Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Barisan to release videos of May 7 sitting - Star

By CLARA CHOOI

IPOH: The Perak Barisan Nasional government will soon release 50,000 DVDs of the tumultuous May 7 state assembly sitting to the public.

State executive councillor Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon said that there were three versions of the edited videos -- one with a Mandarin voice-over, another in Bahasa Malaysia and a final, shorter clip called the “MTV” version, which comes complete with music.

“In the videos, the people will get to see who started the fight, who climbed on the table to shout, who threw the Standing Orders booklet, who banged on the tables with their fists, who started pushing others and even who was the one who broke several microphones in the hall,” he claimed.

On whether the video would include scenes of how former Speaker V. Sivakumar had been forcibly removed from his seat, Dr Mah said, “Well, actually we do not mind putting in that clip too. We want the public to see everything.”

He said the videos were merely condensed versions of the full seven-hour sitting, which was one of the nation’s most notorious assembly sessions to date.

“Within the next two or three days, we will get the copies printed and they will be made available to the public.

“The DVDs will probably be placed in our Barisan component party offices or in the offices of our state executive councillors in the State Secretariat,” he said at a press conference here Tuesday.

Dr Mah said that the idea to produce the DVDs was mooted after Pakatan Rakyat released “one-sided” clips of the sitting that “were not reflective of what had truly occurred” on May 7.

“They failed to show how it had been them (Pakatan) who had first crossed the hall to attack the Barisan.

“This is not fair to us because what the people need to see is exactly what had transpired on that day,” he said.

It is learnt that for the production of the DVD, the Barisan government had obtained footage from all TV stations that had covered the sitting, including the state-owned Perak News Online.

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