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Malaysian bloggers take a
beating
By Sonny Inbaraj
BANGKOK - "Malaysians thrive on rumors,
especially when 90% of them seem to end up as
facts in the end," blogger Raja Petra says on his
website, Malaysia-Today, which urges contributions
and comments from the public.
But
Malaysian web loggers, or bloggers, are finding
out the tough way that the truth hurts -
especially when the toes of the powers-that-be are
tread upon.
Mack Zulkifli, who runs a new
weblog called brandmalaysia, is the latest victim
of harassment by Malaysian authorities, who
certainly are not fans of this Internet medium,
where ordinary people can comment on current
events using personal or collective websites.
Zulkifli's weblog, which receives about
2,000 to 3,000 hits a day, might seem pretty
harmless among the present trend of citizen
journalism - where professionals and gifted
amateurs are partners. But this form of
participatory journalism that puts the online
reader in the driver's seat in a country where
print and broadcast mass media have long been
under the thumb of the state, seems to be
threatening the Malaysian government.
On
March 14, Zulkifli was visited by a four-member
team in his house in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of
Subang Jaya. The weblog owner later told the
Bangkok-based media freedom group Southeast Asia
Press Alliance (SEAPA), the two police officers
and two unidentified government officials had
asked him to help them "understand the latest
development of weblogs".
The blogger then
spent the next three hours answering questions
from the team about blogs and how their contents
can be controlled. He told SEAPA he was also asked
about his motivations for maintaining his site
when he appeared to derive no income from it.
On the same day Zulkifli was questioned,
Ali Bukhari Amir of the Science University of
Malaysia was hauled before a university
investigative committee on Penang island and
questioned about his blog and his links with the
Federal Public Students Movement.
According
to the online news portal Malaysiakini, Ali was
urged by the committee to use his writing talents
to support the government. The student had been
questioned previously in December 2004 about
articles he wrote for a university newspaper and
an opposition party publication.
Malaysiakini itself has had its fair share
of trouble with the Malaysian government. In
January 2003, responding to a complaint from the
youth wing of the ruling United Malays National
Party (UMNO), police from a special "computer
crimes" department entered the Malaysiakini
offices in Kuala Lumpur, interrogated several
journalists and seized all of the company's
computers.
Police officers told the staff
the computers would be held and searched for
evidence in a possible sedition case to be brought
against the online newspaper. But the Malaysiakini
website started operating later that evening after
police officers left its premises.
"Since
2003 with Malaysiakini, Internet policing in
Malaysia has become worrisome," SEAPA director
Kulachada Chaipipat told Inter Press Service. "Now
bloggers seem to be the next target and things
could get much worse."
Though the
situation in predominantly Muslim Malaysia cannot
be compared to other Islamic countries such as
Iran, where the regime censors thousands of
websites it considers "non-Islamic" and harasses
and imprisons online journalists and bloggers, a
disturbing trend seems to be emerging nonetheless.
In February, blogger Jeff Ooi was hauled
in for questioning by police who were
investigating an allegedly contentious comment
posted months earlier on his weblog, Screenshots.
The comment related to "civilization Islam", or
Islam Hadhari, an approach to the religion
currently being heavily promoted by Malaysian
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Although the comment was posted last
October, a police report on the issue was not
lodged until four months later. The comment
claimed it was contradictory for Abdullah to
promote Islam Hadhari when money politics were
rampant in his ruling UMNO party.
This
sparked prominent coverage in the Bahasa Malaysia
dailies, with the mass-circulation Berita Harian
giving the issue front-page treatment for four
days. Among the claims made were that the comment
had the potential to incite "disharmony" in
society, and that Ooi had allowed the reader to
use offensive language.
Ooi received a
police summons issued under the Penal Code that
"prohibits actions or conduct that could cause
disharmony in society". He was subsequently told
to give a statement at a police station and was
questioned for two hours.
"Without the
mainstream media offering space for ordinary
Malaysians, of course they'll turn to weblogs. It
offers them complete freedom of expression," said
SEAPA's Kulachada.
But, she warned, this
alternate form of expression could be removed, and
if that happened the authorities would be reneging
on a promise made by former prime minister
Mahathir Mohammad "to never censor the Internet"
in his quest to make Malaysia a global online
multi-media hub.
"Bloggers and independent
online news sites like Malaysiakini have been
testing the government's sincerity and pushing the
limits of what they can freely report and say over
the Internet," said Kulachada. "Now the Malaysian
authorities appear to be pushing back, and looking
to make examples of bloggers."
(Inter
Press Service) |
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