Malaysia

Like all the big countries of Southeast Asia, Malaysia has enthusiastically embraced new information technology and the Internet. To counter the decline of the traditional economy, prime minister Mahathir Mohamad (in power since 1981) announced plans in 1996 for a Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) as the core of a technology-based industrial revolution. He promised to protect the rights of users of the Internet and not censor it. The MSC is a 50 km corridor 15 kms wide that will surround the new Kuala Lumpur international airport and new national capital of Putra Jaya. The government wants to attract major offices and research labs of large transnational computer and multimedia companies. Harassment of the online daily malaysiakini.com The government may believe in the economic benefits of the Internet, but it is afraid the new media will destroy its tight control of the country's media. After promising not to censor the Internet, the government targeted the only independent and critical online daily newspaper, Malaysiakini. Its journalists cannot get official press cards and the government regularly challenges the stories on the paper's website and accuses it of wanting to damage the regime's credibility. Such verbal intimidation has proved ineffective and reporters have been individually harassed. Malaysiakini journalists were allowed by parliamentary security officials on 3 April 2002 to attend sessions of parliament provided they did not ask questions at press conferences or approach MPs of the ruling UMNO party. A security officer said the professional status of the Malaysiakini journalists was unclear. The information ministry had refused to accredit them for two years. Two other news websites, Radiqradio and Agendadaily, In October 2002, Malaysiakini, which says it gets 100,000 visitors a day, was forced to introduce paying access for want of advertising revenue, according to editor Stephen Gan. The many verbal attacks by the authorities, especially the prime minister, have discouraged many local and foreign investors from advertising on the independent sites. Police seized about 20 computers and a number of files in a raid on Malaysiakini's offices on 20 January 2003 in response to a complaint filed by UMNO's youth wing for "sedition" and "incitement to racial hatred." Gan said it was an attempt to close the site down. The authorities demanded to know who had posted an anonymous article on the site on 9 January criticising the government's granting of special rights to the country's ethnic Malay majority and comparing the UMNO to the racist American Ku Klux Klan. Gan refused as a matter of journalistic principle to say who had written it. The site was ordered on 22 January to leave its offices before the end of February by its landlord, the firm PC Suria, which is owned by the government-controlled body NASCOM. Gan denounced this as a new bid to close down the site by government pressure on PC Suria. Malaysiakini's chief executive, Premesh Chandran, said finding new offices cost about 100,000 ringgits (26,000 euros) and disrupt its activities for at least two weeks. "It will also mean a loss in subscription revenue and a loss of confidence among our readers and subscribers," he said. The staff said on 5 February they would defy the eviction order, noting that the lease did not expire until December 2004. Gan wrote to PC Suria's lawyer saying they would not leave because they had not violated any terms of the lease. As a result of local and foreign protests, pressure on Malaysiakini then subsided. The opposition, which uses the Internet as a public platform, is also regularly harassed. In March 2001, the computers of the opposition National Justice Party's website were seized. Police searched the home of the site's editor, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, saying the site contained "seditious" material. The party has since transferred it to a host outside the country. Cyber-journalist in prison One of Malaysiakini's journalists, Hishamuddin Rais (also a documentary filmmaker), and five other dissidents, all of them arrested in April 2001 and jailed without trial for two years for "attempting to overthrow the government," began a hunger strike on 10 April 2002 to protest against their imprisonment under the Internal Security Act in Kamunting prison, at Taiping, in the northern state of Perak. Rais and one of the other five, Badrulamin Bahron were taken on 16 April to the prison hospital, where they still refused to eat and were put on a drip. After eight days without food, they had won support from human rights activists, regime opponents and jailed former vice-premier Anwar Ibrahim, who also went on hunger strike for several days in solidarity. The state-run or pro-government media did not report their protest, which they halted after 11 days. Rules for website content being drawn up The energy, communications and multimedia ministry announced on 30 May 2001 that a National Internet Advisory Committee would be set up to coordinate and supervise Internet use and draw up laws to regulate it. The same day, the ministry's parliamentary secretary, Chia Kwang Chye, said that in the absence of laws applying specifically to the Internet, its users must obey the Communication and Multimedia Act, which allows anyone who puts false or defamatory information on the Internet to be jailed for up to a year and heavily fined. After strong pressure from online publications and the political opposition, the government announced in March 2002 it was dropping plans to regulate the Internet. However, a month earlier, Malaysiakini editor Gan said the government was keen to introduce rules about what could be put online and that the ministry was drafting a reform of the government's licensing system. Gan said the aim was clearly to weed out any opposition material or criticism of the government. Links: The online daily Malaysiakini The opposition Democratic Action Party The Communications and Multimedia Commission Ministry of energy, communications and multimedia