Malaysia: Raid bad news for free media

Jan 22, 2003

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.