Supporters of Syed Saddiq derided an activist who’d criticized SS following the latter’s cameo in a newly released Namewee music video — see promo pix below.
One example of a kurang ajar comment in Malaysiakini by its reader ‘purplehawk0187’ said: “Ng Yap Hwa you have had your fifteen minutes of fame (again). Now crawl back into your hole and keep quiet” — see screenshot below.
The Syed Saddiq defence phalanx is clearly lodged on the Harapan side of the political divide.
This rude partisanship displayed by his fan club is a subset of the opposition’s mob behaviour that one sees consistently in social media.
For the purpose of my present write-up, ‘they’ refers to the snarky defenders of Syed Saddiq in Malaysiakini making ad hominem attacks on Ng Yap Hwa for questioning SS’s disingenuous posture against party hopping.
Next they came for Ng Yap Hwa
Malaysiakini published a news report yesterday (Aug 15) headlined ‘Activist decries hypocrisy over Syed Saddiq’s cameo in Katak‘.
According to the Dapster Sentral portal, “human rights activist Ng Yap Hwa noted that Syed Saddiq once welcomed political defectors into his former party, Bersatu”.
Syed Saddiq’s fans in Malaysiakini instantly jumped to his defence and at the same time took potshots at the messenger.
BELOW: Syed Saddiq and bff Hannah Yeoh … their respective fan clubs widely overlap
‘Usual suspects’ quick to pounce
Syed Saddiq is popular with Malaysiakini readers who are similarly enamoured of the DAP’s Bangsa Malaysia. From this marker, you can pin the location of SS’s Malaysiakini fandom on our political map.
Some of ‘them’ had also previously virtue signalled in Malaysiakini their financial contribution to SS‘s bail fund.
I’m copypasting a handful of Malaysiakini reader insults lobbed at Ng who had dared to call out Syed Saddiq‘s “hypocrisy”.
One Malaysiakini subscriber using the moniker ‘fyydeep’ suggested in the portal comments section that Ng “must be the lapdog of the National Embarrassment — see screenshot below.
Another subscriber going by the nom de guerre ‘ABU’ [acronym most commonly referring to ‘Anything But Umno] commented: “Ng Yap Hwa, how much did BN pay you?” — see screenshot below.
Ng Yap Hwa is further snided as a “balls polisher” by one Malaysiakini subscriber calling himself ‘Kongkang kangkong’ – screenshot above – and alleged by this person of “only caring makan”.
These putdowns (screengrabbed from Malaysiakini) are the typical slurs hurled by oppo supporters against anybody raising the slightest bit of doubt about their political side, or about their icons — usually DAP’s Christian elected reps but in this particular case, a Muda MP.
They (Saddiq’s defenders cum smear merchants) are convinced that anyone not subscribing to their groupthink must either be on the BN payroll or an “Umno cybertrooper” / buat komen cari makan or “staunch supporter of MCA” or Najib’s “lapdog” (quotes all excerpted from Malaysiakini comments thread).
Another one of their standard operating procedures is to throw blanket insults at any critical thinker not aligned with the Harapan mindless cheerleading.
Ng is name-called by the Malaysiakinians a “silly boy” (comment made by the pseudonymous ‘fyydeep‘ cited previously) and separately, an “idiot” – see screenshot below.
Oxford dictionary defines the word ad hominem as pertaining to the response directed against a ‘person’ rather than addressing the ‘position’ taken by that person.
In the comments thread to the aforementioned article, Malaysiakini subscribers demeaned Ng by casting his anti-hypocrite stance as “talking rubbish”, “nonsense talk”, “ridiculous comments”, “blabbering”, “yapping”, “myopic and childish”, etc.
They did not rebut the logic of his content.
Empty vessels make the loudest noise
Most egregious about these personal attacks on Ng Yap Hwa is the Malaysiakini commenters lambasting Ng as a nobody (“unknown individual”, “little known”, “never heard of”) — see the series of screenshots above.
Another Malaysiakini subscriber even remarked that Ng is sleeping under a “tempurung”.
For the record, Ng Yap Hwa is the chairman of the Teoh Beng Hock Trust for Democracy.
Ng is also known for his work with the LLG Cultural Development Centre; LLG refers to the late Lim Lian Geok who had spearheaded Dong Jiao Zong in its infancy.
Ng Yap Hwa is a name with genuine street cred in civil society and long involvement in rights action groups.
These Syed Saddiq fanboys ignorant of Ng’s role in Chinese education causes must surely be Bangsar Bubble-ians.
Helen Ang 
Empty vessels make the most noise ? Or those who think the BACs or born again christians in a Muslim majority country are great, are just barking the wrong tree.! No doubt the BACs have cornered a small section of the media by inserting swallows to do at their bidding. But at times of crises, are these neophytes capable of sorting the rice from the husks ? This politics as in all over the World is not a game for the young boys and girls who should be in places of higher learning, and the young at heart.. Just because previous Administrations have performed normally to provide them with food and income and a full stomach today, it does not mean the future will be bright and rosy without forward planning. Durians will not drop from Heaven without working for them ! The 15th GE will sort out the men and women from the boys and the girls. The Malaysian voter will decide. With all things being equal, the paramount UMNO will lead again, come what may. At the moment 6 parties want to join the BN or 6 parties want to join the 15th GE Party with piety ! The Chinese should revert back to their roots of Chinese culture, practice and beliefs and vote for the Party which is closest to their hearts and minds and keep out the OPIUM ! HASTA la VISTA baby ! Courtesy Boris Johnson designate ex Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.