KUALA LUMPUR: Many Netizens are ashamed that certain Malaysians attacked the social media page of Ukrainian paralympic athlete Maksym Koval, just because he "robbed" Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli of a gold medal.
Puteri Gunung Ledang producer and actress Puan Sri Tiara Jacquelina is one such Netizen, who is upset with the cyber bullies.
The 54-year-old artiste took to Instagram today and said that the rude and racist Malaysians had done irreparable damage to the image of the country and the Malays.
Invoking lines from her iconic movie and musical, Tiara said: "Malays and Malaysians are known for their kindness and politeness.
"Our parents taught us, 'biar miskin harta jangan miskin adab' (we may lack material wealth but we should not lack manners).
"Please be well-mannered, don't give Malays and Malaysians a bad name, and don't prove Hang Tuah's saying 'tak Melayu hilang di dunia' (Malays will not disappear from the world) wrong.
"This is not who we are. If you cannot say anything nice to others, don't say anything on social media."
Netizens strongly agreed with Tiara, and many of them said that cyber-bullying severely damaged the image of Malays and Malaysians.
"I am so ashamed and I don't know where to hide my face. Cyber-bullying will not help Ziyad get his gold medal back," said a Netizen identified only as Farid.
"Poor Maksym. What did he do wrong? If we should blame anyone for this fiasco, we should blame the people who caused Ziyad to get disqualified," said Zamri.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) recently slammed the abusive social media attacks on Koval following its decision to strip Malaysian shot putter Ziyad of his Paralympic Games gold medal at the 2020 Paralympic Games held in Tokyo, Japan.
Ziyad had won the men's shot put F20 title with a world record throw of 17.94 metres only for the result to be erased for arriving late to the call room.
Ukrainian shot putter Koval was awarded the gold medal, and this sparked an outcry on social media.
Craig Spence, a spokesman for the IPC, said that the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Ukraine was very upset by the online abuse it received from Malaysians.