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Malaysian television news channel Astro Awani carried out a live broadcast of Lee Kuan Yew’s state funeral yesterday, but it seems that not all Malaysians were too happy with that.
Upset subscribers took to Astro Awani’s Facebook page to accuse the channel of being pro-Singapore, going on malicious rants, questioning the importance of Lee Kuan Yew to Malaysia and — ironically — calling Singapore a communist country.
As history tells us, Lee Kuan Yew was fiercely anti-communist, launching Operation Coldstore back in 1963 to lock up activists, politicains, journalists and students sympathetic to the left-wing cause.
Ikuti siaran langsung upacara persemadian bekas PM Singapura, Lee Kuan Yew di saluran 501 & astroawani.com bermula 12:30 tengah hari
Posted by Astro AWANI on Saturday, 28 March 2015
Many other Malaysians, however, were appalled at the outcry, expressing full support for Astro Awani for broadcasting the proceedings.
“Please don’t be disheartened by the bad, negative and irresponsible comments by some of the FB users. This just shows how shallow, narrow & backward their mindsets are. Our country Malaysia will not be progressive & be 1st world nation with people of such mentality. Proceed to do live telecast of programmes that Astro Awani deems fit especially global events,” writes Pauline Wong on Facebook.
