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“I am trying to understand why after a long time, Lela (Pandelela) wants to put this out in the social media,” he told reporters after an official event here today.
The diving champion had claimed on Twitter recently that she had to endure a torrent of sexual jokes from one of her coaches for seven years.
She decided to go public on the matter after the story of an actor who had glorified an unaired rape scene on a TV station went viral.
Faizal said he would be speaking to Khairy Jamaluddin who helmed the sports ministry when the alleged incident took place, adding that he had spoken to certain people over the matter to get a clearer picture.
However, he declined to reveal what had been told to him by them, saying it was not appropriate at this juncture.
Faizal urged national athletes to speak up on any form of sexual harassment by reporting them to their parents or authorities.
“We cannot accept lewd or dirty jokes as it is tantamount to harassment. Don’t choose to remain silent because we must fight such actions,” he said.
Pandelela, in detailing her torment, said she told off the particular coach but he retaliated by “bullying” her, adding that he was later charged with the rape of another athlete.
“My teammates and I could not do anything about his harassment because he was backed by our head coach then,” she had tweeted.
“The moral of the story is 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 added.
Replying to her tweet, Khairy said: “Thanks for speaking out, Lela. There are still sports journalists who criticise the decision we made to shake up Malaysian diving. I would make the same decision every single time.”
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