DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang today denied writing an article titled 'Malaysia: Christian state versus Islamic state arguments' which appeared in two online newsgroups and has lodged a police report over the matter.

In a press statement issued after lodging a report with the Penang police, Lim condemned the act as "highly mischievous and even vicious".

He claimed it was done to instigate inter-religious ill-will as well as animosity towards him among the Muslims.

The article made under Lim's name said DAP called upon PAS to re-evaluate its arguments for an Islamic state based on a fraudulent article attributed to Islamic scholar Dr Patricia Martinez.

The two separate postings made today on the Bungaraya and BeritaMalaysia newsgroups, were listed down as originating from 'DAP Malaysia'

The opposition party's national publicity secretary Ronnie Liu has denied making the postings.

Lim said both postings were likely to have been made by the same group whose larger plan may be to "cause mischief and evil" in the country.

He urged Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai to give priority attention to solving the "cyber crimes" and questioned police as to the progress made on their investigation into a fake posting made last week under Martinez's name.

Police report

Meanwhile, social reform movement Aliran also issued a statement yesterday calling for Norian to clarify if police had been derelict of duty when refusing to accept Martinez's report when she first attempted to make one in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 2.

"We find it incredulous that the police officers Martinez met should have given her the runaround instead of treating the matter with a sense of urgency," said the Penang-based movement.

The movement added that the police should have given an immediate response so as to defuse any misunderstanding that might arise from the fabrication.

Martinez subsequently lodged her report in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan the following day.

On Jan 2, an article titled 'Why Malaysia is already a Christian state' which contained allegations that certain key aspects of Islam originated from Christian and Jewish scriptures, was posted at various online newsgroups under the name of Patricia Martinez.

Martinez issued a denial on the same day and denounced the circulation of the article as attempting to tarnish her reputation as the only non-Muslim Malaysian with a PhD in Islam.

She also said the article was aimed at disrupting a forum which was to take place the following day involving Lim, PAS vice-president Dr Hasan Mohd Ali, and Anuar Abdul Razak who is a fellow of the Institute of Islamic Understanding (Ikim).