Malaysian Panellist Gets Called Out On Live TV For Body Shaming Albino Model
The panellists were recently invited on 'Malaysia Hari Ini' to have a discussion on cyberbullying.
By Tamara Jayne — 29 Oct 2019, 12:42 PM
Body shaming has become a topic of debate on Twitter following a recent incident where a Malaysian panellist was called out on national TV for cyberbullying
A video of the moment was tweeted by @burhan_plays on 28 October, and has since been retweeted over 34,900 times.
Three panellists were invited on 'Malaysia Hari Ini (MHI)' to have a discussion titled "Stop Body Shaming, It's Not Funny".
However, things took an unexpected turn when one of the panellists - Azfar Firdaus - confronted his co-panellist for body shaming him in the past
Panellist Azfar Firdaus, popularly known as Azfarovski, is a 25-year-old model who has been cyberbullied for being an albino. On his right was Shazwan, a panellist who was recently body shamed on the Internet after he uploaded a post-workout photo.
Both guys were invited on the show to share their first-hand experiences of being cyberbullied.
While he was speaking, Azfar confronted Shazwan for ridiculing him in the past
"On 20 August, Astro Awani came out with an article about an albino child in Tanzania being slaughtered and sacrificed for a magic ritual. That's what happens to albino people in the world, yeah. So, Shazwan, you retweeted it and said, 'Let's hunt down and slaughter Azfar as well'. Yes, that's what you said."
Here's a screenshot of the tweet, which has since been deleted:
Azfar then continued to explain that cyberbullying and body shaming can have unseen effects.
"Body shaming is something we do not realise. Those who do it feel that they're invisible and anonymous when they do it, but they never know that we may meet them, the person that they’re bullying in real life, like what's happening today," he said.
Despite an outpouring of support, several people also disagreed with how Azfar handled the situation - including his mother
"If he was calling me pale, ugly, I wouldn’t mind. But he was explicitly inviting people to do harm to me. When some boy just lost his life?? It was a personal attack to all us albinos. And that is where I draw the line," Azfar wrote in a subsequent tweet.
