KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — A warning affixed to a documentary on the life of Pope Francis by pay-TV operator ASTRO may have been added to comply with licensing regulations, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia Datuk Jailani Johari suggested today.

While insisting that the matter was not under his jurisdiction, Jailani also said self-regulation was an integral part of a media outlet’s operations.

“All services have their own licensing conditions that members are obligated to comply with,” he said at a press conference after launching the World Press Photo 2013 exhibition here today.

“Each and every station has a team to monitor for information to ensure it does not offend.”

Jailani appealed to the public to not stir up religious or racial issues that may be sensitive to others especially since it is still the Syawal month in the Islamic calender.

“Because we live in a in a multiracial country,” the Hulu Terengganu MP reasoned to reporters at Bangsar Shopping Centre.

“Currently we live in a peaceful and prosperous country with multiracial citizens, so I hope that we take precautions to not cause such elements again.”

On Monday, a viewer by the name of Patricia Anne Martinez wrote to complain of a visual warning displayed repeatedly during a documentary on the Pope Francis, the head of the global Catholic Church.

Shown four times during the documentary, the message read: “THIS PROGRAM PORTRAYS DEPICTION OF RELIGIOUS FIGURES AND REPRESENTS VIEWS OTHER THAN MUSLIMS’. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.”

Martinez, who is Roman Catholic, labelled the warning as “insulting” and “insensitive”, saying it was akin to portraying a show on the head of one of the world’s largest religion as similar to pornography.

She questioned “how threatening or offensive to Muslims’ views could a biography of such a Pope”, noted that Pope Francis is the first Catholic Church leader whom personally greeted Muslims for Hari Raya Aidulfitr.

She highlighted ASTRO’s action reflect the situation that Malaysians are forced to live in: “accusations — founded and unfounded — of “insulting Islam” (and no other religion, despite threats and ensuing justification about burning my sacred text, the Bible, for example), of being rendered with lesser rights by Islamic law enactments because we are non-Muslims and, most of all, by the way Islam is appropriated and wielded in the most negative way for political expedience or quick, cheap self-glorification for political gain”.