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Malaysia: Raid bad news for free media
By Anil Netto
PENANG,
Malaysia - It had to happen sooner or later. Acting on a
complaint by ruling-party officials, about a dozen
police personnel swooped down on the office of
award-winning independent news portal Malaysiakini.com in Kuala Lumpur's
trendy Bangsar enclave around noon on Monday. They
carted away 15 computer central processing units (CPUs)
and four servers in a raid that left the site severely
crippled and media freedom on the Internet reeling.
But 10 hours later, after a candlelight vigil
attended by some 200 supporters, the web portal was back
online, running on makeshift resources.
The
police raid on Malaysiakini was ostensibly made in
connection with an investigation into a report lodged by
the youth wing of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's
United Malays National Organization (UMNO) about an
allegedly "seditious" letter posted on the website on
January 9.
UMNO Youth had complained that the
letter had questioned Malay "special privileges" and
contained "false allegations" about the government's
treatment of other ethnic groups and the indigenous
Orang Asli. They also alleged that the letter had
likened UMNO Youth with the Ku Klux Klan, the
white-supremacist group.
The police had earlier
reportedly wanted to know the identity of the writer of
the "offending" letter - a request turned down by the
Malaysiakini management on the basis of upholding
journalistic ethics.
Just before Monday's raid,
a political scientist had suggested to Asia Times Online
that the next general election, not due until 2004,
could be held much earlier, even before Mahathir's
scheduled departure this October. Now, in the aftermath
of the raid, critics are already asking whether the
action on Malaysiakini was a prelude to the next general
election campaign.
On the eve of the raid, UMNO
Youth leader Hishammuddin Hussein said election
preparations and efforts to intensify its focus on
winning the elections would be discussed at its party
committee meeting scheduled for Monday, the day of the
police raid. "There is no question that we are already
in the election mode," he said.
The swoop on
Malaysiakini is the latest in a series of actions that
have curtailed freedom on the web. Last month, police
detained 10 Malaysians under the harsh Internal Security
Act (ISA) for spreading terror rumors on the web - but
it was also a chilling reminder that Internet e-mail
users could be traced and surfers could take little
comfort in anonymity.
For three years now,
Malaysiakini had gained a reputation for publishing news
that the mainstream media would normally black out or
play down. For example, news of the shocking raid on the
Malaysiakini office - which would have made front-page
news had it happened in a more democratic country - only
merited a single half-column-length (tabloid size)
report tucked away on page 14 of the top-selling English
daily, The Star (which dubs itself "The People's Paper")
on Tuesday.
Malaysiakini had ample warning,
though, of the government's intolerance of meaningful
press freedom. Critics say the authorities periodically
crack down on the media in thinly veiled attempts at
shoring up ebbing support, earning the nation a 110
ranking out of 139 countries surveyed for their levels
of press freedom by the Paris-based Reporters Without
Borders (RSF).
In 2000, just after the November
1999 general election, which saw a sharp erosion in
support for the ruling coalition among ethnic-Malay
voters, authorities revoked the permit of a couple of
critical Malay magazines, slashed the permitted
frequency of opposition Islamic party PAS's newspaper
Harakah, and came down hard on the distribution of
popular pro-opposition tabloids.
Then, in 2001,
two independent Chinese-language newspapers were taken
over by the investment arm of the Malaysian Chinese
Association (MCA), UMNO's ally, after a by-election that
saw a swing in Chinese-Malaysian voters toward the
opposition.
Even before the raid, Malaysiakini
journalists had won few friends among officials. They
were barred from official news conferences and their
reports on corruption and abuse of power met a frosty
reception. The website published a lively letters
column, with the government often coming under fire,
though there were also letters that were supportive of
government policy. Such attempts at "balanced"
journalism, however, were not appreciated.
One
of the freest forums for democratic expression,
Malaysiakini was born during the heady days of the
reformasi era just before the 1999 general election.
Getting off to a dream start, it was soon overwhelmed
with 100,000-odd visitors daily and played a key role in
nurturing greater political awareness and critical
thinking among Malaysians tired of the official
propaganda in the mainstream media.
Malaysiakini, through its liberal reporting and
analyses in favor of human rights, proved also to be an
important focal point for an alternative discourse to
that being promoted by proponents of a conservative
Islamic state.
The web portal may have reached
the stage where it can sway the sentiments of wavering
voters in marginal constituencies in a country where
some 10 percent of the population have access to the
Internet.
The foray into the Malaysiakini office
highlights an archaic, sweeping law: the Sedition Act,
yet another legacy of colonial rule, alongside the ISA
and the Official Secrets Act. Ironically, Malaysia,
which prides itself as a champion of the Third World and
will host the Non-Aligned Movement summit next month,
periodically uses undemocratic laws that it inherited
from British colonial rule to clamp down on dissent.
The action against Malaysiakini will have
far-reaching repercussions for Malaysia's attempt to
propel itself into the information age. When he made his
global launch of the Multimedia Super Corridor in 1997,
Mahathir promised the whole world that the MSC was
backed by an unalterable Bill of Guarantees. Among them
were pledges that Malaysia would not censor the
Internet, would not police cyberspace, and would not
interfere with the freedom of expression over the
information superhighway.
But there have been
attempts at "back-door" censorship - indirect means to
cow dissent on the Internet. What's more, the fear of
the ISA is so pervasive that many Malaysians are
reluctant to air critical views on e-mail discussion
lists for fear of being traced - fears that were not
unfounded, as seen by last month's ISA arrests of e-mail
"rumor mongers". Nearly all the reformasi
webmasters calling for political change and reforms have
remained anonymous for fear of the consequences. And
Malaysiakini journalists have been periodically warned
about over-stepping the line.
The raid on
Malaysiakini could prove costly for the MSC and turn off
some potential investors. But then, as Asia Times Online
reported last week (Malaysia in transition, but to
where? January 17), little is heard of the MSC these
days and it is unlikely that many new foreign software
or multimedia investors are making a bee-line for a
slice of whatever action there is left in Mahathir's
Corridor. With the potential impact of a violation of
the no-censorship pledge now at its lowest, the
political advantage to be gained for the ruling
coalition in cracking down on cyber dissent would
probably outweigh the loss in investor interest in the
MSC.
Such an advantage (in media coverage) could
prove crucial in an election year in which UMNO and PAS
will be locked in battle. Adding to UMNO's worries is
the factional split within its key ally, MCA, and the
merger of two opposition parties: the National Justice
Party (Keadilan), led by Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the wife
of ousted deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, and the
left-leaning Malaysian People's Party (PRM). The merger,
expected in the next few weeks, would create a third
force in Malaysian politics that could potentially rival
the big two in the years to come. On the economic front,
testing times are ahead, with a sharp plunge in foreign
direct investment and uncertainty in the United States.
For now, Malaysiakini, struggling to make ends
meet financially, has somehow managed to get back
online, reporting news of the raid on its website. It's
back to Square 1 for the crusading journalists who
ventured into uncharted territory to become - ironically
for Mahathir - Malaysia's best-known dotcom company.
It remains to be seen whether it can continue to
report "Only the News that Matters" (its tag-line)
freely in the run-up to the general election. For three
heady years, tens of thousands of Malaysians enjoyed the
taste of press freedom on the Internet. Having tasted
it, they are unlikely to settle for anything less.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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