DEPUTY ministers Zahidi Zainul Abidin and Abdul Rahim Bakri are both cyberbullies in the way they have responded to 18-year-old Veveonah Mosibin, said Hannah Yeoh said.

“If you don’t recognise it – this is actually cyberbullying in action. By two deputy ministers. Against a young child,” the Segambut MP from DAP tweeted today.

This comes after Zahidi, the deputy communications and multimedia minister, blamed Rahim for giving him wrong information when he told the Dewan Negara last week that Veveonah had not actually sat for an exam while sitting in a tree in order to get internet acess.

Zahidi had apologised for wrongly accusing the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) student YouTuber but yesterday told a press conference in Parliament that he was only repeating what Rahim had told him.

Rahim, who is deputy finance minister, had written on Facebook that Veveonah was not sitting for an exam while filming her YouTube video in a tree, based on his “investigation” with a village chief and an unnamed dean at UMS who said there were no exams during that period.

Rahim’s post has since been removed.

Yeoh today also slammed Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Harun and her deputy Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff for failing to speak out against cyberbullying.

“Again, silence from Women Minister and her deputy,” she said on Twitter.

In his deleted Facebook post, Rahim, who is Kudat MP, said he had investigated Veveonah’s claims of poor internet connectivity because they had shown his constituency in a bad light.

He acknowledged there could be “blind spots” in coverage, especially in rural mountainous areas, but he also went on at length about how his subsequent conversations with a village chief and a UMS faculty member did not bear out the girl’s allegations.

Zahidi, meanwhile, said in Dewan Negara that Veveonah was lying about taking an exam on the treetop and was instead looking to “make a name” for herself.

Veveonah’s video, titled “24 Hours on Tree Challenge”, was posted on June 12 amid coronavirus movement restrictions. It was to demonstrate the lengths she had to go to in order to sit for her her online examination as her village lacked internet connectivity.

The video has been viewed more than 730,000 times, gaining the attention of international media and prominent personalities.

Malaysiakini reported that Veveonah had provided her exam schedule in June to back her claims.

A fellow student at UMS has reportedly confirmed the dates for the exams which were conducted online via Google Forms. – September 8, 2020.