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Malaysia: Controversy rages over website raid
KUALA LUMPUR - Two of the most
sensitive issues in Malaysia - racial policies and press
freedom - have combined to turn Monday's police raid on
an independent Internet newspaper into a full-blown
political controversy.
In the past few days,
activists, citizens, all the opposition parties and
regional and international press groups have spoken out
against the raid on the offices of Malaysiakini.com and the seizure of
its computers.
"A crude attempt" to muzzle
independent media, said the Bangkok-based Southeast
Asian Press Alliance. "Uncivilized," said the Islamic
party PAS. Yet another sign of Malaysia's "authoritarian
syndrome", argued the Chinese-based Democratic Action
Party.
The Bar Council of Malaysia joined other
groups condemning the raid, calling it "unreasonable and
unwarranted". In a press statement on Tuesday, Bar
Council vice chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari said the
act was a "hindrance to a progressive nation that is
thriving to achieve developed status by 2020".
Also on Tuesday, the New York-based Committee to
Protect Journalists wrote a letter to Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad to express its "outrage" at the police
raid. The letter, signed by CPJ acting director Joel
Siman, urged the government to "return Malaysiakini's
property immediately and to drop the threat to pursue
legal action".
After the police raid
that followed a complaint lodged by the youth wing of
a political party in Malaysia's ruling coalition,
it remained unclear what, if any, charges would be
brought against the web-based publication.
Inspector General of Police Norian Mai maintained on
Tuesday that police were not planning to stop the
website's operations. He also said Malaysiakini would
not be forced to reveal the source of the letter as
police have their own ways of obtaining this
information.
Last Friday, the youth wing of
Mahathir's United Malays National Organization (UMNO)
complained to police about a "seditious" letter that
Malaysiakini published on January 9 that criticized the
racial affirmative policy toward Malays, who make up the
majority of the 24 million people in this mostly Muslim
country. Police demanded that Malaysiakini editors
identify the letter writer. The editors declined to do
so, citing professional ethics that require protection
of sources.
The letter, signed by "Petrof", said
the special benefits given to Malays for more than three
decades are "pernicious politics of privilege" that
worked against the other ethnic groups, the Chinese- and
Indian-Malaysians.
Debate has continued around
the two issues brought to the fore by the row. For
instance, critics are asking why UMNO Youth, if it felt
aggrieved, chose not to write to Malaysiakini, or file
charges against it in court.
"Why don't they sue
for defamation instead of abusing state power to clamp
down on the organization?" asked Hamdan Adnan, a member
of Malaysia's Human Rights Commission, known by its
local acronym Suhakam. "Certain things like critical
views should be out in the open. With new technology, we
cannot expect to keep these away," he added.
Added the letter from CPJ: "By publishing
letters from its readers and protecting its source,
Malaysiakini is upholding the internationally accepted
standards of a free press in facilitating public
discussion of controversial issues."
In a press
statement posted on its website on Wednesday,
Malaysiakini invited UMNO Youth to respond to the issues
raised by the writer of the offending letter. "As an
open forum for all Malaysians to freely express their
views, the site remains open to any reply that Umno
Youth may choose to send," the statement said.
The invitation followed UMNO Youth's own call on
Wednesday for citizens to use "proper channels to openly
express their views without hiding behind pseudonyms in
cowardly fashion".
Thus far, Malaysiakini has
been able to publish independent news different from the
country's mainstream, government-dominated media because
the Internet is not covered by the country's
press-control laws and does not need a publishing
license.
Though it has been unhappy with
Malaysiakini, the government has also been careful not
to clamp down on it, not least because it has been
trying to promote the country as an
information-technology hub.
But officials'
statements in recent days may be revealing. Deputy Home
Minister Zainal Abidin Zin on Tuesday said that the
government would not censor Internet content "if they
[media] are good ... If they are not good, we just
cannot lay down our head," he was quoted as saying. If
parties commit acts "unjust" to society, "the government
must act responsibly to defend the rights of the
people", he maintained.
Those words are not very
far from the arguments of UMNO Youth, whose information
chief Azimi Daim said: "If they [news websites and
media] fail to censor offensive materials unfit for
publication, the authorities should then investigate and
act on them."
Malaysiakini editor Steven Gan
said the letter was not racially inflammatory but the
person's comparative study of the situation in Malaysia.
"I find this an attempt to close us down," he said.
Echoed Malaysiakini chief executive officer
Premesh Chandran: "We know that this is an election year
and that UMNO and the government feel that Malaysiakini
is a threat," referring to general elections expected
this year. In October, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
is to step down to give way to his deputy.
In
his letter, "Petrof" compared the unjust treatment by
Americans of its native peoples to Malaysia's treatment
of its own natives, the Orang Asli, among the most
marginalized groups in the country. The letter said that
just as the Ku Klux Klan sought the perpetuation of
white supremacy, "UMNO Youth's raison d'etre is
to perpetuate Malay hegemony and privileges".
Public discussions of race in Malaysia,
including in mainstream media, tread on safe ground,
because it is a subject the government is very wary of.
It says that inflammatory remarks about race have no
space in a multicultural country, where it may create
dissension.
Cautious attitudes were shaped also
after the racial riots of 1969, which were a factor in
shaping the New Economic Policy designed to give a boost
to Malays.
In another police report against
Malaysiakini in March 2001, Selangor state police lodged
a complaint against the website for quoting the
opposition's remarks that the death toll from racial
clashes outside the capital could be higher than the
official count.
Azimi Daim says special rights
for Malays were provided for under Article 153 of the
federal constitution and should not be questioned. "The
letter falsely accused the government of ignoring the
benefits of Orang Asli and said allowances and medical
care are only given to those who become Muslims," he
argued.
"It also implied that Malays are the
cause of poverty among Indians as Malay businessmen were
said to have bought plantations [where many of them
work] for project development," he added.
But an
expert on indigenous issues said: "I was told by many
members of the group that they somehow feel that without
conversion to Islam, they would not get government's
support in development. One man told me that it was
commonly known that by converting to Islam they would to
get MR100 [US$26] a month," he added.
While this
is not an open or official policy, he says that somehow,
some indigenous people have been made to believe that
was the way to get government support.
"The fact
that [the] poverty rate among Orang Asli has never
dropped from around 80 percent, despite what the
government says, indicates that they are still not
benefited from the kind of help being provided," he
said.
(Asia Times Online/Inter Press
Service)
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