Speak out against uncouth bullies, says Pandelela

PETALING JAYA: Following the outcry over an actor making light of a rape scene, national diver Datuk Pandelela Rinong (pic) has disclosed that she was bullied by a former coach after she ticked him off for his bawdy jokes.

The Sarawakian athlete said she once called the ex-coach out over his unsavoury jokes but was bullied in return.

“I once had a coach who loved making lewd jokes. Because I was afraid of him, I often stayed silent or just faked a laugh.

“One time, I called him out but in return I was bullied,” said Pandelela in a series of tweets.

The 28-year-old shared on Twitter how she felt upset that the diving team was not able to do anything about the coach’s behaviour as he was protected by the head coach then.

“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. We are very lucky that we are being protected safely by our sports association, who cares for us. Happy ending,” said Pandelela.

Her initial tweet on the matter garnered more than 30,000 likes.

Khairy Jamaluddin, formerly a youth and sports minister, responded to Pandelela’s tweets yesterday and thanked her for speaking out.

“Thanks for speaking out, Lela. There are still sports journalists who criticise the decision that we made to shake up Malaysian diving in light of these allegations a few years ago. I would make the same decision every single time,” tweeted Khairy, who is now the Health Minister.

Recently, Malaysian social media was abuzz over a discussion of rape jokes triggered by facetious remarks made by actor Fauzi Nawawi.

In a video of a talk show that went viral recently, he talked about his experience playing a character who rapes a woman, who was played by Raja Farah, in a scene from Anak Halal, which had been deleted from the 2007 movie.

An uproar erupted when Malay-sians hit out at Fauzi for making light of the rape scene.

The actor later apologised.