Malaysian police raid online newspaper office
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 06:13:12 -0500
Malaysian police raid online newspaper office
KUALA LUMPUR -- Police raided the offices of an online newspaper on Monday that angered Malaysia's governing party by publishing a letter critical of government affirmative action policies.
Steven Gan, the editor of www.malaysiakini.com, said that police were dismantling 20 computers and seizing files from the online publication's headquarters.
There was no immediate comment from police.
Malaysiakini, which has won international awards for its coverage in a country where traditional media are kept in check by tough licensing laws, published a letter on Jan 9 criticising laws that favour the ethnic Malay Muslim majority.
Officials from the youth wing of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) - which champions Malay Muslim rights - filed a police report on Friday saying that the letter was seditious and likened the party to the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group in the United States.
Police on Monday demanded that Malaysiakini reveal the identity of the letter-writer, whose comments were published anonymously. Mr Gan said that police began seizing computers when he refused.
Umno competes with an Islamic fundamentalist party for the votes of Malay Muslims and has won the group privileges in housing, jobs, loans and education compared to the country's large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. -- AP