KOTA KINABALU, April 12, 2018: Former chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee has lodged a police report over a 16-second video clip attacking him with foul language and lies.
The Sabah Progressive Party(SAPP) president turned up at the Kota Kinabalu district police headquarters here on Wednesday to lodge the report.
The video that had gone viral on social media, including Facebook, contained a visual of Yong speaking in Hakka at a function but was dubbed with the voice of another man speaking foully about him.
“It contained many foul words in Hakka, attacking myself personally and many wicked lies,” he told the media after meeting hawkers at the Kota Kinabalu central market.
The video clip that had gone viral on social media came out amid wide anticipation that the former Likas state assemblyman was likely to contest in this polls.
He said the video clip began to go viral since late Tuesday night and claimed it was the work of political opponents wanting to cast him in a bad light.
Yong said he was going all out to identity the perpetrators of the video clip and would be offering a reward to anyone who identified the voice in it.
“I want to sue this person for defamation,” he said in urging police to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Yong also faced a smear campaign in 2013 elections when some of his fellow opposition parties accused him of receiving “RM80 million bribe.”
“We lodged reports about it. No one was ever prosecuted and such crooks think they will get away with it again,” he said.
He noted that a civil suit against one of the “culprits” forced the latter to apologise through newspaper advertisements.
“But the damage had been done, the (2013) election was over,” he said.
“Such smear campaigns are unhealthy. They destroy our society by injecting bad values.
Such bad practices can also affect community leaders not just politicians,” said Yong.
Yong (seated middle) showing his police report over the expletive-filled attack.
12/04/2018 The Borneo Post