Police go all out in malaysiakini.com raid
Monday, January 20 @ 17:33:58 MYT
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Hrkh) - Malaysiakini.com had 19 of their editorial computers including three servers taken away by the police today following up a police report lodged against the news website by Umno Youth.
According to Yap Mun Cheng, one of the malaysiakini.com reporters, the police from Dang Wangi District Police Headquarters came in a batch of nine led by SAC Mohd Kamaruddin Md Din from the Computer Forensics Department. The police initially questioned the top editorial staff with regard to the police report.
"They (the police) are currently waiting for the truck to arrive to cart away the CPUs. Three of them are our servers," said Yap.
News editor K Kabilan stated that they did not expect the police to conduct the raid.
"They questioned us and wanted to know the name of the letter writer. We refused to give them the name. Although we gave them the undertaking that we would not destroy any evidence that we have, the police said that they had the right to take away all computers without a a warrant under the Section 4 (1) (C) believing that we will destroy the evidence needed," said Kabilan.
Chief Editor Steven Gan is expected to report to the Dang Wangi Police Station tomorrow to have his statements recorded.
Yesterday, Inspector General of Police Norian Mai said that they will carry out investigation into the report lodged by Umno Youth against malaysiakini.com for publishing a letter which the political movement claimed was seditious.
On Friday, Umno Youth information chief Azimi Daim lodged the report against malaysiakini.com over a letter which was published on the website on Jan 9. He filed the complaint at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.
The group alleged that the letter, entitled "Similarities between 'new Americans' and bumiputera (indigenous people)" contained false accusations and questioned special rights for Malays, thus possibly instilling hatred for the government.
The letter likened UMNO Youth to the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan in America "which was ready to kill other races," it added.
Kabilan further stated that they are working to put up the website again.
"Hopefully it will be up by tomorrow. What they took away were our uploading servers, so we cannot upload anything for the moment," said Kabilan, who also stated that the staff is a "bit shaken" by the incident.
It is believed a gathering of supporters of malaysiakini.com will take place tonight at the office in Bangsar.