A Father's Worst Nightmare: Photos Of Harith's Son And Other Kids Found On Porn Sites
"It's both disgusting and incredibly disturbing."
By Sadho Ram — 25 Jun 2015, 06:09 PM
Harith's son's photos removed from porn site after swift response by MCMC
"The pictures of my son (and other children) have been taken down off the pornographic website (which originates from outside Malaysia)," said Harith in this Facebook post today, 25 June, one day after he shared the details about the incident to the public. He thanked MCMC for their swift response in solving the issue.
"Thank you also to family, friends and everyone in the online community who showed concern and were as outraged as my wife and I were by the discovery. Thank you to the Internet-savvy individuals who had advised me about the correct avenues and steps to take in investigating this matter. Thank you to all the press and media who brought attention to this case," he added.
The website is based in the United States. Earlier on Thursday, MCMC had requested the webmaster to remove the photographs.
Its Strategic Communication director Sheikh Raffie Abd Rahman said that there was however no guarantee that the webmaster would comply with the request.
“If you find any picture of yourself on any such website, you should contact the webmaster yourself. They are more likely to understand that the rights of the picture belongs to you,” he told the Star Online.
MCMC also requested the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block the website.
There were almost 200 non-pornographic pictures of children on the website earlier before the case was highlighted. Checks on the website revealed that all pictures of children have since been removed.
On Wednesday, 24 June, comedian Harith Iskander found himself disgusted at the discovery of a local pornographic site, featuring photos of him, his son, and other children alongside explicit photos
In a Facebook post, the 49-year-old revealed that he came to know about the photos via Google Alert. The text on the site was in Malay and English which led him to believe the site was from Malaysia.
"Google Alert brought to my attention the fact that pictures of my son (and of me cradling my son) as well as numerous pictures of other children appear in a local pornographic site alongside graphic porn images," said Harith in a Facebook post on Wednesday, adding that "I say "local", cause the text is in Bahasa Malaysia."
"It's both disgusting and incredibly disturbing, and needless to say I am in the process of contacting MCMC to find out what action can be taken," he said.
He, however, refused to divulge the name or address of the websites. Harith urged his fans to share their experiences on the matter and asked for their opinions on how to deal with such a problem.
"I am NOT naming the site here. If anyone has any experience in cases of this nature please let me know what's the best way to handle this," he added.
Reporting on the incident, The Star said that the site contained photos of the children of local actress Erra Fazira and singer Tomok
"I don't know why the culprit is doing this. Is it to use my name to increase pageviews, or if there is an element of paedophilia?"
Harith said he only scanned the website briefly as he was disgusted by it. "My wife (Dr Jezamine Lim Iskander) was equally disgusted by the site," he said.
Speaking to Astro AWANI, Harith admitted to being told not to upload photographs of his children on social media sites. However, he said that doing so has become part of today's modern life.
"Everybody is uploading their photos. They want to share their happy moments. Do I feel scared? Not really because if this site is taken down, someone out there might do something similar. There are just some sickos out there," he said.
Meanwhile, his Facebook post, at the time of writing this story, had been shared over 3,500 times with more than 450 comments
