Blogger apologises over controversial remarks

The controversial ‘Life is a drama’ blogger has offered her “sincere and honest” apology to all Malaysians, especially the Indian community, for her ‘spur of the moment’ inflammatory remarks posted on her website 10 days ago.

Sammy Chan, 22, posted her apology on her website today and called on everyone to forgive her for her shortsighted outburst in a Sept 23 posting.

“I offer an unconditional apology to every single person out there whom I've offended. I'll not be unfair to other races again and I'll learn to only get angry at those who really hurt me instead of generalising them according to race.”

Chan made the racial remarks after her mobile phone was snatched by two alleged Indian youths when she was having lunch at her office in Kuala Lumpur.

The alleged posting, among others, read: “I hate Indians. It’s bad enough they are famous for being drunk and rude (most of them anyway). Now they carry the reputation of being stealer, robbers, rapist, idiots, morons, drunkard bastards and list goes on...”.

“I did not really mean to stir racial sentiments or offend the Indian community,” she told Malaysiakini when contacted today.

“I did not expect my personal comments to become a national racial issue and invoke such a major public outburst. I’m extremely sorry for the whole controversy caused by my immature and angry remarks.

“I sincerely and honestly apologise to all Malaysians, not just Indians, as my comments have offended them,” said Chan.

The blogger’s inflammatory posting earned the wrath of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), which had lodged a police report urging the authorities to take action on the matter.

Chan said she was prepared to cooperate with the police in their investigation and said she would even personally apologise to Hindraf national coordinator RS Thanenthiran over her posting.

Hindraf: We Accept Chan's Apology

When contacted, Thanenthiran said Hindraf would accept Chan’s apology.

“We understand now that it was a ‘spur of the moment’ outburst. We sympathise with her loss of her phone. We hope that the lesson learnt from the controversy will help her to be more careful in future,’ he said.

Chan insisted that she was not a racist and has many Indian friends since her childhood days.

“I even wear saree to functions organised by my Indian friends. I made a mistake by not being careful with my language and words. I did not want to hurt anyone,” she said, expressing hope that her apology would “close the book” on the issue.

The blogger is deeply perturbed by the high number of comments, some of which containing racist and sexist slurs, posted by readers in her blog in response to her controversial posting.

She said her blog was swarmed by at least 9,000 visits since Malaysiakini reported the issue this morning.

The visibly upset blogger is now contemplating to suspend her ‘Life is a drama’ blog “until things have cooled off”, adding that she was a bit worried of being detained under the Internal Security Act.

“I’m just a young and a fresh graduate. I hope the whole controversy will not affect my future,” she lamented.