Nude gaffe exposes Malaysian
press By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - News reports based on
secret video grabs of a woman forced to do "nude
squats" in police custody, which put the Malaysian
government in a spot over human rights, has
backfired on press freedom as it turned out that
the victim's nationality had been wrongly
identified.
The widely circulated
Chinese-language daily newspaper China Press,
which broke the story, has been obliged to publish
its "deepest apology" on the front page for having
wrongly identified
the
victim as a Chinese national when she turned out
to be a local and ethnic Malay.
Worse, the
newspaper had to sack its top two editors to stave
off suspension of its publishing license, leading
to speculation that this could be the beginning of
tough measures against the press in Malaysia.
The China Press practiced a feisty
"in-your-face" reporting style that won it public
accolades but constantly angered the Internal
Security Ministry, which regulates publications.
On November 23, the newspaper published an
exclusive story and photographs lifted from the
video clip showing police forcing a naked young
woman to perform squats. But the paper also
erroneously identified the victim as a Chinese
national, sparking off a diplomatic row with
Beijing.
After Beijing lodged an official
protest, Malaysia sent across a mission, headed by
Home Minister Azmi Khalid, to apologize for the
mistreatment of its nationals. The reports of the
video followed complaints by female Chinese
visitors, held for visa violations, that they had
been made to perform humiliating nude squats in
custody.
Though China Press rectified the
error, the damage had been done and the Malaysian
government was angered at being compelled to
apologize. Editor-in-chief Chong Choong Nam and
executive editor-in-chief Wang Zhao Ping were
sacked and the paper was made to eat humble pie.
In a statement, the editors took "full
responsibility for the glaring mistake in the
report".
The alternative could have been
far worse - the ministry has powers to suspend or
cancel the newspaper's publishing license and the
laws do not permit judicial review.
"The
two editors were sacrificed to satisfy the demand
for blood and injured ego," said James Wong,
senior analyst for Malaysiakini, an independent
news website. "They are the scapegoats."
Wong said the action is a "menacing
message" intended to frighten all other editors
into giving up their new-found boldness to
practice limited press freedom. "They have been
given notice to submit to the official line," he
said. "As a Chinese proverb goes, they killed one
chicken to warn the rest of the monkeys.
"The action also shows that systematic
oppression continues and that all the rhetoric of
transparency and accountability are just a
politician's slogans," he said.
The paper,
which sells about 300,000 copies a day and gives
priority to politics and violent crime in its
reporting, received two show-cause letters from
the Internal Security Ministry, which is headed by
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, demanding
explanations.
"It is too harsh a
punishment for one small mistake," said Lim Guan
Eng, secretary general of the opposition
Democratic Action party. "An apology should have
been sufficient."
The sacking has rallied
democracy activists across Malaysia into
protesting the lack of press freedom in the
country.
The human-rights group ALIRAN
said in a statement that the punishment meted out
to China Press indicated that the outlook for
media freedom is not bright. "What is disturbing
about this episode is that the state has
deliberately intervened in a journalistic matter
that could have been handled by the management of
the newspaper concerned.''
China Press is
owned by Nanyang Press Holdings Group, which is
directly linked to the Malaysian Chinese
Association, the second-biggest party in the
ruling National Front coalition.
Human-rights activists and press-freedom
advocates argue that the mistake was a genuine and
consideration had to be given to the circumstances
under which China Press first broke the story.
"Tell me the truth," was Abdullah's famous
phrase on taking power in November 2003, urging
Malaysians to speak up against the injustice,
corruption and abuse of power that had marked the
long rule of his authoritarian predecessor,
Mahathir Mohamad.
But activists have been
warning that despite Abdullah's new rhetoric of
transparency, accountability and freedom, the
mailed fist was lurking nearby. And now it has
struck.
The New Straits Times, regarded as
a pro-government paper, saw the move as a signal
that Abdullah is "prepared to wield the big stick
as he moves into his third year in office".
Lim said: "The mistake was not malicious
and an apology from the daily would have been
sufficient ... this is the normal thing to do.
There was no need to force editors to resign."
Sonia Randhawa, executive director of the
Center for Independent Journalism, said: "It does
not bode well for press freedom in the country.
"We strongly condemn the political
interference in the newsroom that has resulted in
these sackings and call for the repeal of the
licensing provisions in the Printing Presses and
Publications Act," she said.
More than a
dozen laws curb press freedom, but the most
draconian is the Printing Presses and Publications
Act. This law requires all publishers to apply for
a new publishing permit every year, which critics
say forces them to toe the line or go out of
business.
"Such laws have a chilling
effect on media freedom and they deter journalists
from carrying out independent, investigative
journalism, while making editors exercise extra
caution and frequently practice self-censorship,"
said Wong.
On Saturday, Deputy Information
Minister Donald Lim Siang Chai said the government
expected the mass media to be responsible and that
those responsible for disseminating news also had
to consider the sensitivities of the country's
multiracial society.
Malays, who form 50%
of Malaysia's 24 million population, and ethnic
Chinese, who make up another 25%, are the two
dominant communities in the country. Relations
between them are uneasy.
Does the sacking
of the China Press editors signal the end of a
brief spring under Abdullah, coming after the
heavy-handed rule by his predecessor Mahathir? Not
just yet, says Wong.
"The battle between
the conservatives in government who grew in
strength under Mahathir Mohamad's long rule and
the liberals is still raging," he said. "The
liberals have suffered a defeat but the war is not
over yet."
