Perkasa likens Suaram to anti-Islam filmmaker

Malay rights NGO Perkasa said human rights NGO Suaram’s agenda is similar to the maker of the anti-Islam film ‘Innocence of Muslims’, which sparked violent protests across the globe.

According to Berita Harian, Perkasa information chief Ruslan Kasim said the film’s purpose was to create chaos among Muslims, and similarly, Suaram’s purpose is to spark the same in Malaysia.

He was reported by the daily as saying that Suaram wants Malaysians to go against each other, wreaking havoc which will then require foreign intervention.

“If Malaysia is in chaos, the share prices will drop drastically thus allowing foreign funders to buy the shares up on the cheap. Suaram will benefit from this,” he was quoted as saying.

“We want Suaram, an NGO funded by the Jews, to declare what they have done to slander the prime minister, support free sex programmes and so on.”

He added that many organisations are funded by Jews with the purpose of putting Muslims and Christians at loggerheads and spark global unrest.

BN-linked dailies the New Straits Times and Berita Harian, as well as Umno-owned newspaper Utusan Malaysia, today front-paged reports questioning Suaram’s credibility due to its foreign funding.

The reports, which follows aTV3 special report on Suaram last night, highlighted that Suaram receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Open Society Institute (OSI), established by currency speculator George Soros.

The reports highlighted that organisation is helmed by Jews, withBerita Harian quoting academic Chandra Muzzafar as saying that the organisations are led by Zionists who have close ties to the Israeli government.

Berita Harian also reported that NED had also funded programmes which led to the Arab Spring.

‘Funding must come with strings attached’

Utusan in its editorial implied that funding from OSI must come with strings attached.

“Soros and oher foreign funders fund more NGOs in more than 70 countries directly or indirectly, so the question is, were the funds given for free or for ample returns in other forms?” the editorial asked.

Also mentioned by some dailies was NED’s funding to Malaysiakini, which the New Straits Timesnoted was for “propaganda”.

Figures for the amount received by Suaram, from OSI, however, differ between the newspapers.

New Straits Times cited RM774,000 (2008-2011), but Utusanreported that OSI gave Suaram RM845, 835. In another article Utusan said the figure was US$248,775.65 (RM761,553.82).

According to the NED website, the foundation was founded in 1983 and gives out more than 1,000 grants to NGOs in more than 90 countries.

OSI, meanwhile, on its website said that it disbursed more than 4,500 grants amounting to US$612 million in 2010.