KUALA LUMPUR – National diver Pandelela Rinong, who was conferred a Datukship recently, opened up how she was bullied into silence by her former coach on Twitter today.
She revealed that he often loved to make dirty jokes and how she kept quiet about his behaviour as she was afraid of him.
“I finally decided to call him out one day as I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. Unfortunately, I was bullied for speaking up.
“The saddest part was that seven years later, he was arrested for a rape charge,” she wrote.
Pandelela then went on to encourage Malaysians to take a strong stand against rape and to stay united.
Moral of the story, we need a good leader who can right what’s wrong instead of turning a blind eye to evil, and those abused must speak up, please!
Small voices still matter if we are united.”
She also expressed how fortunate it was for national athletes to be under the protection of the sports association.
Pandelela’s Tweets have received almost 20k retweets and 23.4k likes at press time, with many praising her boldness, including Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who commented, ” Thanks for speaking out, Lela.”
You can read the thread here:
Dulu saya ada seorang coach ni suka buat lawak lucah, saya buat diam je tak pun fake laugh sebab takut dia. Pernah sekali tak tahan saya tegur dia, tapi kena buli balik. 7 tahun kemudian dia buat kes rogol. #rapejokeisnotfunny
— Pandelela Rinong (@Pandelela_R) October 21, 2021
Who was the ex-coach?
In 2017, Astro Awani reported that national diving coach Huang Qiang had allegedly raped a 20-year-old diver inside a gym room at the Bukit Jalil National Aquatic Centre.
Miraculously, Huang managed to escape the charge thrice, thanks to a combination of shaky evidence, the prosecution’s failure to prove their case, and the High Court rejecting the victim’s appeal over his release according to Malaysiakini.
Why is #rapejokeisnotfunny trending?
Yesterday, local actor Fauzi Nawawi incurred the wrath of netizens when he made light of a rape scene he was featured in the 2007 movie Anak Halal.
When he was asked by the hosts of the talk show Rumah No. 107 whether he preferred filming rape or robbery scenes, he gleefully replied, “both”.
To make matters worse, he even named his female co-star who appeared in the rape scene as Raja Farah Aziz.
You can watch the video here:
Tertengok dekat tiktok like how doh diaorang open this topic dekat tv ? like how doh ? tak boleh brain wei pic.twitter.com/4RMGKZMUQf
— Yan (@FayyanFreaks) October 19, 2021
Since the release of the footage, Raja Farah’s family and enraged netizens have lambasted Fauzi for his remarks and accused him of normalising rape culture.
This has since prompted Fauzi to publicly apologise for his ignorance via Instagram.
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