state of emergency, had shown a photo of the prime minister on top of Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin. While there are no laws against such photo edits, the king usually appears alone in such images and does not share the spotlight with any other political leaders.
The department did not address the boo-boo publicly but took down the tweet hours after people highlighted it.
“Wait isn’t this disrespectful? YDPA at the back?” Twitter user @aidxn_hx said today.
Another tweet by @ZhiddinAzizz said: “This is the first time I’ve seen a photo of the king edited with another person, and the image of the person in front is larger than the king. I feel that this is disrespectful.”
The department’s tweet was quoting Muhyiddin’s speech from Feb. 4 where he shot down rumors that there were other motives behind the king’s consent to a state of emergency.
“Please stop spreading false information about the king Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah regarding the state of emergency as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic,” Muhyiddin was quoted as saying.
The department also reiterated in the now-deleted tweet that the state of emergency was meant to help the government manage the COVID-19 epidemic “more effectively.” The National Security Council also shared the Information Department’s tweet before it was removed.
The king gave consent to a state of emergency last month as COVID-19 cases spiraled out of control in the country, but nothing much has improved since then as the country continues to report huge spikes in cases in recent weeks. Declaring an emergency meant that political activities such as snap elections would not be allowed to take place.
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