The Home Ministry has warned all licenced print media against publishing articles that can threaten public order in the country and hurt the feeling of the people and their religion.

Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan said the ministry would be firm and would not compromise with the media on such matters which are considered irresponsible.

"Do not take the attitude of speaking first and hurting the religious feelings of the people and apologising later. The media should have a high level of ethics," he told reporters after opening the Negaraku Expression programme on Wellbeing Without Drugs in Johor Baru today.

He was commenting on the publication of a caricature found to have insulted Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia and Marang MP-cum-PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang in the Nanyang Siang Pau daily recently.

Nur Jazlan, who is also Pulai MP, said the ministry would not be taking action against Nanyang Siang Pau and would leave it to the company to take further internal action.

He said the decision was made after taking into consideration that Nanyang Siang Pau has been in operation for a long time with various obligations including its staff.

"The government also looked after the interest if newpapers but just one thing...do not do it again.

"This is a warning to all newspapers which are licenced by the ministry.

"Maybe Nanyang Siang Pau needs to act against those involved in the matter such as the cartoon artist and others," he said.

On April 8, the newspaper published a caricature on its portal showing a monkey wearing songkok labelled as speaker and another monkey wearing a turban and labelled as Hadi Awang and both monkeys were shown arguing on a branch of a tree labelled as Act 355.

Nanyang Siang Pau in a statement apologised to Pandikar and Abdul Hadi on the caricature and admitted the caricature drawings were not suitable for the general public and withdrew the same caricature from its portal, eNanyang.my.

- Bernama